We strap on the Acer Leap+, Acer’s nifty and uber-affordable smart band which packs plenty of features and a customisable design for just £79
You might have noticed a bit of a wearables trend at MWC 2015, and Acer is the latest company to launch a new smart band. The Acer Leap+ is its follow-up to the original Leap, and for a cheap and cheerful device it definitely seems to do the job.
The Leap+ is actually a tiny, rounded pebble-like device which slots into a rubbery wrist band. You can therefore customise the thing with whatever colours you like, swapping on a daily basis to keep the look fresh. It’s a slender band, slimmer than the likes of the Fitbit Charge, so you’ll pretty much forget you’re wearing it and it can easily be covered by a sleeve when needed.
You’ll notice there are no buttons on the Leap+, so all of your interactions are done by tapping and swiping. The double-tap-to-wake feature seems a little hit-and-miss, at least at first when you’re not sure how fast or how hard to tap the display. Fingers crossed it’s something you get used to quickly, which we’ll test in our full review.
When you do manage to wake the Leap+, you’re immediately shown the time as well as today’s date, something most wearables forget about entirely but proves very useful indeed. You can swipe up and down to get to the menus, then tap an icon to enter the sub-menus. As well as the usual settings, you can check out your fitness stats, access your media, check for notifications and so on.
As a simple timepiece and notifications centre, the Leap+ seems to work perfectly well, and it’s a lot cheaper than most other wearables out there. Fitness fans will want to stick with the likes of Fitbit, but if notifications are a priority for you and you don’t want to raid the savings, we reckon the Leap+ could be a winner.
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