Lava’s Prowatch X review: Affordable smartwatch that doesn’t compromise on performance

While the smartwatch segment in India is going through a bit of a crisis and many brands are even considering exiting the segment, Lava has decided to double down on its efforts by introducing an ambitious new offering called Prowatch X. Priced at ₹4,499, the new smartwatch from the Lava sub-brand is an attempt to go head-to-head with the premium offerings in the market. But does the home-grown brand succeed in its attempt? I’ve been testing the Prowatch X for the last 15 days and here’s my detailed review of the new smartwatch.

Unboxing and design:

As a brand, Lava has been very consistent with providing a very premium unboxing experience, and the Prowatch X is definitely not an omission to that trend. The new smartwatch comes in a neat black coloured rectangular package, upon opening which you are greeted with the Prowatch X in all its glory, followed by a magnetic pin charger, some stickers (which look pretty cool in my opinion) and a black coloured paper with the QR code for user manual (well played Lava).

Moving on to the design, the watch comes with a circular display with a curved glass that accentuates its personality. On the right, you get the two buttons: the first one takes you to the menu and back to the home screen, the second one launches the exercise panel.

There are three choices for the strap: Silicone, Nylon and Metal. The Nylone strap looks best in my opinion but it got a bit loose for me after a few weeks of use which makes Silicone one a wiser choice.

Display:

The 1.43-inch 30Hz AMOLED display on the watch is pretty great for the price and remains legible even in bright outdoors. However, if you are spoilt for choice, this watch doesn’t have auto brightness functionality like the CMF Watch and you will have to go in the menu to adjust the brightness.

On to the good part, the screen is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 while the watch comes with IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, meaning it can handle being submerged in up to 1.5 meters of water till 30 minutes.

Another good thing here is that Lava/Prowatch provides a a lot of watch faces to choose – they claim over 150 watch faces but it’s hard to verify the actual number- and most of them are pretty good, meaning you will be able to easily customize the appearance of the smartwatch.

Functionality:

The Prowatch X comes with all the usual sensors for the price including a heart rate monitor, SpO₂ monitor, Body energy meter and even VO₂ Max tracking. The watch comes with support for in-built GPS and other important features with the watch include Air Quality Index (AQI) monitoring, Find My Phone, women’s health tracking, event reminders, Pomodoro timer, barometer, compass and altimeter.

Prowatch had focused a lot on the accuracy of the smartwatch during our briefing session and I am happy to report that the Prowatch X did give similar results for most metrics when put up against the OnePlus Watch 2R – which by the way costs more than double of this one.

I also conducted a simple walk where I walked exactly 100 steps and tallied it with the results on the Prowatch X and the numbers were very close, suggesting that the watch does actually live up to the company’s claims about accuracy.

What was actually a cause of worry for me was that some of the additional features provided by Prowatch were pretty inaccurate. Specifically, the AQI monitor implemented by Prowatch – though a welcome step especially for us Delhi-NCR residents – shows mostly higher AQI than it actually is. Similarly, the temperature shown by Prowatch X was mostly wrong. These aren’t deal breakers though and can be easily fixed with a software update.

Software:

Talking about the software, the Prowatch X comes with the company’s proprietary UI which does the job well. The watch is connected to the Prospot app which helps users easily track there health metrics like heart rate, steps taken in the day, and more.

Two issues with the watch that you’ll immediately notice is that the touch response isn’t that great but that is to be expected considering the price point. Second, the vibration from the watch isn’t just bad it is borderline obnoxious and you will have to be forced to turn it off sooner than later.

Another minor problem I have with the watch is that it comes with a very limited set to notification tunes (both call and notifications) which aren’t that great and lead to significantly cutting down on the user experience in what is otherwise a pretty decent product. Again, this is something that Lava can easily fix with a software update.

Bluetooth Calling:

The Prowatch X is capable of accepting and rejecting calls and there is also an option to set some preordained messages (set by the Prospot app) while rejecting a call. There is also an in-built dialler which can be used to dial any number and one can also add up to 10 favourite contacts which can be dialled in directly form the watch. The call quality is decent but the speakers aren’t something to boast about.

Battery life:

Prowatch X is fitted with a 300mAh battery which the company claims can last up to 8-10 days on a single charge. While this promise did turn out to be mostly true there are two caveats to add here. First, you will definitely get an over a week of battery life but that is if you have the Always on Display turned off (which it is by default). If your turn AOD on, the battery life drops to around 4 days in my experience.

Second, the battery does seem to drop significantly faster once it reaches the 20 percent mark. This is not a major issue and the watch does ultimately delivers more or the less the promised battery life but something that I felt was worth mentioning here in case you end up purchasing the watch.

Verdict: Worth the price?

Lava’s Prowatch X punches above its weight in many categories, adding many important features such as SpO₂ monitor, body energy meter and VO₂ Max tracking. This smartwatch isn’t perfect either, with a few major issues including poor haptic feedback, limited ringtone options and some software optimisation issues.

However, the Prowatch X does deliver on the basics – good-looking and durable build quality, accurate tracking metrics, support for Bluetooth calls with an in-watch dialer, long battery life and a good-quality AMOLED display – which makes it a definite buy on my list.