Fitness smartwatches and wearables are quite popular, especially among today’s youth. They are widely used both for fitness and fashion purposes. There are ample options in every price category in the Indian market, but later on, we saw a lot of action in the sub-Rs. 5,000 segments. Typically, wearables in this price segment are just fitness trackers or notifiers and not full-fledged smartwatches.
Today I have the Max Pro X6 from Indian watchmaker Maxima, which promises to be more than just a notifier. It includes features like SpO2 tracking, IP rating, but most importantly, it can also be used to answer phone calls, a feature that most watches in this segment don’t have. Is it better compared to feature-proven watches like Redmi Watch or Realme Watch 2 Pro? Let’s find out.
Maxima Max Pro X6 price in India
The Maxima Max Pro X6 can be purchased online through the company’s own website or from online retailers for Rs. 3,999. It is available in a single case size of 43 mm. The smartwatch is available in four colors: black, black and gold, peach and gold and silver.
You can also track sleep habits using Maxima Max Pro X6
Photo credit: Robin John/Gadgets360
Maxima Max Pro X6 Project
The design of the Maxima Max Pro X6 is heavily inspired by the Apple Watch, as it has a rectangular case and a crown on the right side. The watch has a metallic case with a glossy finish that gives it a premium look and feel. It has a 1.7-inch screen with 400 nits of brightness. You can press the crown to go to the home screen and even rotate it, although there is no function attached to the rotate action as it is for display only.
Pressing the crown also allows you to turn the screen on or off, exit to the home page, stop activities, and a long press allows you to turn off the device. It has a heart rate sensor and an SpO2 sensor on the back, as well as two magnetic contact pins for charging. You’ll also find the speaker and microphone here, which is an odd place to put it in my opinion, as your wrist tends to cover them when you wear it.
The Maxima Max Pro 6 has good quality rubber straps that are easy to remove as well as replace. If you are not a fan of the black straps, you can exchange them for other 20mm watch straps. The watch is quite light and weighs only 44g. The Max Pro X6 is IP67 rated, which means it shouldn’t be an issue when swimming or showering. It is compatible with Android devices running on Android 5.0 and above and iOS devices running on iOS 9.0 and above. In the box, you get manuals, a warranty card, and a charger that comes with a USB-A connector on one end and a proprietary magnetic charging pin on the other.
You cannot respond to notifications on Maxima Max Pro X6
Photo credit: Robin John/Gadgets360
Maxima Max Pro X6 software, interface and app
Maxima Max Pro X6 runs on a custom user interface (UI) similar to Fire-Boltt Talk. As mentioned earlier, the Max Pro X6 takes a lot of inspiration from the Apple Watch, and that influence also spills over into the software. The UI looks decent, but the screen isn’t very vivid due to low color saturation. Icons and text are also not very sharp and there are noticeable irregularities at the edges of these UI elements. You can set the app drawer to list style or honeycomb style, which resembles the app drawer on the Apple Watch.
Swiping down on the home screen allows you to check the weather, set the brightness level, turn battery saving mode on/off, and also turn on the flashlight, which basically raises the screen brightness to the highest level. Swiping right opens the step counter that shows details like the total number of steps taken in a day, the number of calories burned, along with the highest and lowest number of steps you’ve reached in a day. It also keeps a bar graph of the steps taken for the week, which gives you a good idea of your activity at a glance.
Maxima Max Pro X6 lets you switch between honeycomb view and list view for the app drawer
Photo credit: Robin John/Gadgets360
Swiping further to the right shows the data collected during sleep, which includes total sleep time, deep sleep, and light sleep. Scrolling further down will show a bar chart for the whole week similar to the step counter. Swiping right once more will show you all the health tracking features, starting with the heart rate monitor and SpO2 tracker. The last option is the Bluetooth phone call feature. It shows your recent call logs, a dial pad and also your contacts. You can store up to eight contacts on the watch itself. This must be added to the watch manually with the help of the app. One thing to note is that you cannot customize or shuffle the menu pages.
Speaking of the app, the Maxima Max Pro X6 needs the Da Fit app to pair with your smartphone. The app is available for Android and iOS devices. The pairing process was seamless and I didn’t face any issues when pairing it with my Realme 6 Pro or even my iPhone 12. Holding down the home screen lets you switch between different watch faces that come preloaded. You can store up to five faces on the watch at a time.
