Smartwatch
Titan
Wearable

Titan Celestor review

A fancy smartwatch for fancy people

₹ 9,995

You can’t have not heard of Titan, and chances are you or a family member has at some point or currently owns a Titan wristwatch. However, it isn’t always the first brand that comes to mind when you think of smartwatches. Nonetheless, Titan is keeping with the times, and has a considerable range of smartwatches available now. Many of these come with a decent set of features, and reasonable price tags that match up to the Titan philosophy of being accessible to everyone without a compromise on quality.

The latest in the smartwatch range from the brand is the Titan Celestor. Priced at Rs. 9,995, the new smartwatch has a big circular screen, GPS connectivity for accurate workout tracking, and a few other impressive geo and health tracking features. Usefully, it also looks nice, but how does it perform? Find out in this review.

Titan Celestor review: Design and specifications

Titan Celestor 2

The Titan Celestor is among the brand’s premium smartwatch offerings at just under Rs. 10,000, and comes with the design and specifications to go with the price tag. This includes a metal case, 1.43-inch high-resolution AMOLED display with a rated peak brightness of 750 nits, and built-in GPS, altimeter, barometer, and compass. There are two buttons on the right side of the watch - one regular button at the bottom to quickly bring up the sports tracking modes, and combination button-and-dial crown which can be used to scroll, navigate, and open the full app list or go back. A long press of the crown button also controls the power.

Available in three colours - black, blue, and beige - the Titan Celestor comes with replaceable silicone straps. It has a 3ATM water resistance rating, so you can put it through a fair amount of water exposure, including going for swims. The left side of the watch has the microphone and speaker system, which lets you use it to place and receive calls from your Bluetooth-paired smartphone.

Titan Celestor 3

The display of the watch is rather sharp, and quite nice to look at. The AMOLED tech means there is an always-on display mode that shows the time on the watch face even when it’s on standby. Lift-to-wake means that you don’t need to tap the screen or press the button to wake the watch to take a quick glance at the on-screen info, but you can turn that off and rely on those if you prefer.

Other useful specifications and features on the Titan Celestor include heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring, step and sleep tracking, alarms and timers, weather information, and remote controls for smartphone functions such as music, camera shutter, and quickly finding the smartphone by causing it to ring.

Titan Celestor review: App and UI

Titan Celestor 4

Like many of the entry-level and mid-range smartwatches available today, the Titan Celestor has a custom OS that is built around its specifications and feature set, and works exclusively with the Titan Smart app installed on your Android or iOS smartphone. Naturally, this means that you don’t have access to any additional apps or services outside of what’s already installed on the smartwatch.

That said, it’s a straightforward and efficient approach, since the Titan Celestor already has all the apps it needs to support its feature set. This includes apps for fitness, health, and sports recording and tracking, alarms and timers, geo tracking, and controls for smartphone functions such as music and the camera shutter.

Watch faces can be changed either on the Celestor itself (a handful are stored on the device) or through the Titan Smart app. Most of these look quite nice, and proudly sport the Titan logo both in active and always-on mode, so your new smartwatch is always distinguishable for its branding.

There is also a phone app that lets you place calls directly from the smartwatch, similar to how you’d use a small Bluetooth speaker as a hands-free device. Everything is designed for ease of use and clear visibility, and the Titan Celestor gets it right in making for a user-friendly and easy-to-use smartwatch interface. The Titan Smart app itself is similarly easy to get used to, and also maintains a stable connection with the smartwatch for synchronising data, sending notifications, and receiving calls from the paired smartphone.

Titan Celestor review: Performance and battery life

Titan Celestor 5

The Titan Celestor is pitched as a design-focused smartwatch, and features such as the functioning crown and sharp AMOLED screen help to set it apart aesthetically. Stable Bluetooth connectivity also means that it works rather well as a notifier for your smartphone, sending across notifications reliably and efficiently from various apps.

That said, it can’t quite replicate your smartphone’s notification settings perfectly as is the case with Wear OS devices, so you’ll find the watch buzzing and flagging you for something that is only a pop-up on your smartphone. For example, I didn’t really need the smartwatch to buzz for the normally silent weather alerts. The solution here is to turn off notifications for specific apps on the Titan Celestor entirely, but this isn’t an ideal solution.

Calls work well, and you can use the Titan Celestor to even answer calls directly on your wrist, which uses the smartwatch as a Bluetooth speaker. This works for occasional and short calls; longer conversations and anything in a loud environment isn’t ideal on the Celestor, as is typical with most smartwatches.

Titan Celestor 6

Many of the tracking features on the Titan Celestor are less than ideal in the way they function. Step tracking on the Celestor was a fair bit off from what I counted manually over a 1000-step walk, overcounting by around 90 steps. The heart-rate sensor couldn’t get an accurate measurement while on the move, and even after holding still the count still seemed a bit low at more active rates. 

The barometer and altimeter would give different figures on different days at the same height. The only somewhat accurate readings were from the sleep tracking, which gave a realistic number of hours asleep and seemingly on-point sleep details. As such, I wouldn’t rely on the Titan Celestor for any health or geo-tracking functionality.

Battery life on the Titan Celestor is pretty good, with the smartwatch running for 6-7 days on a single charge even with heavy usage involving lots of notifications, a few calls, and occasional workout tracking. The smartwatch charges quickly with its included charger as well.

Verdict

Entry level and mid-range smartwatches are aplenty, but the Titan Celestor stands out among the crowd for its design, excellent display, and the goodwill of its brand name. Stable connectivity, good functionality for calls and notifications, and decent battery life also help it set itself apart. Health and geo tracking functionality doesn’t quite live up to expectations, but it’s a stylish smartwatch that gets the look and feel on point, and runs for long enough on a charge that you don’t need to deal with low-battery anxiety.

Stuff Says

A good-looking smartwatch with decent battery life, but don't rely on it for tracking
Good stuff
Bad stuff
  1. Looks and feels good

  1. Functional crown is super useful

  1. Excellent watch faces

  1. Very good battery life

  1. Health and geo tracking isn’t good

  1. Notifications can sometimes be a bit too pesky

Specifications
Display: 1.43-inch Super AMOLED
Health tracking: Steps, Heart Rate, Blood Oxygen, Sleep
Geo tracking: Location, Altitude, Atmospheric Pressure
Water resistance: 3ATM
Features: Notifications, Bluetooth calling
App compatibility: Android, iOS