The screen readability - The e-paper screen works great. Kinda like how the kindle can be read in sunlight, well the Pebble can to. It is super easy to read in sunlight – even easier than indoors. If it is dark, and you have backlight set to auto, the screen lights up in the dark. In a word - nice.
The body - With the matted steel case and gorilla glass and the metal watchband, most people won’t even realize you are wearing a smart watch. It is stylish, and the different displays allow you to dress it up if you like.
Pebble battery life – right now my battery looks like it will around 4-5 days or so – maybe a little longer if I keep my phone next to the watch 24/7 (ie during charges). I don’t have a lot of stuff hitting my phone (other than text and emails) right now, so that may be part of the reason for the nice battery life.
IPhone battery - As far as the impact on my iPhone, I haven’t seen much of a difference after the initial set up. The initial set up consumed a lot more due to searches for apps, and getting the phone set up. Now everything is basically back to normal.
Notifications – If you have a particular app on the iPhone notifications turned on, then you will see if on my Pebble. Simply as that. This applies to calendar appointments, reminders, emails, text, facebook, twitter, etc.
Time & Clock functions – I use the Modern watch face since it allows me to see the current time, date and weather without any problems. Plus the modern watch face, in my opinion, looks the absolute best.
Fitness tracking - If you want to track your fitness, this is very easy to do with the Pebble and the misfit app. You can track you daily steps, your sleep, etc. I loaded the misfit iPhone app so that my data from the Pebble would sync with the app and would be easier to review all of the data. So far so good – it syncs – it shows how well I slept – it does what I want it to do.
Incoming Calls – it displays the name (as long as it is in your contacts) and the phone number of the person calling you. In addition, you have the ability to hang up/push the call directly to voice mail by pushing the button next to the “x”.
Controlling your music – with the Pebble, you have the ability to control any of the music or podcast on your iPhone – no matter what program – and see what music is currently playing. I have played podcast and music without a single problem. In addition, you can play your Pandora list without fail. This feature to me is more important on runs/bike rides, or when the iPhone is sitting away from you and playing through speakers.
Directions/GPS – I haven’t fully used this yet, but I have installed the PebbGPS and the companion app. I wanted the ability to use my iPhone’s GPS, but not be forced to hold my phone up and follow the directions. Now my iPhone still shows me the way, but pushes that info to my phone. I will update this review once I have a chance to fully test this out. Right now, the limited test I did worked flawlessly. This does require the use of a companion app to type of the location you want to go to.
The apps – Some people complain about the limited number of slots you have available on your Pebble for apps (8). To be honest, I really don’t find this to be a problem. I have 6 apps loaded, and it does all that I listed above. The apps I loaded, in no particular order, are the Modern watch face, Misfit, Battery Lifetime, PebbGPS, Pandora, and Multi Timer (basically a very nice timer). In my locker (where you can easily upload to your watch), I have Gentle Wake, ESPN, and Cards for Pebble. The companion apps I loaded include, PebbGPS, RunKeeper, and Misfit.