The $250 Motorola Moto 360 – the Incredible Hulk of the Android Wear ecosystem – smashes its way into the wearable tech world with a circular screen and non-proprietary wireless Qi-charger, features unique among its peers. The smartwatch fuses beautiful and sleek design with functionality. But does it beat the $199 LG G Watch or the $199 Samsung Gear Live?
Another question that I pose toward our readership: Should you wait for the upcoming avalanche of Android Wear products this holiday season?
Feel and Aesthetic Design
The Moto 360 comes with two possible bands, depending on what you buy – although users can swap out the default wrist strap for another 22mm band. The default, Horween leather band comes into two colors: Stone grey and black. The leather feels more like a synthetic rubber – smooth, textured and like a second skin. After strapping it on several dozen times, the leather begins wrinkling. Also, it quickly picked up a permanent water stain. In the long-run, the band would not stand up to much abuse, water exposure or perspiration. The metal band seems a better bet for longevity.
Note: Reports emerged suggesting that while the Moto 360 physically supports 22mm bands, only the thinnest straps will actually work.
Regarding the watch’s body, its circular stainless steel metal shell crushes its square and blocky competition in design quality. It features clean lines, a brushed texture and a sloped bezel. A single button rests on the side, providing a faint hint of design from analog watches. Despite its primarily metal composition, it retains the light-weight of a plastic build (somewhere in the ballpark of 150 grams). The rear housing, where the sensors are located, possesses a plastic, high-gloss construction.
Hardware
The Moto 360 offers a blend of archaic and cutting edge specs. Its TI OMAP 3 chipset, according to iFixit, yields good-enough performance at the cost of power efficiency. It’s believed that Motorola sat on older stock of TI’s chip and realized that wearable devices didn’t require the latest hardware to run smoothly. It also includes a heart-rate sensor and a custom designed wireless Qi charger, slimmed down to fit inside of a smartwatch.
Specifications
Texas Instruments OMAP 3 45nm manufacturing process (via iFixit)
320 x 290, 205 pixels-per-inch semi-circular LCD screen;
Wireless Qi Charging Dock;
The Leather Band with metal band upgrade for $79.99;
Heart rate sensor;
300-310 mAh battery;
Gorilla Glass 3.
The Moto 360’s hardware isn’t much different from the older LG G Watch (our review of the LG G Watch) and the Samsung Gear Live. Compared to the Gear Live, the only additional feature offered by the 360 is wireless charging and an ambient light sensor. Stacked next to the LG G Watch, the 360 offers wireless charging, a tiny battery, a weaker chipset and an ambient light sensor.
The aesthetic quality of the 360 eclipses those on comparable Android Wear devices – at present, only two other devices exist: The LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live. The Moto 360’s circular screen packs 320 x 290 pixels. Unlike on square screens, the 360’s corners are cut off. Users can simply scroll to view the cut-off portions of a screen. In comparison, the 360 screen doesn’t stack up to the Samsung Gear Live’s 279 PPI, 320 x 320 resolution OLED screen, except in daylight readability.
The 360 — like most Android Wear devices — offers a lot. However, its only display feature that distinguishes it from its competition: Ambient light sensor. Enabling the ambient light sensor allows the 360 to adjust brightness to environmental conditions. This improves daylight readability and battery life in low-light conditions.
Software Features
Like all Android Wear devices, the centerpiece of the 360 is its access to Google Now. Activating Google Now just requires switching the screen on. Once activated, users can input the following voice commands:
Take a note
Remind me later
Show me my steps
Show me my heart rate
Send a text
Agenda
Navigate
Set a timer
Start stopwatch
Set an alarm
Show alarms
These software features — with the exception of the heart-rate monitor — are standard on all Android Wear devices. My impression: Google Now is amazing. But the majority of these features already exist in the Android ecosystem. If you want perpetual access to Google Now, both the 2013 and 2014 editions of the Moto X offer touchless controls for it.
Customizable Watch Faces
The seven default watch faces range between analog and digital. Users can install alternative watch faces, but Google specifically recommends against this – these aren’t designed with the 360 in mind.
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