Maybe it’s enough to know that I swapped the Xiaomite for this!

Introductory

Walking on the street. getting up on the wrists of more and more people I see some kind of wearable smart device, fitness bracelet or watch. Basic functions such as warning signals, time display, pedometer are already included in all of them, but in recent months, functions such as measuring pulse, blood pressure and blood oxygen levels have already appeared in the HUF 3000 category.

The classes are one class higher. Not the watch-shaped bracelets, but the real smart watches that in most cases run some sort of Android system. I have been staring at these for a long time too, eventually ending up with the Xiaomi Amazfit Stratos, which is a blood sports watch. It’s not like I’m such a serious athlete who is convinced by the nice looks, long battery life, and a display that is relatively visible even in the sun. And of course it's Xiaomi.

I wouldn’t have insisted on a sports watch, there are, there were Chinese Android watches that seemed relatively serious on the market, but they all had a flaw. Weak display, small battery, zero water protection, and even a combination of these.

When the Kospet Hope specification came out, I decided to renew one. Maybe you know the feeling when such a tech gadget nestles itself in a person’s brain so much that it doesn’t rest until you get one for yourself. Then when you come or you are happy or you sell. It was already clear from the beginning of the introduction that I did not sell, but I will try to give an understandable explanation of why in the article.

Packaging, accessories

You don’t have to chew a lot on the watch packaging, simple black box, zero kitty. It's also a bit of a disappointment compared to the price, but let's face it, it's better to pay for the hour than to spend our taxed forints on packaging.

The range of accessories is not plentiful either. We only get a charging cable, a description and a spare foil for the watch. Spare, because one is applied to it at the factory, it’s already a huge red dot right away.

External

The watch comes out of the box in an antistatic bag. It looks great at first glance, but mostly just compared to the Stratos. The design is more sporty than elegant, but nowadays many people also wear this style of “tick” for a suit, so it’s just a matter of taste. When we get out of the box, we are immediately caught up in the feeling of a sigh, which is why we don’t immediately feel the money we spend being thrown out of a window.

Rugged housing, large and easy, but not too easy to push buttons, with the camera peeking between them. The lower part of the housing is made of steel, above it, and the area around the display is made of ceramic, which we know since Xiaomi’s phones, the third hardest material on earth, only sapphires and diamonds can scratch. So the frame is essentially scratch-resistant, always shiny, always scratch-free.

We don’t get information about the glass above the display, we don’t know how resistant it is to scratches, but as you may have read it has a tempered glass “foil” on it and a spare in the box. The good news is also that unlike the Xiaomi Startos, the glass is not curved, so we can take on essentially any protection that is appropriate in diameter.

The Hope strap is made of silicone, unfortunately this is not a Xiaomi quality. Not bad, but a little hard, and somehow the wrist sweats better underneath, so it could easily be a replacement later.

Internal

In the case of Kospet Hope, even though the exterior was catchy, it was the hardware that made me put the state down in a nasty expression. It is no exaggeration to say that we find an entry-level telephone inside the steel casing.

The central unit is a Mediatek MTK6739 chip that operates four cores at a maximum clock speed of 1,3 GHz. We also get 3 GB of memory and 32 GB of storage, which is an outstanding amount. We have GPS and GLONASS support to make your navigation work, so we’re guaranteed we won’t get lost! It is very important that the built-in battery has a capacity of 620 mAh, which is again quite an amazing value in a smartwatch. According to the manufacturer, we get 5 days of standby time, which is even possible, but who is the one who doesn’t reach for the clock for five days?

The display deserves a separate paragraph. It is already huge, 1,39 inches in diameter, and has a wonderful resolution of 400 x 400 pixels. Of course, try to interpret this on a circular display, if it were rectangular, it would be 400 x 400 pixels. What’s important is that the resolution is also outstandingly good, at least on the clock front, so the pixel density is such that we believe from the dial that there are indeed pointers around it. And the bottom line is that there’s no LCD, but not even an IPS panel lurking in the watch, we get an AMOLED display with amazing colors and brutal brightness, just like we find in top phones.

I already mentioned the camera on the outside. Honestly, I don’t know why the Chinese put a camera in their watches. It doesn’t make much sense beyond being bragging about it, I have a camera watch. Plus, these cameras are often only able to take photos in SD resolution, in a good case we get a 1280 x 800 pixel photo, which is so bad that it won’t even be usable on Facebook.

Kospet Hope, on the other hand, was given an affordable 8-megapixel camera, according to factory data. Of course, it soon became clear that the 8 megapixels are just fake, in fact the 5 megapixels are the little ones, but you shouldn’t be ashamed of that, in fact. I don’t even understand why lying down on those eight, 5 megapixels is an outstanding capability between hours.

Another important moment at the end of the hardware presentation is that the watch is of course suitable for making phone calls. We can insert a Nano SIM card and not only make phone calls, but also surf the net with it, because there is no 4G support left. Foam on the cake to get B20 support too, so we can split the domestic 800 MHz LTE band!

Based on what has been said so far, I think it is beyond debate, it is a phone hidden for an hour. In fact, I dare say that we don't get this hardware on the phone for under $ 100 either, so even by browsing the specifications, we can say that the Kospet engineers have done a miracle!

By the end, one more important thing I almost managed to miss is the Kospet Hope’s IP67 protection against water and dust. Many competitors can’t say that about themselves, even though a smartwatch would be expected so that a little water doesn’t harm it. The IP67 pretty much means you can wash your hands in it anyway, maybe a quick shower can fit in, but don't want to swim with it because it will be a lot of good!

