I bought the Band from a member on here and it arrived in the mail this morning. I was excited to fire it up and put it to use. It's kind of a simple elegance. The design isn't going to wow anyone and isn't flashy. I think I'd like it to be a little less bland, but obviously not the biggest deal. However, I find that the Band is pretty awkward. For one, it needs to be contoured to your wrists more, and that could easily be addressed with a curved display like the Samsung Gear Fit. As far as wearing it on the inside vs outside of your wrist, there's no easy choice. The Band is much easier to use when worn on the inside of your wrist because interacting with it is much more natural. However, I found it very uncomfortable; plus it looks weird. Wearing it on the outside of your wrist FEELS more natural and more comfortable, but interacting with it was awkward because of the viewing angle. There's really no win there.
The software runs pretty well with no glitches or lag from my experience so far. The screen quality is very nice, but I wish the touchscreen could be a little more sensitive for quicker scrolling, but that could be due to the screen protector. Customizability is nice and fits in nicely with the rest of the Windows line. All of the notifications do as they are supposed to, but I have a complaint about messaging. With text messages, when the notification pops up, you can respond with a preset text message. That's fine, but it doesn't give you the option to reply directly with Cortana. Granted, you can tell Cortana to send a message to someone, but not directly from the notification. That's kind of a pain. I'd also like to see the ability to directly respond to texts with Cortana, but also emails. Some other features I'd like to see are music controls as well as a golf GPS feature. All of the functionality is there, and I think that would be huge for folks like myself. Directions from the Band would be a nice touch and have it vibrate when you need to turn for example.
I haven't had a chance to use it for my workouts or anything, but the pedometer seems to be pretty accurate in calculating my steps and the heart rate monitor seems to be accurate as well. I'll have to check all of that and see how it compares to the data on the treadmill. The workouts seem really cool and I will be trying out a few of them and will get back with my take on the fitness aspect of the Band as well as going in depth about Health (can't say a whole lot without working out and having the data there).
As far as battery life goes, it seems to be pretty good. Granted, I haven't used it at all for any fitness activities or the GPS, and with me using it for about 10 hours, I can't give any detailed battery life info. However, it seems like I should be able to get a good 2 days worth even with workouts since it doesn't even look like the battery meter has even moved since I started using it. Time will tell though.
The Band is a good start, but there are a lot of software possibilities and hardware aspects that could be addressed and improved in the second gen model. I'm not sure if I'm sold on the Band, mainly due to the awkwardness and not the software or capability, but I'll give it a good run before I make up my mind. It seems like a good start by Microsoft and surely can only get better. I have a feeling that the second gen Band will be a total homerun.
The software runs pretty well with no glitches or lag from my experience so far. The screen quality is very nice, but I wish the touchscreen could be a little more sensitive for quicker scrolling, but that could be due to the screen protector. Customizability is nice and fits in nicely with the rest of the Windows line. All of the notifications do as they are supposed to, but I have a complaint about messaging. With text messages, when the notification pops up, you can respond with a preset text message. That's fine, but it doesn't give you the option to reply directly with Cortana. Granted, you can tell Cortana to send a message to someone, but not directly from the notification. That's kind of a pain. I'd also like to see the ability to directly respond to texts with Cortana, but also emails. Some other features I'd like to see are music controls as well as a golf GPS feature. All of the functionality is there, and I think that would be huge for folks like myself. Directions from the Band would be a nice touch and have it vibrate when you need to turn for example.
I haven't had a chance to use it for my workouts or anything, but the pedometer seems to be pretty accurate in calculating my steps and the heart rate monitor seems to be accurate as well. I'll have to check all of that and see how it compares to the data on the treadmill. The workouts seem really cool and I will be trying out a few of them and will get back with my take on the fitness aspect of the Band as well as going in depth about Health (can't say a whole lot without working out and having the data there).
As far as battery life goes, it seems to be pretty good. Granted, I haven't used it at all for any fitness activities or the GPS, and with me using it for about 10 hours, I can't give any detailed battery life info. However, it seems like I should be able to get a good 2 days worth even with workouts since it doesn't even look like the battery meter has even moved since I started using it. Time will tell though.
The Band is a good start, but there are a lot of software possibilities and hardware aspects that could be addressed and improved in the second gen model. I'm not sure if I'm sold on the Band, mainly due to the awkwardness and not the software or capability, but I'll give it a good run before I make up my mind. It seems like a good start by Microsoft and surely can only get better. I have a feeling that the second gen Band will be a total homerun.
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