Huawei’s first Android Wear watch is a beautiful yet basic timepiece

Review: It looks great on the outside, but it's still Google's OS on the inside.

Read the whole story

 

[i4mt3hwin]

In the specs you list "ambient light sensor" -- I don't believe this watch has one.

The battery life is interesting considering it has the same internals as the Moto 360 v2 (42). I guess OLED does make a pretty big difference on a watch. Motorola also needs to fix it's aliasing problem in ambient mode, the Huawei doesn't have this problem.

 

[anurodhp]

While This is just a watch, for android devices I think reviewers should note how long the manufacturer supports the device with updates. It's just a watch but it's also a connected computer and another potential note in the botnet.

Is this device vulnerable to stagefright?

 

[RndNum123]

i4mt3hwin[/url]":3a8qavh3]In the specs you list "ambient light sensor" -- I don't believe this watch has one.

The battery life is interesting considering it has the same internals as the Moto 360 v2 (42). I guess OLED does make a pretty big difference on a watch. Motorola also needs to fix it's aliasing problem in ambient mode, the Huawei doesn't have this problem.

Why do you think it has no ambient light sensor?
I couldn't find a possible place for the light sensor at this watch, too. But I think every smartwatch needs one, to dimm the display appropriately and save battery.

Edit: I am wrong, many 1st gen watches apparently did not have an ambient light sensor.

 

[HonkyLips]

I've never heard two people pronounce "Huawei" the same way.

 

[Joriarty]

SpectrumCyclist[/url]":27g27q5j]In other words, compared to Apple Watch, it's pretty lousy.

Nope. In comparison to the Apple Watch, I'd say: better form, poorer function. It's neither better nor worse – just different. Funny... usually Apple's products are the ones that sacrifice form over function.

As with smartphones, it's going to take a long time (maybe 3 to 4 years) before smartwatches are widely adopted by the public, and the technology matures enough that a model actually stays "usable" for a few years.

Have patience, young Padawan. The hardware and software of basically every smartwatch out there are still basically in "public beta" mode.

 

[tenaku2]

RndNum123[/url]":jk97n7g3]

i4mt3hwin[/url]":jk97n7g3]In the specs you list "ambient light sensor" -- I don't believe this watch has one.

The battery life is interesting considering it has the same internals as the Moto 360 v2 (42). I guess OLED does make a pretty big difference on a watch. Motorola also needs to fix it's aliasing problem in ambient mode, the Huawei doesn't have this problem.

Why do you think it has no ambient light sensor?
I couldn't find a possible place for the light sensor at this watch, too. But I think every smartwatch needs one, to dimm the display appropriately and save battery.

I think every watch should have one too, but of the first gen Android Wear watches, the _only_ one that had a ambient light sensor was the 360. Not sure about the 2nd gen watches...

 

[psarhjinian]

RndNum123[/url]":3eyi5096]

i4mt3hwin[/url]":3eyi5096]In the specs you list "ambient light sensor" -- I don't believe this watch has one.

The battery life is interesting considering it has the same internals as the Moto 360 v2 (42). I guess OLED does make a pretty big difference on a watch. Motorola also needs to fix it's aliasing problem in ambient mode, the Huawei doesn't have this problem.

Why do you think it has no ambient light sensor?

I believe The Verge noted it doesn't seem to have one.

I couldn't find a possible place for the light sensor at this watch, too. But I think every smartwatch needs one, to dimm the display appropriately and save battery.

My G Watch doesn't have one; it seems to dim the screen based on activity (which means it will blast my retinas when I check it in the middle of the night---which is why I don't do that any more. It's possible the Huawei unit detects that you're turning-and-raising (or rather not turning and raising) and acts accordingly and dims the display.

 

[psarhjinian]

Joriarty[/url]":3qx9xbmd]

SpectrumCyclist[/url]":3qx9xbmd]In other words, compared to Apple Watch, it's pretty lousy.

