Michael Kors Women Gen 5E Darci Touchscreen Smartwatch with Speaker, Heart Rate, GPS, NFC, and Smartphone Notifications

Product Information

Thanks to Google Fit, you’ve got different types of fitness tracking on board, including walking, HIIT, weight training and yoga. For iOS users, the Wear OS platform is nowhere near as fluid as Apple's watchOS platform and the Apple Watch, but for Android users everything is a little more seamless, as you would expect. Heart rate readings while you’re working out are mostly accurate and stable too, which is an improvement over the first MKGO. Although occasionally it was more fussy than other devices and needed a little longer or a short walk in another direction to connect. If you're after a smart, stylish smartwatch and the blingy style is a little bit of you, then the Michael Kors Gen 5E Darci is a good option to consider.

Our phone rang for 8 to 10 seconds before it registered on the watch and the connection was also slow, which isn't a great experience.

We’ve put the latest version of Michael Kors’ sporty smartwatch to the test to see if it can serve up both style and substance this time around. That means that while the Wear OS platform is fine - it offers good third-party support and various features, as well as an easy-to-navigate interface - you won't get the latest features offered by Wear OS 3, as the Galaxy Watch 4 offers. There’s also sleep tracking available, which you can view via the Google Fit app, but we’re not sure how useful this will be considering most people are likely to charge up the watch overnight so they don’t miss out on using it the next day.

You'll often see her name on some of our biggest features, including many of the versus articles and the rumour round ups, but she is also responsible for ensuring all the other great features from other members of the team cover off everything you might want to know about. There's also a Custom option, Daily option and an Extended mode, the last of which makes certain adjustments to prolong battery life, such as putting Bluetooth on a schedule. Britta is the Deputy Editor of Pocket-lint and has been a part of the team, covering consumer technology since 2012. Although this does stick up off your wrist, it didn’t catch on things throughout the day – and standing out is the whole point of the Gen 5E Darci. The new MKGO Gen 5E is lighter, smaller and has a silicone strap that looks and feels workout-friendly.

It’s similar to the battery life you’d expect from the likes of the latest Apple Watch Series 6 as well.

You’ll need Google Fit to track your workouts, as well as the Wear OS app, which can be a bit frustrating if you like all of your smartwatch notifications and fitness notifications in one place. For those who love the blingy look that Michael Kors offers in some of its designs, the Darci smartwatch will be right up your alley. In that time she’s covered topics from robotics and virtual reality to simulated universe theory and brain-computer interfaces for a wide range of titles, including TechRadar, New Scientist, Wired UK, OneZero by Medium, Stuff, T3, Metro and many more. If you want best-in-class tracking and more battery life, you might have to ditch the bling and look elsewhere. The MKGO Gen 5E is marketed as a sportier Michael Kors option but has many of the same fitness tracking features.It's the Michael Kors extra features that make the Darci more exciting than other Wear OS smartwatches though. The Michael Kors Access Gen 5E Darci smartwatch has the same internals as Fossil's Gen 5E smartwatch, but in a more fashionable shell and with a few extra Michael Kors-specific features. For example, dialling up the brightness and using the watch for fitness tracking can drain it quickly. If you’re looking for a fashion-focused smartwatch that’s genuinely wearable every day and has some solid features built-in, the MKG Gen 5E might work for you.

We found these to be accurate overall, even if it did seem like it didn’t react as quickly as the device we used as a test – the Whoop Band 3. They all fall under the Fossil umbrella, which not only has its own-branded smartwatches, but other designer brands aside from Michael Kors too, like Kate Spade and Diesel. There are some clever battery modes though, including a Time-Only mode that will display the time on the always-on face, but won't deliver any notifications. You can also download tracks to the on-board storage to listen to if you don't want to bring your phone with you. hours, then it switched to one of its helpful battery saving modes and became just a regular old dumb watch – so the screen displayed the time and nothing else.Although the MKGO Gen 5E has a more minimal design than other smartwatches from Michael Kors, it’s still unashamedly fashion-focused with plenty of sparkles thanks to a pave-studded ring around the edge of the screen. This isn’t the smallest case from Michael Kors, but smaller than the Bradshaw 2 and Lexington 2, which were bigger and bolder in every way. That’s a pretty significant leap, especially if you’re going to regularly use the fitness tracking features.