Becca has been writing about technology for nearly ten years. In that time she’s covered topics from robotics and virtual reality to simulated universe theory and brain-computer interfaces for a wide range of titles, including TechRadar, New Scientist, Wired UK, OneZero by Medium, Stuff, T3, Metro and many more.

On the inside of the Gen 5E Darci, you’ll find the same smarts as the Fossil Gen 5E smartwatch, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor and 512MB of RAM. Performance was good and felt improved on previous versions of Michael Kors smartwatches. Fossil smartwatches are currently on Gen 5 hardware – and now Michael Kors has updated two of its lines to run on the latest hardware: the sportier Gen 5E MKGO and sparkling statement Darci Gen 5E Smartwatch. Michael Kors is one of the Fossil Brand army of fashion houses, and has gone all-in on fashion heavy smartwatches. Its focus is on the less techy crowd, who aren't so worried about specs, screen pixel densities or cutting edge health features. It wants those that are looking for a fashion watch first, with smart features as a bonus. This isn’t the first MKGO. We reviewed the original MKGO in 2020 and found that, although it looks good, it didn’t deliver in the fitness department.The smartwatch uses connected GPS, which worked well most of the time we used it for outdoor activities. Although occasionally it was more fussy than other devices and needed a little longer or a short walk in another direction to connect. The battery can last 24 hours, but that depends on how you use the smartwatch. For example, cranking up full-screen brightness, using GPS and taking heart rate readings will significantly drain it. Priced at , The MKGO Gen 5e is significantly cheaper than other options from Michael Kors – the latest Gen 5E Darci comes in at . But it’s also more affordable than the Apple Watch Series SE, Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 or Fitbit Versa 3.

The casing is made of stainless steel and has a stainless steel 7-link bracelet. The watch comes in rose gold, gold, silver and two-tone rose gold and silver. We had to have five links removed, so that’s worth bearing in mind if you have smaller wrists. If you really start pushing yourself the heart rate sensor does struggle to keep up – but for general gym workouts or runs – it's a solid performance that will give you a good estimate of your exertion and make post-workout data relevant and useful.The two devices recorded similar heart rate readings during a 40 minute spinning session. The Whoop Band 3.0 recorded an average of 118bpm throughout the session, the Darci 120bpm. The Whoop recorded a high of 145bpm and the Darci 142bpm. If you really start pushing your heart rate up and down the sensor will start to produce less accurate data – but as a general guide of effort on steady workouts, the sensor is good enough. The graph in the Whoop app showed much more sensitivity, but most people would be more than happy with the way Google Fit presents the data from the MKGO 5E – and you could always get a third-party fitness app if you wanted to try other options.