Nope. In comparison to the Apple Watch, I'd say: better form, poorer function. It's neither better nor worse – just different. Funny... usually Apple's products are the ones that sacrifice form over function.

This isn't really true. Apple, with rare exceptions*, doesn't tend to compromise function. What they do tend to do is aggressively simplify**: if a function can't be made to work reasonably well, it's cut. The products tend to do what they do very well.

* The QuickTime 4 Player's jog dial control, the round iMac mouse, the TAM
** To the point where the product is very single-purpose and suffers limited expandability, but the product tends to work well right now, right out of the gate. Apple does "limited features", but not "half-baked".

 

[milan616]

Unlike the Moto 360, Huawei bands don't have a quick-release feature.

In the picture you show the a Huawei band with quick release pins.

 

[neodorian]

dfavro[/url]":1sktwrmu]

Joriarty[/url]":1sktwrmu]

SpectrumCyclist[/url]":1sktwrmu]In other words, compared to Apple Watch, it's pretty lousy.

Nope. In comparison to the Apple Watch, I'd say: better form, poorer function. It's neither better nor worse – just different. Funny... usually Apple's products are the ones that sacrifice form over function.

This isn't really true. Apple, with rare exceptions*, doesn't tend to compromise function. What they do tend to do is aggressively simplify**: if a function can't be made to work reasonably well, it's cut. The products tend to do what they do very well.

* The QuickTime 4 Player's jog dial control, the round iMac mouse, the TAM
** To the point where the product is very single-purpose and suffers limited expandability, but the product tends to work well right now, right out of the gate. Apple does "limited features", but not "half-baked".

Eh, limited features, lack of function, potato, potahto. Apple's done a great job at only including the features it can currently provide in a pleasing manner and there's definitely an argument to be made for their approach. It's obviously been successful for them. But that's sort of another way to say form over function. Nobody's arguing that Apple's stuff isn't functional. They just don't include a feature until they can make it look nice. "Functions" aren't included until they can match the "form" they're shooting for.

I think using an Android Wear device with iOS as your primary phone will always be a bit disappointing due to the expected limitations of Google stuff running on iOS. It's nice that Wear managed some basic compatibility since it doesn't work the other way but if my primary phone wasn't running Android, I wouldn't have purchased my Moto 360 (even at $150 versus $350 for the most affordable Apple watch.)

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Android Power gave this one the thumbs up after a week-long head to head comparison with the new 360 too.

Huawei Watch vs. the new Moto 360: A detailed real-world comparison:

I think my experience with the Huawei Watch and the new Moto 360 can best be summed up by this: When I look at the two watches sitting on my counter every morning, the Huawei is always the one I want to reach for.

Why? Simple: After alternating between the devices for the past week, it's become abundantly clear that Huawei made the more balanced and pleasant-to-use all-around product.
--
The Huawei Watch delivers the superior overall user experience -- and with a price starting at only 50 bucks above Motorola's baseline offering, it's an easy recommendation to make. For most people, it's going to provide the best balance of form and function available on Android Wear today.

 

[psarhjinian]

neodorian[/url]":2lmy149o]

dfavro[/url]":2lmy149o]

Joriarty[/url]":2lmy149o]

SpectrumCyclist[/url]":2lmy149o]In other words, compared to Apple Watch, it's pretty lousy.

Nope. In comparison to the Apple Watch, I'd say: better form, poorer function. It's neither better nor worse – just different. Funny... usually Apple's products are the ones that sacrifice form over function.

This isn't really true. Apple, with rare exceptions*, doesn't tend to compromise function. What they do tend to do is aggressively simplify**: if a function can't be made to work reasonably well, it's cut. The products tend to do what they do very well.

* The QuickTime 4 Player's jog dial control, the round iMac mouse, the TAM
** To the point where the product is very single-purpose and suffers limited expandability, but the product tends to work well right now, right out of the gate. Apple does "limited features", but not "half-baked".

