Razer Nabu X review

This fitness tracker for gamers could use a level up

Razer Nabu X

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Oddly, instead of using one app for all the Nabu X's needs, the band requires you to download two: Nabu X Utility and Nabu Fitness.

Razer Nabu X

The Utility app lets you customize the band's lights and notification system, set alarms, turn on social settings, enable sleep mode and check the battery level.

Nabu Fitness allows you to track steps, distance walked or ran, calories burnt and sleep. You can then separate the metrics into various time intervals to check in on your year, month, three months, week or day's worth of activity. Specific days can also be checked.

Razer Nabu X

Goals can be set to whatever parameters you choose through a sliding scale or by manually entering them in.

You can tap the top of the Nabu to see the progress of one goal, which you can set from the Utility app. One light signifies you're less than 33%, two lights means less than 67% and three means you've reached 100%. A blue, green and red light combo means you've surpassed your goal.

The sensitivity of the tracker was wonky at times and didn't always show up on the first tap.

Little line graphs are revealed when you select the different metrics, but they don't reveal much beyond laying out a generalized time when the activity took place, and the percentage of the goal completed.

The Nabu X's fitness tracking abilities seem to work well. While wearing my Apple Watch, I was able to compare the numbers of steps taken during a full day. With the exception of about 20 steps, the numbers of the X and Apple Watch matched up well: 3,941 and 3,922, respectively. Since it's difficult to discern which pedometer is spewing out the most accurate data, the close numbers tell me that they're both within a reasonable range.

There are no options to enter food intake, so the caloric information is extrapolated solely from the pedometer metrics. Since the app is pretty basic, I can see future software updates adding more fitness tracking capabilities.

Battery life

Most fitness trackers have great battery longevity, since there's usually no screen. The Nabu X happens to be one of these, boasting a lithium-polymer battery with five to seven days of battery life, depending on usage.

Razer Nabu X

With almost every social media notification, the handshake ability and sleep tracking turned on, my Nabu X is only down to 83% after three days. At this point, I expect it will last right up to seven days, or get pretty close.

Razer Nabu X

A proprietary charger is used with the X. This isn't surprising considering almost every wearable on the market has its own special type of charger.