MGCool Band 2 In-Depth Review – Affordable Sporty Fitness band

Design 

Before I tackle about its screen display, I must say the MGCool Band 2 is one of the most comfortable fitness band that I have tried few months. It’s light and sits perfectly on my wrist. It might has wide body compared to other fitness band, but I don’t feel that its big, its curved design makes it comfortable to wear and light weight, the soft silicon band feels like it is just a slim fitness band.

Well talking about the display, it has a 0.66 inch OLED screen with 64 x 48 pixel resolution, so far the display is much better compared to other wearable, it is wide and has a much brighter screen. It is just ok in outdoors, not that stellar but compared to the likes of No.1 F1 and Zeblaze band 2, the MGCool Band 2 performs better in terms of display.

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It is not that really clear outdoors, but its ok, the overall screen is protected by a curved glass like covering, underneath is the OLED screen with crisp, clear and wider display.

 

The band has a solid like design with the main body connected to the band seamlessly. Under the body is an elevated heart rate monitor, and a three point contact charging point. So far in terms of the design and the display, the band scores good well, it might not be able to compete side by side with Fitbit or Gear Fit 2, but when it comes to affordable wearables like Xiaomi Mi Band 2 or the latest No.1 F1, the band in terms of design, I think the band looks much better.

Before I forget, the MGCool Band 2 is IPX7 waterproof rated and it has a flexible silicon band that can be replaced if it suffers some serious damage. It can be removed by unscrewing the Philip screw at the back, I just don’t know if MGCool talked with other companies to make an extra band for  the wearable that can be purchased online. But I think with the material used in MGCool Band 2, it could last more than the life of the band itself, but of course it still depends on how you use your smartband.

Hardware and Fitness Features 

I received several positive comments regarding the look of MGCool Band 2, its striking curve look with its glossy screen is eye catching. Someone asked me if the band is just about telling time, well I reacted like a kid boasting a new shiny gadget, showing some of the menus and features of the smartband. He is not into wearables, I see the amazement in his eyes when I showed him the initial features of the band such as remote camera control, and remote music control.

For readers, if you are not familiar with these two options in the band, the remote camera control let you control the camera on your smartphone with your smartband, while music for remote music control allows you to control the music player on your phone, play, pause, next or previous. The MGCool Band 2 is one of the few wearables to have this two features in a band. Most are either just the remote camra control or just music player control, but barely that these two functions is present in just a single band, especially affordable Chinese wearables.

Please be informed that the camera don’t automatically opens, you have to manually open the camera first in the phone to use the feature, please take not that the app uses its own camera app instead of the default camera on the phone.

The smartband has a “workout exercise option”, that you can activate in the band, it records your walking or running activities with timer and calorie counter in just one menu. With the workout exercise option the pedometer works as expected and counted my steps, so far the results is close to my manual count. But during a regular walk/travel the fitness band step counter is a way off, far from the actual results based on my manual counting. Hope that a firmware update will solve this problem for the MGCool Band 2.

Aside from pedometer and heart rate monitor, the MGCool Band 2’s health feature include a sleep monitor, a hydration alarm where you can set the alarm time of notifying you to drink fluids. Note: you can only set the hydration alarm in the app and not in the band, again we hope in the next update there will be an option to set the different times or set to random, like how the sedentary alarm works.

Support App

MGCool made it right by having a dedicated app for its fitness band, most of the Chinese fitness band rely on a third party app that don’t have a full support for the features of the band, these is also an issue with the Bluetooth connectivity, most suffers an unstable connection and errors in syncing.

The app is available for download both in iOS and Android, you can search the app by searching MGCool App or scanning the QR code in the user manual. Downloading is easy and no issues at all as well as syncing with the band.

The app is far from perfect, it lack other features if you compared with the likes of Fitbit but it’s alright, it has the necessary information that we need. The app revolves around four main UI, walking, running, sleep monitor and BPM stats. There is also a section for chart where you see all the details for day, chart, week up to a year. So far can’t complain about the app, it works as expected and has an option for firmware update and upgrade, at least giving us something to hope for an additional feature or option to fix maybe in the near future.

Overall

Having the MGCool Band 2 for two weeks now, and I think the band has a lot of potential, it already has an app and of course the band. I guess it just needs some few updates, firmware upgrade to fix the issues I already stated. I can’t say anything bad about the design, its big compared to other offerings in the market, but I don’t mind as it is comfortable to wear and its lightweight.

It just has an awkward way of locking the strap, instead of a locking the band from the outside similar to Mi Band 2 and Apple Watch, the MGCool Band 2 I opposite you have to do it from the inside, but I found it to be more secure and tight, I guess this the reason why it was designed that way. The band might not have that really wow factor, but as I have said it got potential, so far the positive outweighs any negative aspect about it. In terms of pricing, it is one of the most affordable I should say, hopefully the company behind the product could provide a solution fast to the issues stated but overall it’s a good pick for its price.

On the video I mentioned that the band is made by Elephone via their MGCool sub brand, but according to the company the MGCool is now a wholly-owned brand covering sports cameras, intelligent wearable devices, and other gadgets.

 

Jo Di Calivo -Blogger, Tech Guru, providing the current news on wearables particularly on smartwatches, smartbands. And loves to go fishing on spare time.