A $40 smartwatch? That's crazy. It's just a toy, right?

That's what I thought when I read about the Martian Notifier watch. But then I read the reviews on Amazon. People raved about it. Four stars. 567 reviews. So maybe it's not a toy, I thought. For $40 (which is what I paid for it -- it's now $30), I can afford to take a chance.

That was in January. I wore my Martian Notifier for months after that, until last week. And I still love my $40 smartwatch.

Figure 1: $40 Smartwatch The Martian Notifier

For starters, the Notifier is nice-looking watch. On the surface, it's a traditional electronic wristwatch with an analog face. It looks like something a grown-up would wear. It's a black watch, with hands, and a plastic band. It's not the fanciest watch on anyone's wrist, but it doesn't scream NERD WATCH. And it doesn't look like a garish toy. Though if you want the garish toy look, you can get the Notifier in bright colors.

The Notifier has a vibrator and a 1.5 inch OLED display occupying the space between the 4 and 8. That's where the magic happens. You use the watch to receive notifications from your phone. When you get a notification, the watch vibrates and the text of the notification shows up on the OLED display. It works with the iPhone and Android. I'm using mine with an iPhone 6.

Any app that sends a notification to the iPhone Notification Center can also send a notification to the watch, via Bluetooth. Your command center for the watch is an app you download to the phone from the app store.

I used the notifications all day, for text messages, and timers and reminders, as an alarm clock to wake me up, and more. When I got a notification, I glanced at the watch face to see what I was being informed of. If the notification required action, I picked up the phone and dealt with it.

It works for calendar reminders, email notifications, social media notifications, and more. If you want to get notifications on the phone but not the watch, you can customize that in the iPhone app.

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For $40 I got most of the important capabilities available in far more expensive smartwatches, like the Apple Watch -- starting price, $299. And unlike the Apple Watch, the Notifier is fast and responsive.

For battery life, the Martian Notifier blows away the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch charge lasts about a day. The Martian Notifier uses two batteries. One is just for the timekeeper function -- the dumb watch, you might say. That lasts two or three years. The battery for the smartwatch part of the Notifier lasts 8-10 days, in my experience -- much better than the 4-5 day battery life described in the documentation.

Next page: But nothing's perfect

Complaints? I only have one significant complaint, which is that the watchband broke after I'd had the thing about five weeks. That's a shame, because it happened just as I was heading to New York for my nieces' Bat Mitzvahs, and I wanted to show the watch to my family and friends. I like to do that. "Guess how much I paid for this great watch?" I say. "Go ahead, guess." This probably explains why I don't get invited out much anymore.

When I wrote to the company about the problem (the company is called Martian Watches), they grumbled a little first and then sent me a free replacement watchband.

Another problem: It's easy to make mistakes with the settings. That's particularly a problem when using the watch as an alarm clock. Make a mistake setting up airplane mode or Do Not Disturb, and you'll either miss notifications, or you'll get a notification waking you up in the middle of the night.

Also: The watch uses a Micro USB cord to charge. It's a special cord, with an extra-long metal stem to embed deep in the guts of the watch. Standard Micro USB cords won't charge the watch. So that's another cord I had to remember to pack when traveling, and that I could lose. On the other hand, the Notifier cord can be used to charge other Micro USB devices.

Another drawback: You can't do anything with the iPhone notifications you receive on the watch. You can't reply to text messages, use your watch to dismiss notifications on your phone, or pause or play audio from your watch. You have to use the phone for that.

Still, I'm a happy customer. The Martian Notifier was a great $40.

However, alas, my days with the Martian Notifier watch drew to a close. I liked having a smartwatch so much I decided to upgrade. No, not to the Apple Watch, which still seems egregiously expensive. Instead, I've been wearing a $100 Pebble Time on my wrist for a week.

The face of the Pebble Time is epaper -- similar to the display on a Kindle, although the Pebble Time is color where the kindle is black-and-white. That means the whole watch face is smart, showing more information than the little sliver of OLED in the Martian Notifier. The Pebble has a health monitor that tracks sleep and exercise. It controls phone audio, gets Google Maps directions, and replies to messages. It even tells me the weather. In other words, Pebble Time does lot more than the Notifier, and still costs a lot less than the Apple Watch.

So while I love the Martian Notifier watch for all the things it can do for a ridiculously low price, the Pebble Time now has my heart -- and wrist.

— Mitch Wagner, , Editor, Light Reading Enterprise Cloud.