Nixon The Mission is a surf and skiing Android Wear smartwatch addition for the brand. Basically, the idea was to add an Android Wear smartwatch for surf and skiing fans. It is an intended chunky outdoor smartwatch with a nice robust body, with the addition of features like built-in GPS, 100 meters water resistance and the inclusion of bespoke apps to enhance the experience.
The smartwatch does not look big; it is in no way slim or small, it is bulky and comes with a 48mm casing. This size is larger than most G-Shock watches and as large as the WSD-F10. The bold design is water resistant up to 100m which is about 10 ATM with a surgical grade steel body. This means it is rugged and can take the pressure of surfing and skiing.
With a whopping price of $400, the Nixon’s smartwatch might as well be considered a fashion smartwatch. Unless you are in a position where you can afford to take it out on weekend surfing only considering the price then no problem. Taking a look at the size the smartwatch is probably not meant for ladies and are better suited for men.
Including all the colour, strap options and bezel, Nixon The Mission boasts of about 44,000 options to choose from. However going with what we have seen, there are grey, black and orange options available to order and a single strap option. With a size of 49mm, there is sure enough room in there for a handful of features in there.
It has a 1-39-inch AMOLED display with a 400 x 400 screen resolution which is fully round no flat tyre. This a decent display quality although it is not awesome it does the work and is about the same as Huawei’s 1.4-inch display. Nixon went all out in the engineering aspect of the watch, with a neat clip and Gore-tex membrane to ensure the waterproofing is top of the line, no leakage.
On the side of the smartwatch, there is a button that turns the device on and off the display to the main watch face within the software pretty much like the power button in smartphones. The band is sturdy and rugged rubberised material which is not afraid to play rough and can be replaced if you want to. The strap is pretty much comfy and fits well around the wrist holding the large watch in place.
Inside there is a quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU and s Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100 processor that powers up the smartwatch which is pretty much the norm in recent times. The Mision app which is available for only Android devices tracks skiing and surfing location and offers information like weather and whether it is suitable to head out.
The smartwatch runs on an Android Wear 1.5 version. However, it can be updated to the new Android Wear 2.0 if you want to. Although you might want to consider the upgrade when you put into consideration that it runs more smoothly and has better compatibility with the iOS device.
Sensors on board are an altimeter, barometer, thermometer, e-compass, humidity sensors, accelerometer, and gyroscope are all on board. However, the battery life can be found wanting especially with GPS on.