Eh, limited features, lack of function, potato, potahto. Apple's done a great job at only including the features it can currently provide in a pleasing manner and there's definitely an argument to be made for their approach. It's obviously been successful for them. But that's sort of another way to say form over function. Nobody's arguing that Apple's stuff isn't functional. They just don't include a feature until they can make it look nice. "Functions" aren't included until they can match the "form" they're shooting for.

No, that's not the same thing: Apple won't include a feature until it works is function-over-form, not the reverse. Form-over-function would be including a feature that doesn't work at all well just to meet a boxside bullet point or design aesthetic. They do do that, but it's very uncommon for them (eg, Apple Maps, the aforementioned round mouse)

A counterpoint would be, eg, Samsung, who tends to do form-over-function quite often: the "Edge" phones, for example, have this neat screen that pretty much makes the device harder to hold, distorts the image and only works well with a few half-baked Samsung apps.

I think using an Android Wear device with iOS as your primary phone will always be a bit disappointing due to the expected limitations of Google stuff running on iOS. It's nice that Wear managed some basic compatibility since it doesn't work the other way but if my primary phone wasn't running Android, I wouldn't have purchased my Moto 360 (even at $150 versus $350 for the most affordable Apple watch.)

I do agree: Android Wear is pretty much driven wholly by Android's (very good) notification system. iOS doesn't have that system and the watch suffers for it. It will be nice when (if?) notifications become more system-agnostic.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Ooks[/url]":1pqp7kzz]Can we talk aesthetics and form factor just for a minute? I get that this is a decent looking entry into the smartwatch 'verse, but I really don't like the way the tech in this field is thus far conforming to constraints based originally on mechanical movements.

Eschewing those mechanical movement based looks, many Apple Watch aficionados have taken to the utility face for its added information density, especially now that third party complications are becoming available for it. I'm sure there are some similar for Android Wear.

 

[ampet]

The tech world is certainly schizophrenic. Nobody really knows what they want. Skins on Android? Bad. Uniformity on Android Watch? Meh. (Now you start to get why manufacturers want skins, don't you? So many times I've read cocky remarks by, say, Ron Amadeo, the entire Verge staff, etc. Tech reviewers often think they're more insightful and cleverer than the people making the stuff. They aren't, or they would be actually making the stuff). Oh, and what about manufacturers trying to come out with competing platforms (such as Samsung and its Tizen watches)? They're no good! What about the ecosystem? Why does Samsung even try? (That's the general sentiment, isn't it?). You see, you're dammed either way. The truth is that, for the moment being, smartwatches are basically tech previews, it will take at least a few years (if ever) before they become truly desirable and useful for the mainstream. I think nobody has really figured out the smartwatch, if we do actually need one. Even just the debate, should it be round like ordinary watches (but isn't that skeuomorphism? Isn't a fake analog watch tacky?), should it be square or rectangular since it is really an LCD display on your wrist (haha, an LCD display on your wrist, where do you think you are, on the Enterprise?! Hide the nature of the damn thing, for crying out loud!)... this shows that it is really unexplored territory, and in general I wouldn't mind a bit more humility from both the press and commentators.

 

[Decoherent]

Our Huawei Watch lasted 325 minutes on the test, which is just slightly longer than the Moto 360's 294 minutes.

In your chart, the two Moto 360's are listed at 216 and 271. I'm guessing a typo?

These newer models are neat. This is basically exactly what I pictured in my head when "smartwatch" started to become a thing. I'm not really in the smartwatch market, but when something that looks this nice hits a cheap price point, I'm looking forward to getting one!

 

[hestermofet]

As with the Moto 360, there could easily be a newer, better model of this watch in six months. This is true of all tech, but Android Wear updates often add hardware-dependent features that older watches can't support.

I've been scratching my head trying to come up with a single example of a new feature introduced into Android Wear that obsoleted a watch because it lacked the hardware. WiFi I guess? Maybe the original 360 doesn't have WiFi but all the other first gen watches do as far as I can recall. I definitely wouldn't say this happens "often".

