Review: Koala Flexfit — a koality smartwatch for less

Is this your first time hearing of the Koala smartwatch? Well, this surely won’t be the last. Koala, a new Filipino smartwatch brand, made their debut last year with the Fuzion smartwatch. This year, they have introduced their Flexfit smartwatch with an affordable price in mind for all Filipinos. In this review, we’ll find out how the Koala Flexfit competes within a saturated smartwatch market.

Design & build

The Koala Flexfit’s 1.3-inch IPS Capacitive touch screen comes in a rectangular shape, similar to Apple’s iWatch. This screen features a display resolution of 240×240 pixels. It’s available in three color variants — Rose Gold, Metallic Gold, and Jet Black which we have on hand. Its stainless steel mesh bracelet locks with a magnet and works as a stick-on rather than a usual clasp or punch-hole lock.

In terms of build quality and safety, the Flexfit is IP68 waterproof rated. This means that the watch is capable of being immersed 1.5m underwater for up to 30 minutes.

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Personalized watch face and dial options

The Flexfit also offers personalized watch face and dial options on top of the three pre-installed ones. However, you are not able to specifically customize the features of each design like you would be able to for other smartwatch brands with a similar screen size.

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Smart Features

The Flexfit contains a 32-bit ARM Cortex M4 CPU and runs Bluetooth 4.0. The Flexfit’s 200mAh battery is capable of letting the watch run for 15 days with regular usage, and up to 25 days on standby. USB charging the watch to full takes around 2 hours.

The watch has 7 primary quality-of-life features which are meant to assist you throughout the day: SMS & app notifications, Activity and Sleep Tracking, Heart Rate Monitor, Blood Pressure & Oxygen Monitor, Camera Remote Shutter for taking photos on your phone using the watch, and music control for Spotify and similar apps.

One feature I found particularly handy and informative was the Blood Pressure & Oxygen Monitor. You wouldn’t need to unpack nor prepare your sphygmomanometer, wrap it around your arm and wait for your results just to check your blood pressure. With the Flexfit it’ll only take about 20 seconds to get your results.

The Flexfit can also be used for working out but only with eight specific physical activities — walking, running, cycling, skipping (jump rope), badminton, basketball, football, and swimming. For most of these activities, the watch will only show a timer, current step count, and kilometers accomplished. However, for cycling, skipping, and swimming it’ll show you a timer, BPM, and KCAL. This is the only time you’ll be able to see your current heart rate. If you’re not on training mode, you’ll have to manually check your current heart rate on the heart mode.

The Flexfit is both iOS (9.0+) and Android (5.1+) compatible, so no matter what smartphone you own it will work with this watch. To see further details or information about your fitness or activities, you’ll have to download Da Fit App which can be downloaded on both Apple AppStore and Google PlayStore.

Verdict

The Koala Flexfit is available now for P3,290, but it is currently being offered as an early-bird special reducing the price to just P2,990. With its numerous colorways, varied screen customizations and useful smart features to improve your quality-of-life, the Flexfit holds its own in a crowded smartwatch world. As a Filipino smartwatch brand, the Koala Flexfit is actually very impressive and offers a premium feel and attributes for an entry-level price.