Citizen CZ Smart: A US$395 smartwatch with a Wear 3100 chipset

The Citizen CZ Smartwatch costs US$395, despite having an ancient chipset. (Image source: Citizen)

Citizen has unveiled its inaugural WearOS smartwatch, the CZ Smart. Sadly, the company has used the outdated Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform rather than the newer, and considerably more powerful, Wear 4100 or Wear 4100+ platforms. The Citizen CZ Smart retails for US$395, which is mighty expensive for a Wear 3100 smartwatch.

Alex Alderson, 11/19/2020 🇮🇹 🇫🇷 ...

Watchmakers, bar Mobvoi, continue to do WearOS a disservice. To date, the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS is the only smartwatch to launch on the new Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform, which is a vast improvement from Qualcomm's outdated Wear 2100 and Wear 3100 platforms. Citizen has now unveiled its first WearOS smartwatch, and it uses the two-year-old Wear 3100 chipset.

The Citizen CZ Smart retails for US$395, for which you will receive a smartwatch with a 1.28-inch AMOLED screen covered in Corning Gorilla Glass 3 that resolves at 416 x 416 pixels. The 1.28-inch display corresponds to a 46 mm watch face, for reference. Citizen has included 8 GB of storage, but it is silent of how much RAM the CZ Smart has.

Additionally, the CZ Smart has built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and NFC. Citizen has equipped the smartwatch with a heart rate monitor and a gyroscope, among other sensors, along with a speaker and microphone for use with Google Assistant.

The Citizen CZ Smart is available to pre-order now. We would not recommend spending US$395 on a Wear 3100 smartwatch, though.