 

[ampet]

hestermofet[/url]":3ffhniws]

As with the Moto 360, there could easily be a newer, better model of this watch in six months. This is true of all tech, but Android Wear updates often add hardware-dependent features that older watches can't support.

I've been scratching my head trying to come up with a single example of a new feature introduced into Android Wear that obsoleted a watch because it lacked the hardware. WiFi I guess? Maybe the original 360 doesn't have WiFi but all the other first gen watches do as far as I can recall. I definitely wouldn't say this happens "often".

I personally think the Pebble Watch is the best idea of a smartwatch nowadays. Cheap. Lasts long. It has a bit of that Casio watch look (especially the Steel version), which has gone back in fashion a bit (regardless of the press' obsession with luxury timepieces: smartwatches are bound to be most popular with a younger crowd, who would generally feel uneasy with an expensive-looking watch on their wrist). If only Pebble found a way to integrate notifications better... and maybe gain voice recognition capabilities.

 

[psarhjinian]

hestermofet[/url]":14jdbprs]

As with the Moto 360, there could easily be a newer, better model of this watch in six months. This is true of all tech, but Android Wear updates often add hardware-dependent features that older watches can't support.

I've been scratching my head trying to come up with a single example of a new feature introduced into Android Wear that obsoleted a watch because it lacked the hardware. WiFi I guess? Maybe the original 360 doesn't have WiFi but all the other first gen watches do as far as I can recall. I definitely wouldn't say this happens "often".

WiFi and HRM are the two features that are spotty in first-gen units. My G Watch has neither, and while I can do without the HRM, WiFi would be helpful for Device Manager's "Find Where You Sleepily Dropped Your Phone Last Night" feature, which is less useful when you have to be within Bluetooth's range.

ETA: I really like my G Watch; I know it lacks a certain amount of bling, but it's nice to have something that, well, lacks bling. It's also not forcing the anachronism of a rounded faceplace onto a device that has no gears or physical hands. I wish it had WiFi, and I wish the display was OLED instead of LCD (so it could have a useful passive mode) but otherwise it's excellent.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Adriano Petrosillo[/url]":3ocl1pr5]So many times I've read cocky remarks by, say, Ron Amadeo, the entire Verge staff, etc. Tech reviewers often think they're more insightful and cleverer than the people making the stuff. They aren't, or they would be actually making the stuff).

Yes, because going from writing to being a electrico-mechanical engineer is sooooo easy.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Adriano Petrosillo[/url]":2t0l3fqz]
I personally think the Pebble Watch is the best idea of a smartwatch nowadays. Cheap. Lasts long. It has a bit of that Casio watch look (especially the Steel version), which has gone back in fashion a bit (regardless of the press' obsession with luxury timepieces: smartwatches are bound to be most popular with a younger crowd, who would generally feel uneasy with an expensive-looking watch on their wrist). If only Pebble found a way to integrate notifications better... and maybe gain voice recognition capabilities.

The only thing you have to say about the function of this device...is negative.

 

[trimeta]

Honestly, I think from the design perspective, this and the Moto 360 v2 are pretty much on par with the Apple Watch. They're different, but none is "better" or "worse" in an objective sense. The big differences are OS and functionality: the Apple Watch has better fitness tracking, support for Apple Pay, and a fixed set of faces with third-party complications which make it easy for users to find what they want quickly. Android Wear has Ambient Display and an ecosystem of third-party faces that gives users more choice (if they're willing to search for it). For me, Ambient Display trumps everything, but then again I don't have an iPhone, so the Apple Watch was never really an option for me in the first place.

(Disclaimer: I have a Huawei Watch right now, so this may be coloring my comments.)

 

[Deleted member 174040]

melgross[/url]":3b8xun3l]

I really haven't seen any AndroidWear watch that looks more than ok. Whether people here love or hate the Apple Watch, at least Apple put a lot of work into the design. I don't really see that with AndroidWear watches so far.

