Noise, which is currently leading the budget wearable market, recently launched its new ColorFit Ultra watch. It is priced under Rs 5,000, and while the market is already crowded with good options, the new Noise wearable aims to please users with its massive colourful display, 60 sports modes, and other smart features.
The Noise ColorFit Ultra is selling for Rs 3,999 in India. Read our detailed Noise ColorFit Ultra review to know more about whether this smartwatch deserves to be on your wrist.
Noise ColorFit Ultra review: What is good?
The Noise ColorFit Ultra has a standard design with a rectangular dial. The brand has mostly used the same design across its watches. But, the new one has a slightly bigger display and better colour reproduction. The display has slightly big bezels around it as well. The body is built out of Aluminum alloy and plastic. It feels quite solid; however, it attracts scratches quite easily.
The watch comes with silicone straps, which can be swapped with third-party straps. There is a release button on the back of the watch to remove the straps, so you can easily change them. There is only one button on the right side of the watch, which can be used to wake up the screen, shoot up the apps menu, and as a back button to head back to the home screen.
It is IP68 rated, so the smartwatch is water-resistant up to 1.5 meters. This means that one doesn’t need to worry about water splashes and sweat. However, the device is not designed for swimming. The Noise ColorFit Ultra is lightweight but is also pretty big.
The Noise ColorFit Ultra is available in a blue colour variant. (Image credit: Ankita Garg/ Express image)
It features a 1.75-inch display, which is much bigger than some of the budget watches offered by Amazfit, Realme, and other brands. This watch will look pretty big on slim wrists. The watch doesn’t have an AMOLED panel and users get an LCD screen. Nevertheless, it is still vibrant enough and viewing angles are fine. The panel operates at 320 x 385 pixels resolution. It’s bright enough to be viewed outdoors, and its touch response is just fine.
Noise has offered a raise to wake option and you even get to set auto-screen off time for a maximum of 30 seconds. However, there is no auto button in the app to turn it off for the night. The device also misses out on the Always-on Display (AoD), and the reason behind not offering this feature could be to save battery life.
The Noise ColorFit Ultra can continuously measure your heart rate. The data seemed fine; however, there were times when I was not wearing the watch, and the watch still registered heart rate data. But, this happened only a few times and the smartwatch displayed a message, asking to wear it properly (to measure any activity).
It should be noted that if you don’t sign up in the app, then you won’t be able to access old data and the app will only show one day’s data.
The Noise ColorFit Ultra can continuously measure your heart rate. (Image credit: Ankita Garg/ Express image)
The watch can offer detailed data on your sleeping patterns. It gives you data on light, deep, and REM sleep cycles. The NoiseFit app also shows the typical range of every sleep stage and explains them well. One will also find an explanation on why sleep is important and how one can improve their sleep quality. All this is great as one should know what they are tracking and how they can improve to achieve better results.
However, the NoiseFit app sometimes doesn’t show old sleep data, which the company should fix. It showed almost accurate results during my usage.
The Noise ColorFit Ultra has a SpO2 sensor as well, so it can track blood oxygen levels. I compared the device’s data with an oximeter to check its accuracy level. It offered me similar results most of the time, but users are still advised to use the data on a generic basis and not for medical usage.
I liked the way Noise has categorised workout modes on the watch as it makes it easier to search for my desired Sports modes. For example, one will see Walking, Treadmill, and Outdoor running modes under the Running Sports category, which I used the most. There are a total of 60 workout modes on this smartwatch.
The Noise ColorFit Ultra can track your steps. (Image credit: Ankita Garg/ Express image)
The step counting of the watch is not that accurate, which is not surprising as most of the wearables don’t offer exact data. I counted 300 steps and the watch registered 342, which may seem a little high. While tracking an activity, one can also immediately access the music app on the smartwatch, though you will be able to choose songs from your desired music album only using your smartphone.
The Noise ColorFit Ultra can also monitor stress, but it takes more than two minutes to offer results, which are not even accurate. Stress monitoring is something that a lot of budget wearables are offering to users, but most of them have failed to deliver accurate results or even explain the feature in the app.
But, there is one feature that this watch managed to perform properly. The Noise ColorFit Ultra offered me all the reminders (water, sedimentary, etc) on a timely basis, which may sound basic but is equally important for some.
The Noise ColorFit Ultra offers 60 Sports modes. (Image credit: Ankita Garg/ Express image)
Noise has also given an option to reply to messages using the smartwatch. You get to add up to five replies in the NoiseFit app, which one can use later to reply to messages. However, this smart reply feature is only available for SMS app and calls. The wearable can show you your phone’s notifications from most of the apps you use. The above-mentioned app offers thousands of watch faces, so one here gets a lot of options to select as per their mood.
Noise claims that this watch can deliver up to nine days of battery life. However, it lasted for only 2-3 days with heavy usage. This includes one hour of activity/sports tracking, continuous heart rate tracking, sleep tracking, music control, notifications from apps, and the raise to wake feature. But with light usage, you will get up to five days of battery life.
The result totally depends on usage patterns. It takes around 1 hour and 45 minutes to fully charge the watch. The bundled charging cable’s magnetic pins are pretty weak and it was a bit difficult to charge the watch. One will have to keep the wearable on a flat surface.
Noise ColorFit Ultra review: What is not good?
The Noise ColorFit Ultra has an LCD display. (Image credit: Ankita Garg/ Express image)
There are a few things that I would like to point out about the Noise ColorFit Ultra that one should keep in mind before buying it. There is no support for GPS for distance tracking and the device uses your primary phone to offer results. There is also no ambient light sensor, which makes it easier to adjust brightness levels in different lighting conditions. So, users will have to head to the settings section every time they want to adjust brightness.
The smartwatch doesn’t display full messages or notifications, which defeats the whole purpose of using this smart device. The NoiseFit app shows a few ads once in a while and even sends notifications for its products, which is annoying. In addition to this, the company should make it easier to check daily, weekly, and monthly data as it is a bit annoying to every time switch back to the calendar to check (old) data. The smartwatch loses a full day’s data if it switches off during the day and has not synced to the app.
Noise ColorFit Ultra review: Verdict?
The Noise ColorFit Ultra is a good budget smartwatch, which offers enough features to please users. It can track steps, SpO2, sleep, heart rate, 60 sports modes, and show notifications. You can also reply to some messages and send a text to incoming calls. It has a quite big vibrant display, good battery life, IP68 water-resistant rating, and a good customisable companion app. However, one should keep in mind that this watch lacks GPS and an ambient light sensor.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-reviews/noise-colorfit-ultra-review-7653656/