You can also choose the ones you want in the Da Fit app, which gives you a lot of options. Swiping up will show you all the notifications you’ve received. The app allows you to select which messaging or social networking apps can send notifications to your watch.
The Maxima Max Pro X6 also lets you use the watch as a remote shutter for your phone’s camera. You can use it to control the music that is playing on your phone, although it cannot store any music on the watch, and it cannot read any of the music’s metadata such as song name, artist, etc.
Maxima Max Pro X6 takes up to two hours to fully charge
Photo credit: Robin John/Gadgets360
Maxima Max Pro X6 performance and battery life
I’ve been using the Maxima Max Pro X6 for almost a month now, and during that time I’ve had no problems using it for long hours on a daily basis. The screen quality is decent and it looks very bright with good outdoor visibility too. I didn’t face any problems using it in direct sunlight either. As there is no auto-brightness function, you will have to manually set the value every time you exit.
The Max Pro X6 also works well as a notifier. You can get notifications from your WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc chats. It can show up to 13 lines of a message. It can also display messages that are in Hindi, although the formatting is a bit strange and hard to understand. However, the only thing stopping the Max Pro X6 from being a true smartwatch is the fact that you can’t respond to any of the message notifications from the watch itself.
Maxima Max Pro X6 allows you to answer calls directly from the watch. You can answer the call on the watch itself once the call function is activated in the settings. The speaker gets very loud, but the mic quality is average at best, which is to be expected in this price range. You will have to hold the watch a little closer to your mouth so that the person on the other end of the line can hear you clearly. Despite the awkward placement of the microphone and speaker, it worked decently well during my tests.
One bizarre quirk that pissed me off, and something we noticed with Fire-Boltt Talk as well, was that once you enabled the call function, the watch speaker doubles as a Bluetooth speaker and any kind of audio. from your phone, be it from YouTube, Netflix or any other app, is routed to the watch’s speaker. The only way to avoid this is by disabling the calling function or disabling the ‘Media Audio’ permission in Bluetooth settings on Android.
The heart rate sensor was accurate on most parts when compared to the Amazfit Verge Lite. The app also allows you to monitor your heart rate continuously throughout the day. Keep in mind that this will drain your battery faster. I ran our standard tests which involved walking 1000 steps to test step tracking. The Maxima Max Pro X6 recorded around 1004 and 1007 for the two tests I did, which is an acceptable result.
Maxima Max Pro X6 offers eight different sport activity modes
Photo credit: Robin John/Gadgets360
SpO2 tracking was also very accurate when tested alongside a medical grade oximeter. However, I still suggest using dedicated devices made for these tests rather than relying on your smartwatch. The watch also has sleep tracking abilities and in my tests it was pretty accurate.
Maxima claims up to 10 days of battery life for the Max Pro X6 with the calling feature off, and about three days with the calling feature on. In my tests, the watch lasted four days with Bluetooth off and about two to three days with Bluetooth on. For a watch without built-in GPS, I expected a lot more runtime between charges.
During this time, the watch was always connected to the phone with notifications for all social media apps, plus phone calls and SMS enabled. I tested this with quick view turned on, which turns the screen on with a flick of the wrist. The watch does not display the percentage of battery remaining on the watch. It just shows a bar on fast toggles. You will have to access the app from time to time to check the battery percentage.
As for charging, the watch took about two hours to fully charge. The proprietary charger is a little difficult to handle. You should make sure to place it at an angle so that it clicks into place and doesn’t accidentally disconnect.
DaFit app has many watch faces to choose from
Photo credit: Robin John/Gadgets360
Verdict
Smartwatches with calling features below Rs. 5,000 is very rare. The Maxima Max Pro X6 is one of the few exceptions that offers this feature in this segment. The ability to make calls anywhere on your watch is a very useful feature. The watch also has a bright display, it does very well in terms of recording sleep data and your steps. I feel like the Max Pro X6 could have done a lot better in terms of battery life and its software, which could use a little more refinement to improve the UI experience. In addition to the Max Pro X6, you can also check out our review of the Fire Boltt Talk, which also has calling functions and is similarly priced.