The Michael Kors Access MKGO Smartwatch is light, thin, stylish, comfortable on the wrist, and at 7mm thick one of the thinnest smartwatches on the market. It has a brilliant, razor sharp AMOLED touchscreen display that is easy to read even in bright sunlight. The display is 'always on', switching from color to a dimmer monochrome display to save power when no movement is detected. The face is round, rather than square, so it looks more like a traditional watch and at 43mm wide it's not obnoxiously large on your wrist. The Access MKGO is pretty feature rich, with an on board GPS, optical heart rate monitor, n-way accelerometer, and altimeter, wifi, nfc, and bluetooth. There is a built in mic, but no speaker. It's waterproof to 100ft. WearOS looks a lot like Android and there are a lot of apps to do useful and useless things. The battery is quick charge, a full charge seems to take about an hour, which is good because the battery is only good for about a day to day and a half at best. Unboxing, the watch comes with a charging cable, a user's manual that essentially says "Download the WearOS App, pair, and follow the instructions". If you want any information about what the buttons do, or what swiping in a direction does (it is a touchscreen afterall), you're directed to the Michael Kors support site. You have to supply a usb charger. And there is a deceptively large book that has the safety information in a zillion languages. Charge up the watch and you're ready to go. The MKGO is Google WearOS based and comes with the WearOS App installed, along with Google Fit and Assistant. There are lots of apps for fitness (including Strava), as well as music, productivity, agendas, games, etc. Although there is no speaker, the watch will pair with bluetooth headphones/earbuds and can be used for tunes while working out if you've forgotten your phone. I don't know what the crystal is made from, but it's pretty tough. I cracked it pretty hard against a weight without so much as scratching it. I've used this watch over the last two weeks at the gym and on a half dozen or so bike rides ranging from 20 to 50 miles each. Battery life goes down dramatically when tracking activity, figure about 15% battery/hour. The longest bike ride was about five hours, starting at 90% battery. The watch was in battery save mode and at 15% at the end of the ride. As I said earlier, it's a good thing that the battery quick charges. On days that I didn't do any fitness activity tracking, I would see about 50% battery usage over 16 hours. I really like the MKGO, mostly because I don't feel it, it's just there when I want it. I don't have this big, clunky, heavy thing swinging around my wrist. It does a lot of what I want, allowing me to check notifications and texts in the car or on my bike without stopping to check my phone (yes, I don't text and drive...). The heart rate and fitness monitoring seem pretty accurate and it's very convenient being able to swipe the screen rather than try to remember which button to push. That being said, the MKGO is not without its negatives. The biggest is battery life, which could be a lot better. The processor used it the latest Qualcomm Wear processor, but it's a bit hamstrung by only 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. After WearOS and pre-installed apps, about 1.6GB of storage is left for additional apps and user stuff. The performance lag is especially notable when switching apps, which can take a few seconds. And there is no speaker. For me, the negatives are tolerable and the positives, particularly the fit and the display, outweigh them. The broad selection of apps that is growing all the time is another real selling point. The MKGO is not perfect, but that is the state of the art right now, and it's definitely worth considering.

I previously had a Huawei smartwatch for 4 years and loved the Wear OS. I got this as a replacement for it because of the price. The top and bottom buttons on the side are programmable, so you can choose an app to launch. The center button is turnable, so you can scroll up and down menus. The other reviews are correct about the lag, but I found that once it is fully updated, it runs very smoothly. I don't use very many advanced features on it. I mainly use it for notifications so I don't have to look at my phone, fitness tracking, and the calendar. I have also started using Google Pay with it, which is a nice feature. I turn off "always on" and depending on where I am, I might disable wrist gestures. Background heart rate is also turned on. With me using it that way, my battery seems to last me until I go to bed. I will note that the battery will drain fast when you initially start to update, so I recommend leaving it on the charger while it does it's thing. Over all, I like the watch and it serves it purpose well. The bands are very easy to change out. I'm ordering a band for work and I'll use the silicone for the gym.

So I have mixed feelings about this watch. It has many pros, but the OS seems unrefined. From the get go the watch looks very nice and sleek. It is well polished and the band is very thick and feels sturdy. The watch itself is very light weight, like half the weight of most full size Galaxy watches. It is very easy to setup via the Wear OS app on your phone. It syncs with your Google account so it works with your contacts, calendar, etc very seamlessly. Now the bad part, the OS. Sending a text is almost impossible. For some reason there is no keyboard to type. You can only compose a text through speech. I do not like that. You can reply easily to a text via the built in "smart responses" and that is great. But if you want to draft a message from scratch and want to use the Google keyboard (which is in the settings), you cannot use it. I have tried everything, but the keyboard never pops up in the message app. It also takes a long time to think when running most processes. The Google colored circles spin around for what seems like a tad bit too long to launch a speech feature like the message or opening an event. It just doesn't feel like it is running to it's full potential. The physical characteristics are very nice on the watch. It has three buttons and the middle one spins. This allows you to scroll through the menus very easy. The top and bottom buttons allow you to program them to quickly launch what you want. This makes things very easy for common processes. The Overall usability for the watch is very good, it simply works. I just don't think it works as smooth as the Galaxy OS. I expected more from Google. If you have never used a smart watch before you may not notice these differences so this may be the watch for you. It is light and very sharp looking and easily customize able. It works well, but with a few quirks, I can recommend overall.

I’m pretty new at smart watches, and to be honest, I never thought I would ever get one. So, if you are new to smart watches this one is perfect for you. First of all, the setup was pretty easy. As soon you turn the watch on, it will guide you through. The next step is to download the app. I have an iPhone 8 plus, and again pretty painless. It comes with a charging pad, which is magnetic. The watch has a sports look but the size makes me believe it is a woman’s watch, and husband agrees. I love the fact you can change faces, so you can match your outfit with it! You can setup to get notifications for new email, texts, calls... but I thought that was kinda annoying. Another cool feature is the heart rate and steps tracker. How many steps are you supposed to do on a daily basis anyways? Overall I think is a pretty cool watch and I would definitely recommend it.

Not too much negative things can be said about this watch except that it just seems to do the basic of Google Wear functions. At first glance, it looks like Michael Kors was going for a toned down, minimalistic style, and everyday watch. They did a good job with the aesthetics overall, black aluminum with a black band looks great. Now for the OS and overall use of this watch, it does lack a little bit in the software department. Again with the Wear OS being what it is, Android functionality is good. There are a few times where it lags a bit with either touch input or with opening up apps and you feel like it just isn't registering touches but it is just delayed. This makes for a great gift for those that are looking to get a everyday use watch. If this is for you, unless you are a Michael Kors loyalist, you can probably do better off researching another name brand watch to see if they have more ram memory or functionality.