6 min readMumbaiJan 21, 2022 03:15 PM IST
First published on: Jan 14, 2022 at 02:29 PM IST
The market for budget smartwatches under Rs 5,000 is thriving in India. After all, not everyone can afford the price tag of an Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch or even the Fitbit. A budget wearable just needs a good display, great watchfaces, and reliable fitness tracking to convince users. And the new Dizo Watch R is the latest attempt at this.
Dizo is one of Realme’s TechLife brands. The Dizo Watch R costs Rs 3,999 and comes with a number of features like an AMOLED display, long battery life, 5ATM water resistance, and the usual health-related bells and whistles. However, is it worth your money? Here’s what I think.
Dizo Watch R: What’s good?
One of the areas where budget watches usually leave room for improvement is the design and build quality. The Dizo Watch R, however, does a complete U-turn. This watch is built like a tank and feels no less than a premium watch when worn. Yet, it remains very light on the hand.
The silicon straps, which are fairly comfortable, are the only ‘budget’ aspect here, but they’re replaceable so you can put on custom straps. The two buttons on the right are easy to press and don’t feel wobbly at all. No protruding buttons or crown on the side also means you can wear this watch and do activities like push-ups or racquet sports without any protrusions pressing into and hurting your wrists
The 1.3-inch AMOLED display is also gorgeous and seamlessly blends into the bezels of the watch. This panel also gets really bright and curves around the edges. This looks stunning when you have a black watchface or the always-on display turned on.
The various UI elements on the Dizo Watch R. (Image Source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)
The touch response on the screen is great and the UI is relatively simple and easy to use and navigate through. A few neat extras like being able to set how the main app menu looks on the watch, two different styles of Always-on Display (analogue and digital) are great additions.
The software on both the watch and the companion Dizo app allows basic functionalities like changing watchfaces, brightness, navigating between apps on the watch, and other settings like a camera shutter, notification tuning, and logging of fitness data on the app. The app looks well-designed and works very smoothly with all of the watch’s features.
The watchfaces are good ones and not a mixture of the five acceptable watchfaces along with 50 weird ones that you may never use. A custom watchface maker lets you add a clock to a photo of your choice and use it as your watchface.
Other features include complete 5ATM water resistance and the lift-to-wake feature, both of which work very well. The haptic motor in here is also pretty powerful and vibrates just enough to make sure you don’t miss its reminders. There is no speaker on the watch, which is fine given this is a budget device.
The lower physical button on the left takes you straight to the workout menu where you can use the sport modes and the app will keep a log of data like your heart rate throughout the various activities that are available. Data on the heart rate sensor, SpO2 sensor, and step counter was fairly accurate. I did not notice any sudden jump in the number of steps, which can be a problem on budget devices.
The watch offers a number of faces including digital (left), custom faces (centre), and mechanical faces (right). (Image Source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)
Finally, the watch also has good battery life. After over a week of light-to-moderate use including stretches of leaving Always-On Display on, along with using all its features regularly, the watch still had 32 per cent battery left. Leaving features like automatic heart rate tracking and Always-On Display off should give you even more standby time per charge.
There is also a power-saving mode, but we doubt you’d ever want to use it unless you’ve no access to charging for multiple days. The magnetic charging is average in speed, but the connectors are good and easy to align with the watch.
Dizo Watch R: What’s not good?
Given the budget price, Dizo Watch R manages to tick all the right boxes for a wearable. However, if I were to nitpick, changing watchfaces takes a tad too long. Also, you can still store only one custom watchface on the watch itself among a few other default options. This means you will usually have to come back to the app to switch watchfaces.
The watch also suffers from the budget-watch issue of only letting you view notifications and not interact with them, at least via preset quick replies if not manual typing. But that’s expected given the price range here.
Verdict: Should you buy the Dizo Watch R?
If your search for budget smartwatches under Rs 4,000 or Rs 5,000 has always come to a standstill due to caveats in design, display quality, or features, this is the watch that you should seriously consider. It does miss out on a speaker and hence, Bluetooth calling support, but pretty much every aspect you get for the money you pay is executed to near-perfection, making this a solid bang-for-buck purchase. The ongoing inaugural discount only makes this an even sweeter deal.
Check out our full review of the Dizo Watch R. (Image Source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak) 
The various UI elements on the Dizo Watch R. (Image Source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)
The watch offers a number of faces including digital (left), custom faces (centre), and mechanical faces (right). (Image Source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)
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