Yeah your Galaxy Fold is cool, but can you wear it?
It’s 2019 and everything can bend. Samsung and Huawei have shown off foldable phones, but wearables are also flexing their stuff. Roll up, the Nubia Alpha, a “wearable phone” that wraps around your wrist.
UPDATE: The New Nubia Watch for 2020 hands-on review
The new smartwatch was announced at MWC in Barcelona, but if you were paying attention you’ll know an earlier prototype was kicking around the halls of IFA last September. The finalized version looks a little more polished, with a 4-inch flexible OLED display, made of no fewer than 11 layers, capable of bending around the arm.
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Note we referred to it as a “wearable phone” – that’s how Nubia is billing this device, which is designed to work completely standalone (it does come paired with some wireless earbuds in the box). Nubia has teamed with China Unicom for eSIM support, however the watch also comes in a cheaper Bluetooth-only version, which will of course need to be paired to a phone.
To ensure it’s the whole package, Nubia’s included a 5-megapixel camera on the front, but more interesting is the gesture system, which lets you control the watch by swiping the air in front of it. $10 says this is something we use once and never again, but hey, at least they’re trying something.
But while Nubia’s wearable is emphatically futuristic on the outside, inside it’s housing a Snapdragon 2100 chip, which is pretty dated by now. You’ve got your standard fitness tracking too, though it’s not clear how deep this will go. Chances are you’re not buying this as a workout companion. You’re buying this because you want to taste the future, and by God, you’re going to look great doing it.
Nubia says you’ll get “up to two days” of battery life with the watch, which if history has told us anything, can mean a lot of things. So we’ll have to wait and see.
The watch comes in either black or an 18-karat gold-plated version, for when you need some bling for your bling. It’s priced at €549 for the 4G eSIM model and €449 for the Bluetooth-only version. No word on US or UK pricing just yet, but the company says it’ll land Stateside in Q4 of this year.
