Misfit Vapor 2 vs. Mobvoi TicWatch Pro: Which should you buy

Mobvoi TicWatch Pro

Small wrists need not apply to the TicWatch Pro, but if you have large enough wrists to accomodate it, it delivers every feature you could ask for and some of the best battery life we've seen on any Wear OS watch.

Misfit Vapor 2

The Misfit Vapor 2's greatest strength is its design. Its simple aesthetic works just about everywhere and the two size options make it accessible to wrists both big and small. Unfortunately, performance and battery woes hold it back.

With both watches selling for $250, the TicWatch Pro is the better overall option thanks to its exceptional battery life and unique dual screen technology. You should only really buy the Vapor 2 if you're in love with the way it looks or find a good deal on it.

A battle of aesthetics and battery life

Alright, so your Wear OS journey has lead you to two possible options — the Misfit Vapor 2 and Mobvoi TicWatch Pro. Both watches cost exactly the same, and as a result of this, you'll find a lot of the same features shared across each one.

Both the Vapor 2 and TicWatch Pro have heart-rate sensors, built-in GPS chips for mapping outdoor runs or walks without needing a connected phone, NFC for contactless payments with Google Pay, and water resistance that allow you to go swimming with them. All of these are excellent attributes and things we've come to expect from a Wear OS watch hitting the market these days.

A less than desirable trait shared between both watches is the chipset that powers them. At the heart of the Vapor 2 and TicWatch Pro is the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100. It's a processor that was first released back in 2016, and it's definitely showing its age.

Opening apps, raise-to-wake gestures, and navigating through the UI regularly feels slower than you'd probably like. It's certainly less than ideal, but that's the reality of using Wear OS with the 2100. It's not a game-breaking experience, but it's also an annoyance that doesn't go away.

Each watch has one big difference that makes it better than the other, and with the Vapor 2, that standout aspect is its design. Misfit offers the Vapor 2 in both 41mm and 46mm case sizes, making it accessible to people of all wrist sizes. Add that together with a sleek, understated design that pretty much fades into the background, and it's something I greatly prefer over the chunky, meatball-like build of the TicWatch Pro.

Then again, that chunkiness of the TicWatch Pro is warranted in one very important way — battery life.

On the Vapor 2, you'll only get around one day of use per charge. On the TicWatch Pro, you can get up to five days with regular use and up to 30 days if you take advantage of its Essential Mode.

The TicWatch Pro manages to offer so much endurance thanks to its unique dual-screen design. The primary AMOLED screen is what you'll use for interacting with the Wear OS interface, but you can easily switch to a grayscale panel that just shows the time, date, and your steps + heart rate. You can swap back and forth between these screens as you please, giving you great flexibility over the available battery endurance.