The Moto 360 -- which holds the distinction of being the first circular Android Wear timepiece -- is available in the US starting September 5 for $250. It will come to other parts of the world later this year (local pricing has yet to be determined).
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| MOTO 360 |
It's been a long time coming. Despite its end of summer launch window, the Moto's curved stylings were enough to overshadow the first pair of Android Wear watches, the squared off, uninspired, cheap-looking LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live. In the meantime, though, a second wave of Android Wear watches has already begun jockeying for attention (and disposable income).
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| DIFFERENT DIALS OF MOTO 360 |
But those new models are still over the horizon. The 360 is here now. But was it worth the wait?
I finally have one on my wrist, and have had a chance to start playing around with it. It's definitely an eye-catcher, but not entirely as exciting as it once was on paper.
FEATURES
The Moto 360 is the first round Android Wear smartwatch. Others will come, including the LG G Watch R, but this is the first you can buy. At $250 in the US (it'll arrive in other countries later this year), it's $30 more than the original LG G Watch, and $50 more than the Samsung Gear Live.
It has a look that definitely feels premium: everything about the Moto 360 looks clean and well-made: polished steel, a thin watchband that tucks underneath, and a beautiful set of specially-designed software watch faces.
The Moto 360 has a few hardware features that could set it apart besides design: it has inductive charging, which works without any dongle. Yes, you still need the included charging dock to drop the watch into, which still saddles you with an accessory. Still, it's a lot nicer than most clip-on charging accessories.
There's also an optical heart rate monitor on the watch's backside, like Samsung's smartwatches have. Motorola's is differently engineered, and also has different software: a beautiful round dial shows not only your heart rate, but your activity intensity, estimated by heart rate. The app will track how many targeted active minutes a day that you exercise, with a goal of 30 moderate activity minutes five days a week.
The Moto 360 leans heavily on voice commands, like all Android Wear watches, but Motorola promises an extra dash of natural language processing and noise-cancelling microphone excellence on the Moto 360. The Moto 360 understands what I say, but in noisy places it might have an edge on the competition.
SIZE
The Moto 360's 1.56-inch-diameter round display is big, bold, and feels a lot larger than a square display. It has a 320x290 resolution, effectively, at 205ppi. Actually, it's not fully round: there's a bit of a black bar on the bottom, perhaps a consequence of Motorola going for such a thin bezel that a custom round display needed to be crafted. That bit of black ruins the effect a bit, and mars the look of Motorola's pre-installed beautiful round watch faces. In a way, it shatters some of the illusion that the watch is trying to create when it's in watch mode. It's a shame, because every other part of the Moto 360's screen, and its really thin bezel, is really impressive to behold.