Phone application

If something can be said about something wrong, it is a utility that can be run on your phone. An app called WiiWacth 2 is sin weak, so much so that I don’t even know if I’ve seen anything weaker than this. In addition to being able to choose which sport to use, we can start heart rate measurement, we can choose which apps on the phone can send an alert, and we can change the clock face with no notable ability. Maybe starting your watch search is even more important when you turn on your watch to start beeping so you can easily find it under the couch cushion. That's it! It’s no coincidence that you’ll only get a few pictures of it below, and there’s no interface I could have backed up anymore.

Use and experience

Kospet Hope is now on my wrist for the third month now, so I can say that what has been described really shows my well-founded experience, I am not trying to form an opinion after a few hours of pressure.

So far, I haven’t talked about the software running in class, so I’ll start with that. A special, hour-long version of Android 7.1 runs on the alarm clock. The tailoring was surprisingly good in this case. There are some applications where the buttons protrude a bit from the dial, but in 98 percent everything is easily accessible, adjustable, controllable. Android also speaks Hungarian, all menus, all settings are displayed with a perfect translation, we can't find much English text. Of course, there is a Hungarian keyboard as well, but typing on the aopropo letters is due to torment. I paired it with a Xiaomi Bluetooth mouse from trial, it was a little easier with it, but let’s face it, it’s weird enough to use a mouse for an hour.

There’s a lot of complaint about competing watches that they don’t run their Android watch system, Wear, so they’re essentially installing a normal Android phone. The use of a system that is optimized for basically square display phones is a bit cumbersome on a circular display. Fortunately, in the case of Hope, you don't have to worry about that!

For me, two things were extremely important to choose, one for the display and the other for the battery. Unfortunately, my eyes are getting worse, so it’s important that I can use a brightness and a dial that I can read the exact time without glasses. Well, it’s so there that not only do I see the time, but to my greatest surprise, I can even read alerts for incoming messages. I didn't expect that. Of course, if you still have good eyes, this is not so much an aspect, but it is still important.

I can only say good things about the battery, as well as the battery life. For some smartwatches, I read a lot of complaints about having to charge them during the day, which is both problematic and inconvenient. That is not the case with Hope. Even with normal use, it sticks to one and a half to two days on a single charge, if I don’t push much, there can be even more, even two days, between the two charges. I really like that the display has an energy saving mode where only thin hands and a simple dial are visible, that is also faint. This is a kind of screen-saving mode where the display does not consume power, yet the time can be read, at least when the sun is not shining.

The control and use of the clock is extremely simple anyway. The menus are fast and smooth, we can find everything easily. Drag up to find the pedometer in daily breakdown, and scroll right to see the number of steps, calories burned, and distance traveled that day.

Swipe from the top to the settings section, see the status of the SIM card and Bluetooth, and scroll right to turn on the settings in the phones drop-down menu. Scrolling further is the cleaning function (closes programs, clears memory), followed by music remote control and weather.

Swipe from left to right to get notifications on the dial and from right to left to the menu. I won’t go into detail on this, it’s basically all like a phone. However, there is a fitness menu item that is not typical for phones. Here you can select the sport mode and see the saves related to that sport.

I haven't talked about the camera yet. I also included some photos below. As you can see here, it is not worth dissecting the image quality. Compared to that, hours are very good, but we don’t want to start with these pictures in a photo contest. Honestly, it is precisely the quality within acceptable, if nothing else, that is also on a good basis.

GPS finds satellites relatively quickly, and Google Map works great. I tried it with a SIM card too, but it was really only for a short time, which was enough for me to see there was no problem with internet speed either. This is a special advantage, because for some reason it is not possible to share the phone's internet connection via Bluetooth, so only Wi-Fi networks remain without a card.

Summary

I think I got on a smartwatch front ferry. It would have hurt me to buy an expensive Samsung, the apple stuff and the freak break out, so the Chinese brands stay. So far, however, with the exception of the one Xiaom, I haven’t found a watch that has been priced below my pain threshold and has been able to bring the quality, the capabilities, that I expect from such a structure.

However, Kospet Hope is something completely different than what I have seen so far. The paper didn’t lie, I got everything I expected based on the specifications. The watch is extremely flashy, fast, and knows everything I could need. Its display is quite lavish, and the battery life is quite fabulous thanks to the huge 620 mAh battery.

Is it better than the Xiaomi Stratos? I dare say yes, apart from battery life and water resistance. Your heart rate monitor produced essentially the same values. It supports many sports, the hardware is more powerful, and the installed Android system provides much more flexibility. I don’t particularly miss being waterproof up to a water depth of 50 meters, swimming isn’t my favorite pastime either, so that’s how I’m done.

The two-hour price is on one level, so the choice is already clear to me. I would have stayed with the Stratos only if I had been able to use its athletic abilities, but since I don't run a marathon, I don't start swimming in Lake Balaton, and Kospet Hope knows everything it needs and doesn't need.

Positives

+ strong hardware

+ excellent display

+ large battery

+ flashy exterior

+ reasonable price

+ can be used on Android system

Negatives

- sneaky phone software

- just a usable camera

- a little hard strap

If you want a watch like this, you can buy it here: Kospet Hope smartwatch

If you want a cheaper little brother, you can find it here: Kospet Hope Lite smart watch