Not totally sure what you mean by "out there", but it holds up just fine for me. People comment that I have a good looking watch and only really notice that it's a smart watch when they try and see why I'm fiddling with buttons to read and dismiss notifications.
My only complaint is they try and be clever and detect when you move your wrist up to look at it, so it auto-shows you notifications. This sucks because it's not totally reliable (so half the time I press the button to bring up notifications and it ends up dismissing them because they are already in view, and other times it triggers due to an incorrect motion). I wish you could turn that off but I haven't found a way yet.
I've had this watch for about 3 months now. The first charge only lasted about 2 weeks but after that I actually got more than 30 days on the 2nd charge and going strong on my 3rd charge now, so the battery life claims definitely are true (though I did uninstall the weather app cause it was useless).
The build quality is good. People say it's a little thick but I guess my arms are big enough that I don't notice. I got the leather band and it's never felt uncomfortable to me.
I would recommend a screen protector (Amazon has some good fitting ones for cheap) but that's probably because it's been a decade since I wore a walk and got a tiny scratch because the first day I wore it I accidentally flailed my arm towards a brick column at work. It scratched the face a tiny bit (not really noticable) but I feel much safer with a screen protector.
Any other specific things you'd like to know I'm happy to answer.
> My only complaint is they try and be clever and detect when you move your wrist up to look at it, so it auto-shows you notifications. This sucks because it's not totally reliable (so half the time I press the button to bring up notifications and it ends up dismissing them because they are already in view, and other times it triggers due to an incorrect motion). I wish you could turn that off but I haven't found a way yet.
The Pebble watchface Time Orbit by Spectre Collie has the very same problem. I love the watchface looks, but if you tilt it, it decides to show other info such as date. It is a usability problem.
There's a rather large difference between the Vector and Pebble though. I checked various Vector watches and saw most at 500 USD, with one at 400 USD. So the cheapest Vector appears to be about 4 times more expensive than a Pebble 2 Classic. I don't know, that just doesn't seem like a fair comparison.
By "out there" I mean things like hiking, biking, travel, etc. Away from a sterile lab/work type environment. Things like scratches, rain, dust. Most smartwatches work ok only if really babied.
Interesting to know about the display of the notifications. I was wondering how cleverly they did that, and if it was a check box. Sounds like it needs to be a checkbox or something.
The only scratch I have on it so far is from hitting the watch face against a brick column, but I don't even notice it anymore even looking for it.
Even as careful as I try to be with it I know I still hit it against things and it hasn't scratched up at all. Wheither that's due to the screen protector (not tempered glass, just a standard plastic protector you'd lay on a phone) or not I don't know, but it's held up pretty well. That includes biking and running outside.
I literally only take it off if I go for a swim or at night when I sleep (I don't like having something on my wrist while sleeping)
I also do want to say that looking at the Vector Watch SDK, everything with the watch is done through there servers. So that means that if they do go out of business I don't have much faith in the real smart functionality (outside of notifications) still working reliably.
That being said, as long as time and notification works I'm good.
[1] http://vectorwatch.com/