Moto 360 smartwatch First Impression

The much awaited Android Wear-powered 'timepiece' is finally here and we were among the few to play with it.

Is the Moto 360 the best smartwatch among the current crop? It's difficult to answer that without spending a few days with it but it did make an impression during the few minutes we were able to get our hands on it.

MOTO 360

The first thing that comes to your mind when you see the Moto 360 is that it looks like a real watch. Unlike some of the other smartwatches that we've used, it doesn't look like a miniature wrist smartphone. This is essentially where the Moto 360 leaves the others behind.
                                
While it's not in the league of jewel-adorned, crafted Swiss timepieces, the Moto 360 looks stunning thanks to the stainless steel case and Horween leather strap. The watch is water resistant (IP67) which means it can handle occasional spills and splashes. 
But does it also look good on the wrist? Not quite. The Moto 360 looks oversized, especially on petite wrists. The big dial is overbearing and looks a little odd compared to conventional wrist watches. It is also pretty thick at 11.5mm and heavy at 49gram. The watch has a single crown-like hardware button that brings up the system menu. 

Moto 360 sports a 1.56-inch backlit LCD display with 320x290p screen resolution. The display has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection against scratches. It offers excellent viewing angles and brightness levels, despite being slightly reflective. The different watch-faces come to life, making it look like a real watch.

The one oddity that remains is the black strip at the bottom that prevents the display from being truly circular. It looks awkward at first but you tend to forget about it as you start using the watch.


The Moto 360 is powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP 3 processor and 512MB RAM. It runs Google's Android Wear operating system and has to be connected with smartphones running Android 4.3 or higher via Bluetooth LE. You can access the menu and navigate through the different apps and functions through the touch display or make use of voice commands (the watch has two microphones).

The "Ok Google" command can help you give instructions to the watch to send text messages, set a reminder, check the weather, track your heart rate, open an app control music or ask for directions. The demo unit at the launch venue did not really respond to the commands due to excessive ambient noise and poor internet connectivity. Voice commands work for offline features work even if the watch is not connected to the internet.
Motorola has got a lot of things right with the Moto 360 but we'd want our smartwatch to last longer than just a day. The watch costs $249.99 (Rs 15,000 approximately) in the US and is slated to arrive in India, later this month. We'll have a full review up when we get a chance to use the watch for a few days.