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The name Razer is normally associated with gaming peripherals, but they jumped aboard the wearable wagon with their introduction of the Nabu Smartband. The Nabu X is Razer's entry level fitness tracker wearable which has odd tie-ins with gaming. It's priced cheaply at only $50 which compared to the other trackers on the market, costs nothing. Is the Nabu X well worth the $50 or does it just do a good enough job?
Packaging
The Nabu X comes in a small clear plastic box with specs listed on the back. Inside you find the Nabu X itself, an extremely short charging cable, instructions, and a Razer sticker.
Design
Razer likes to take risks which result in great looking products and packaging, the Nabu X is nothing like that and looks like your typical fitness tracker band. Discreetness is not a bad thing for a fitness tracker though. The Nabu X has a flexible silicon hypoallergenic band which is comfortable on the wrist but attracts dust and lint like there is no tomorrow. On one end of the band is a solid metal clasp which is easy to use and snaps into place with little effort. People with smaller wrists will have extra lengths of band which will occasionally get caught on your shirt or pants while walking. The center of the band houses the little plastic sensor module which can be removed and placed in different colour bands.
Gone is the OLED display and instead are three LEDs which light up to let you know what type of notification you have. Red for alarms, blue for calls, and green for everything else.
Charging is done through a proprietary port on the bottom of the band. While I hate proprietary connectors, the one with the Nabu X feels secure and is easy to plug in. Unfortunately charging has to be done though the pathetic 30 cm cable which means the Nabu X dangles off the wall or sits on the floor while charging. Luckily the Nabu X lasts a week between charges so it's not something you have to charge every night.
Comfort
The Nabu X is one of the more comfortable fitness trackers I have worn. It is soft and light so it isn't irritating and it barely noticeable on your wrist. Aside from the bit of band that sticks out occasionally, it wont get caught while trying to put on a jacket. The one size strap fit well on my wrist without ever being too lose or too tight. The silicon band grips my wrist well and doesn't slide around.
Usability
The Nabu X is compatible with the iPhone 5 or newer and any Android device running Android 4.3 or newer. You will need two apps to actually start using the Nabu X. First is the Nabu X utility which lets you connect to your Nabu X and gives you battery level information. The second is the Nabu Fitness app which deals with all the fitness tracking. The utility app allows you to customize the LEDs and notifications that the Nabu X will alert you about, turn on social settings, and enable sleep mode.
The Nabu Fitness app tracks your steps, distance walked or ran, calories burnt, and time slept. The metrics can be separated into different time intervals from year, month, three months, week or a specific day.
Sleep tracking is done though an automatic mode which starts tracking you between the set time frame or a manual mode which requires you to start and stop it when you sleep and wake up. I dont really find a use for sleep trackers but it's there for people who do. It works as expected and doesn't have anything that makes it special from all the others.
For some reason Razer decided to implement a social feature which Razer calls "Pulse" that allows users who wear the Nabu X to exchange information through handshakes. You enter relevant social information that you want to be shared into the Nabu X utility app and enable the feature to use it. I have yet to find someone else who has the tracker so I couldn't test out the feature.
Conclusion
There are a fair share of terrible fitness trackers as well as good ones, the Nabu X sits somewhere int he middle. Nothing makes the Nabu X stand out and make me want to buy it, aside from the low price point. The Nabu X has a clean design which isn't flashy or scream "HEY LOOK AT ME". The week long battery life is also great and doesn't run out of juice half way through sleep tracking.
The downsides of the Nabu X are that the LEDs make it really hard to distinguish if you're getting a text or if a game is bugging you to play it because you haven't been on for 15 minutes. The social features of the Nabu X seem more like a gimmick and nothing you would actually use in real life. I also wish that they would have one app that does the job of both apps that are currently required to used the Nabu X.
It offers a few more features than other similarly priced trackers and is fairly comfortable. It cost less than the Fitbit Zip which does less than the Nabu X. While it doesn't stand out, it is a great tracker for someone who's been wanting one but doesn't want to spend $150.
