Misfit Vapor review

The days of Misfit the fitness tracker startup are over. Since being bought by the Fossil Group, the company has turned its head to smartwatches too.

It's already launched the Misfit Phase, its first hybrid smartwatch, with the new Misfit Command to follow, and now it's getting more ambitious with the Misfit Vapor, a full-fat Android Wear smartwatch that's moving firmly into Apple Watch Series 2 territory.

We've now played with the Vapor a few times since it was announced in January, but now we're gearing up for its October 2017 release with a few more details on features from IFA 2017. We've no price details yet, but we should get a review sample in the coming weeks. For now here's our first impressions of the Vapor.

MISFIT VAPOR: PRICE & AVAILABILITY

Yes, you read that correctly. This smartwatch was unveiled back in January (which is when we originally wrote this hands-on review) and it still hasn't hit the shelves. But the good news is that the company has announced its release date at last, and even better: it's this month!

You'll be able to get your hands on the Vapor from Tuesday 31 October from misfit.com.

We’re impressed by the Vapor’s price tag. It’s set to retail at $199, which we think will be between £179 and £199 in the UK. When you take into consideration the watch’s features, which we talk more about below, that’s a brilliantly low price for what you get.

MISFIT VAPOR: DESIGN & BUILD 

The Misfit Vapor is a really good-looking device. We love that Misfit has opted to go for the traditional round watch shape, and has managed to do so without requiring the flat tyre that some other watches including Motorola’s Moto 360 suffer from. 

The screen on the Vapor is 1.4in AMOLED with a 326 ppi pixel density, and we were really impressed with how bright and vivid the colours are. The great contrast meant the blacks really are black too. The screen seemed to be reasonably unreflective, but we’ve yet to try it in direct sunlight which is when you might need to use it most whilst out on a run. 

The watch uses a virtual bezel around the circumference of the screen for navigation between applications and its menus, and using this bezel doesn’t cover up the content of the display itself so is easy and efficient on such a small screen. Clever. 

The watch comes in one size: 44mm. In our photographs it’s being worn by a woman with very small wrists and we still think it looks good and not too oversized even then. It’s stainless steel and is available in Jet Black or Rose Gold. There are interchangeable straps available too.