You have the option of an always on display, which is a nice touch, but if you want to save battery life, then the Zepp E is great at automatically turning on with a flick of the wrist. The wristbands that come with the Zepp E series are fine. There are two in the box, they are leather, but we would have preferred the option of a sports wristband. While most non-Apple smartwatches have a hint of Android in them, the Zepp E has none of that and goes its own way when it comes to its operating system, which can best be described as minimal. There are no third-party apps on board, so you’ll have to use Zepp’s own apps to count your steps and the like. That’s fine if you’re not tied to a specific app, but may annoy those who want to use a specific app for fitness. However, there are a lot of features, so there isn’t much FOMO. On board are a compass, fitness tracking, timers, alarms, and a very good weather app. The music app lets you browse through the songs you’re listening to on your phone, and you also get your notifications through the Zepp E, but there’s no way to reply to them. The Zepp E is a slim smartwatch, and on the whole it really works. It’s not too cramped, but some of the icons could be a bit bigger. One major drawback, however, is GPS support. That’s the thing you miss the most when you want to go jogging. The lack of GPS means you need your phone to run, and even then the tracking isn’t as accurate as you’d like. It gets better after the run, though, because the post-run data is impressive, with good information about the terrain you just traversed, and the whole thing works with Strava, Google Fit, etc.