You mean the internals?

I'm an Apple fan, but I think the external design was predicated more on distinctiveness to the eye (like white headphones used to be) more so than on information density, as Sir Ive alleges.

 

[weblionx]

Adriano Petrosillo[/url]":1k7sawg1]The tech world is certainly schizophrenic. Nobody really knows what they want. Skins on Android? Bad. Uniformity on Android Watch? Meh. (Now you start to get why manufacturers want skins, don't you? So many times I've read cocky remarks by, say, Ron Amadeo, the entire Verge staff, etc. Tech reviewers often think they're more insightful and cleverer than the people making the stuff. They aren't, or they would be actually making the stuff).

You do realize there is a difference between being able to choose the 'skin' (like on the watch), and being forced to only use the manufacturer's choice of skin because it's baked into the OS (like on a phone).

Oh, and what about manufacturers trying to come out with competing platforms (such as Samsung and its Tizen watches)? They're no good! What about the ecosystem? Why does Samsung even try? (That's the general sentiment, isn't it?). You see, you're dammed either way.

Competition is fine. Just don't expect folks to migrate to a new competing platform when it provides nothing of worth versus what they're currently using.

The truth is that, for the moment being, smartwatches are basically tech previews, it will take at least a few years (if ever) before they become truly desirable and useful for the mainstream. I think nobody has really figured out the smartwatch,

It doesn't have to be a product everyone owns. It's a product some people want and are willing to pay for, so companies are making it. How mainstream is mainstream? I've seen them around in public. To be honest if it wasn't for the price I don't see any reason they wouldn't be a lot more popular.

if we do actually need one.

You don't 'need' a smartphone, either. You don't 'need' a lot of things. People still purchase and enjoy things they don't need.

Even just the debate, should it be round like ordinary watches (but isn't that skeuomorphism? Isn't a fake analog watch tacky?), should it be square or rectangular since it is really an LCD display on your wrist

It's aesthetics. Some like round, some like rectangular. Unless you're going cellphone-sized screen strapped to your arm, it's going to look an awful lot like a watch due to the fact that watches are very common and by-and-large the main thing people wear on their wrists.

(haha, an LCD display on your wrist, where do you think you are, on the Enterprise?! Hide the
nature of the damn thing, for crying out loud!)... this shows that it is really unexplored territory, and in general I wouldn't mind a bit more humility from both the press and commentators.

What?

 

[weblionx]

It seems like a lot of smart watches have really flaky heart rate sensors. How much could they gain in other functionality (different sensor, better battery life, ...) if they left it out? I get that it's sort of expected that a smart watch will have a heart rate monitor, but if it's useless, why even bother? Could they have gained room for an ambient light sensor through the side of it?

 

[Ooks]

RockDaMan[/url]":19opbt0l]

Eschewing those mechanical movement based looks, many Apple Watch aficionados have taken to the utility face for its added information density, especially now that third party complications are becoming available for it. I'm sure there are some similar for Android Wear.

Yes, and I think that it makes more sense to cram stuff into a square panel rather than a round one. I think that eventually smart watches will look a little more like gladiator cuffs and less like a pocketwatch stuck on a leather strap. I think the tech, and battery life, will be the better for it.

FWIW, I love watches and I'm wearing one, but I really don't see these things as watch replacements until they don't obsolesce in a year and/or the battery can last an intercontinental trip. That probably just means I'm super out of touch.

 

[ampet]

RockDaMan[/url]":20o05lt2]

Adriano Petrosillo[/url]":20o05lt2]So many times I've read cocky remarks by, say, Ron Amadeo, the entire Verge staff, etc. Tech reviewers often think they're more insightful and cleverer than the people making the stuff. They aren't, or they would be actually making the stuff).

Yes, because going from writing to being a electrico-mechanical engineer is sooooo easy.

