American watchmaker Fossil is on a launching spree this year. Just recently, the company introduced a slew of smartwatches and fitness trackers in India from its popular fashion brands which include Fossil Q, Skagen Connected Chaps, Emporio Armani and Misfit.
We’ll be checking out the Fossil Q Marshal and the Fossil Q Wander. Both of them are similar in terms of specs, apart from the fact that the Q Wander is targeted at women. From the looks of it, these Android Wear smartwatches are more about style rather than substance. They look like any other classic Fossil wristwatch with a huge dash of style. There’s no denying that Fossil has nailed it when it comes to design and looks. Both Q Wander and Q Marshal are now available in India priced in the range of Rs. 21,995 to Rs. 22,595. That said, they aren’t as feature loaded as some of the other similarly priced alternative, which brings us to the question – are they worth the price tag? Let’s find out.
Look and Feel
As already mentioned, the Q Marshal is one heck of a looker. It has the look and feel of a proper high-quality wristwatch, without being too flashy. For a smartwatch, it has a clean, minimalistic design. Besides, it also feels durable, without feeling too heavy or insubstantial. Overall, the smartwatch has a good weight to it. Neither so light that it feels flimsy on the wrist nor so hefty that it feels overwhelming. The black rubber strap is also flexible and makes the watch comfortable to wear for longer periods. You can even replace straps easily with any of Fossil’s 22m bands. As far as design and looks are concerned, the Q Marshal is probably one of the best-looking smartwatches out there. Period.
Display
The Fossil Q Marshall gets a 1.4-inch LED display with a 320 x 190-pixel resolution. While it does the job and has enough brightness levels that makes the screen easily readable in bright sunlight. Even the watch’s touchscreen felt snappy and responsive. That said, it’s still an LCD panel and hasn’t got the best color reproduction or viewing angles. Besides, even swiping through watch’s interface shows a substantial amount of motion blur. For the asking price, the Q Marshal’s display fell rather short of expectations.
Hardware, Performance, and Features
Under the hood, the Q Marshal packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100 processor bundled with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of built-in storage. Pairing and setting up the Q Marshal is quite a breeze. It takes just about 5 minutes to setup the watch, and you’re ready to go.
The Q Marshal runs Android Wear OS out-of-the-box, and swiping through the watch’s interface feels quite snappy and zippy. I didn’t come across any lags or stutters during the time I spent with the Q Marshal. On the home screen, you can use ‘OK Google’to give it voice commands to set the alarm, send and reply messages, check weather updates, perform voice searches or track your steps. There are a bunch of great custom watch faces for the Marshal, and you can choose from a lot of difference styles and customize colors within each style. Other key features include an Always On Display, along worth Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.
You can also make and receive calls, which is a good thing. However, there seems to be an issue while receiving calls, as every time I received a call there was an echo. Surprisingly, there was no such echo while receiving calls directly from the watch. It seems like a bug of sorts which we hope the company fixes in the next firmware update.
The watch also packs basic fitness features such as step counter; distance covered calories burned and sleep tracker, though I feel that the Q Marshal isn’t a smartwatch that you can run with given its size. That said, it still good to see basic fitness features on a smartwatch. However, there’s no heart rate monitor on board
Overall, the Q Marshal offers all the essential functions you’re looking for in a smartwatch. You can use it to control music playback, play games, check notifications, and perform voice-activated searches. That said, it still runs Android Wear OS which is still in its nascent phase. An update to Android Wear (2.0) is planned for early 2017, which is expected to be a significant improvement. Google’s wearable OS still seems limited in functionality and features; which makes the Fossil Q Wander a little bit behind times compared to smartwatches from Pebble and Samsung.
Battery
Juicing up the Q Marshal is a 360mAh battery which can easily last an entire day with the display set to Always On. You’ll have to plug-in the magnetic charger into your USB port and place the magnetic disk on the watch back. Once the smartwatch starts charging, a red LED indicator light starts glowing on the USB end of the charging cable that confirms that the watching is getting charged. Though, the watch took around 4-5 hours to get fully recharged with the bundled USB charger, which is quite a bummer.
Pros:
- Looks classy and stylish
- Smooth performance
Cons:
- Lacks features compared to similarly priced alternatives
- Slightly overpriced
Wrap Up
As far as looks and overall performance goes, the Fossil Q Marshal does not disappoint. It rocks an impressive, minimalist look, and offers all the key functions that you’re looking for in a smartwatch. But compared to other similarly priced smartwatches, this one seems stifled in terms of features and functionality. Moreover, the display on these is also quite a let down for the asking price. Fossil has done an impressive job when it comes to the watch’s design. It’s all about style and the watch looks like magic on your wrist. If you’re looking for a smartwatch that looks swaggy and has all basic functionality of a smartwatch, then you’ll like the Fossil Q Marshal. But for the asking price, the Q-Marshal isn’t as feature loaded compared to smartwatches from Samsung and Pebble.
