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The Apple Watch has been out for over a year now, and we've seen hundreds upon hundreds
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of Chinese clones. Whilst I've always frowned upon them, I've never actually tried one out for myself
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This is the Lenfo Bluetooth Smartwatch Phone GSM Pedometer Fitness Tracker. But for this video, I'm just going to use the abbreviation LF07
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It's currently on Amazon for just under $67, which is a huge jump down from the $299 Apple
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Watch Sport. But the question is, is it any good? Taking a look at the box, it's as simple as it can possibly be, with the only references
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being a non-branded title of just Smartwatch on the front, and some specs on the back
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Opening up the box, you'll find the watch itself, which we'll come back to in just a second
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A charging cable, an additional screen protector, one is already installed onto the watch, and
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a user manual. As to be expected from a Chinese clone, the instructions are translated from Chinese to
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some form of understandable Chinglish. The charger itself isn't actually too bad
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The USB cable connects magnetically to the side of the watch, and it doesn't feel like
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it's going to immediately break, which is a plus. The watch itself does a good job of looking like the Apple Watch
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It's built fairly well, and the materials are surprisingly good considering this is
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under $70. The case itself feels like aluminium, with the band feeling almost identical to Apple's
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sport bands, if not only a little thicker. The downside here though, is that the bands aren't interchangeable
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So once you choose a band, you're stuck with it. The Amazon description describes the screen as a 2.5 inch Arc HD touch screen
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I've got no idea what Arc means, but it's definitely not HD
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But it's by no means bad. The text is legible, and bright enough to see even in direct sunlight
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Connecting the watch to a smartphone is a little tricky at first, especially as I only
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scanned the Chinglish manual. There's two apps to connect the LF07, one for fitness, and one for general settings
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Again, both of these can be found in the iOS and Android app stores
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Once set up though, there's a decent amount of features on the watch, with everything from messaging, fitness tracking, a calculator, Siri connection
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remote capture, and even a camera. Although, the camera's not much use
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Partially to being stuck on your wrist, partially due to it being a crappy camera
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But to be fair, this is a $66 smartwatch, so hats off to beating Apple to that one
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You also have the ability to insert a SIM card into the watch and run it as a fully
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fledged phone. Thanks to it using an old fashioned sized SIM though, I wasn't able to try this out
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But you can also connect it to your iPhone to make calls and texts, which I did try
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As you can probably tell, it's not great. You can hear each other, but it sounds like you're whispering in a church hall
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Whilst the Apple Watch isn't particularly good for phone calls, it's still a lot better
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and usable. The speakers on the LF07 are awful. Unless you're playing polyphonic tones from the 90s, it's not much use elsewhere
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In addition to all of the apps it has installed, there's also a selection of watch faces, which
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you can easily switch out by long pressing on the screen and swiping across
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This is something Apple has only just implemented itself with the latest watchOS betas
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You can also choose between two different menu styles. Either the exploded app view, which is very similar to that of the Apple Watch, or the
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much smarter, easier version of a tile view, which is something I've wanted Apple to implement
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since its initial release. Although we are one step closer with the app drawer in watchOS 3
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The LF07 has actually surprised me. OK, so it's not going to compete with the Apple Watch any time soon, but if you've been
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undecisive about splashing out $300 on Apple's wearable, the Lenfo LF07 is a great, low cost
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alternative to experiencing a smartwatch for the first time. So is it any good
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I'd say so, yeah. Well that's it for this video, but let me know in the comments down below what you think
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of the Apple Watch clones. Would you ever buy one? Let me know in the comments section down below
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Also if you enjoyed this video, help me out and smash that like button and don't forget
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to hit subscribe so you don't miss a single video from Cult of Mac. I'll catch you in the next one