Exactly. I get that reviewers gotta review. Very well. Stick to that. When they venture into pundit territory, though, things get nasty. Because that requires a profound (inside?) knowledge of the industry, of how things work, of the reasoning behind certain choices. For example the hatred of Samsung's back key positioning fails to understand that a) that's the way Asians roll, historically, and b) the positioning isn't set in stone and there's no reason whatsoever to do so. Reviewers complain about these things because they switch devices very often. Samsung phone owners don't.

The only thing you have to say about the function of this device...is negative.

The sentence ideally ends with "...it would be perfect". Besides, functionality-wise, the fact that it can last up to a week is a definite pro. And I did say so.

 

[stopher2475]

Good looking piece of hardware.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Adriano Petrosillo[/url]":1ub8ii7j]

the hatred of Samsung's back key positioning fails to understand that a) that's the way Asians roll, historically

Whaaaaat?

 

[solomonrex]

dfavro[/url]":33sb15sq]

Joriarty[/url]":33sb15sq]

SpectrumCyclist[/url]":33sb15sq]In other words, compared to Apple Watch, it's pretty lousy.

Nope. In comparison to the Apple Watch, I'd say: better form, poorer function. It's neither better nor worse – just different. Funny... usually Apple's products are the ones that sacrifice form over function.

This isn't really true. Apple, with rare exceptions*, doesn't tend to compromise function. What they do tend to do is aggressively simplify**: if a function can't be made to work reasonably well, it's cut. The products tend to do what they do very well.

* The QuickTime 4 Player's jog dial control, the round iMac mouse, the TAM
** To the point where the product is very single-purpose and suffers limited expandability, but the product tends to work well right now, right out of the gate. Apple does "limited features", but not "half-baked".

I would agree, except for your verb tense. It should read, 'What they USED to do' is aggressively simplify. IOS/watchOS has plenty of features, many of them half-baked and they seem to be pushing for more with every release.

Now, we get right-click touchscreen analogs, multiple UI paradigms on 2 inch screens, subscription and owned music mashups, complicated local/cloud storage schemes, multi-tasking on 8" screens. Hey, we're a digital audience and we've become sophisticated, but we can't ignore that Apple has changed.

Apple's platforms are maturing far beyond the simple things they were. All the ways you interact with an unlocked ios device: touch, pinch, swipe, swipe from top edge, swipe from bottom edge, three finger swipe, long touch, hard 3d touch, talk, pull down, home button, home button tap, home button hold, home button doublepress...

It's not a good or bad thing, it's just not the same as what you're describing.

I don't think they'll fail because Jobs passed, but they seem to be making the best argument for line item vetos I've ever seen. Jobs wasn't some irreplaceable magician, but we know he would criticize and cut stuff. He wasn't into iteration like Bill Gates, he was into sneak attacks and polish. And Jobs wasn't so tolerant of rococo feature creep as the current regime.

Cook is killing lots of sacred cows, like Nadella, right? Big screens phones, working with IBM (!), subscription music, even styli and keyboards now. Jobs is not spinning, but he might be Shwarma style rotating in his grave after the last (TWO HOUR) keynote. The company is changing, but it has to. They are much more software-oriented and they have to be in this cloud platform world. They're evolving, not abandoning. Exactly like MS with Nadella.

You know, that's life, change happens, people age, it's not a bad thing, just a different thing.

 

[ampet]

weblionx[/url]":mm6jljsb]

Adriano Petrosillo[/url]":mm6jljsb]The tech world is certainly schizophrenic. Nobody really knows what they want. Skins on Android? Bad. Uniformity on Android Watch? Meh. (Now you start to get why manufacturers want skins, don't you? So many times I've read cocky remarks by, say, Ron Amadeo, the entire Verge staff, etc. Tech reviewers often think they're more insightful and cleverer than the people making the stuff. They aren't, or they would be actually making the stuff).

You do realize there is a difference between being able to choose the 'skin' (like on the watch), and being forced to only use the manufacturer's choice of skin because it's baked into the OS (like on a phone).

Oh, and what about manufacturers trying to come out with competing platforms (such as Samsung and its Tizen watches)? They're no good! What about the ecosystem? Why does Samsung even try? (That's the general sentiment, isn't it?). You see, you're dammed either way.

Competition is fine. Just don't expect folks to migrate to a new competing platform when it provides nothing of worth versus what they're currently using.

The truth is that, for the moment being, smartwatches are basically tech previews, it will take at least a few years (if ever) before they become truly desirable and useful for the mainstream. I think nobody has really figured out the smartwatch,

It doesn't have to be a product everyone owns. It's a product some people want and are willing to pay for, so companies are making it. How mainstream is mainstream? I've seen them around in public. To be honest if it wasn't for the price I don't see any reason they wouldn't be a lot more popular.

if we do actually need one.

You don't 'need' a smartphone, either. You don't 'need' a lot of things. People still purchase and enjoy things they don't need.

Even just the debate, should it be round like ordinary watches (but isn't that skeuomorphism? Isn't a fake analog watch tacky?), should it be square or rectangular since it is really an LCD display on your wrist

It's aesthetics. Some like round, some like rectangular. Unless you're going cellphone-sized screen strapped to your arm, it's going to look an awful lot like a watch due to the fact that watches are very common and by-and-large the main thing people wear on their wrists.

(haha, an LCD display on your wrist, where do you think you are, on the Enterprise?! Hide the
nature of the damn thing, for crying out loud!)... this shows that it is really unexplored territory, and in general I wouldn't mind a bit more humility from both the press and commentators.

What?

1. You can't choose the skin on a watch. That's the point. Android Wear dictates uniformity (if I'm not mistaken, it's mostly closed source, so there is little you can do about it). You can only switch watch faces. Which is, I suppose, a minimum requirement.

2. I get that Tizen is probably pointless on a phone, nowadays. But on a watch? All platforms are in their infancy.

3. You mostly do need a smartphone. Having internet in your pocket had always been something desirable and life changing. The problem was cost, initially. Smartwatches only add convenience. That's good and all but we can't nor should expect smartwatches to initiate another technological revolution. Maybe LTE smartwatches. I can see some people doing without a phone entirely, but at that point this is another object entirely (a stand alone device, instead of a companion).

4. OK. But what about the interminable lost of articles slamming the first smartwatches because they weren't round? I get that "to each their own". That's why all I'm saying is, stick to evaluating what you see, because what you don't see, well, you don't see and can only imagine. And imagining something as big as "the future of technology" is hard.

 

[ampet]

RockDaMan[/url]":1trz2fpq]

Adriano Petrosillo[/url]":1trz2fpq]

the hatred of Samsung's back key positioning fails to understand that a) that's the way Asians roll, historically

Whaaaaat?

Even on PlayStations, I seem to remember that many Asian games assumed "OK" with a circle button press and "Cancel" with an X button press. Or something like that, which was the other way round compared to Western games anyway.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

solomonrex[/url]":1gk6e7yk] Jobs is not spinning, but he might be Shwarma style rotating

That's good.

And yes, Apple is very un-Jobsian these days. Whether that's a needed maturation that the company was over-due for or not, I don't know.

But the business is still strong, and that's all the shareholders care about.

 

[ZhanMing057]

I pre-ordered mine a while ago and have been using it for the past week. So far the only major complaint is the lack of a ambient light sensor. But it easily gets through a full day on full brightness and ambient mode, and for the fully circular screen this is IMO an acceptable trade-off.

I would actually rather have a thinner and lighter watch that lasts 1-2 days instead of one that lasts a full week. In the past I've used DSLRs with 1,000+ frames per charge, and I would occasionally end up at events or on trips with a drained battery because I always forget about how much juice remains. Now I use mirrorless, and it actually feels easier to charge after each event (and top it up through the day via usb). Similarly, I'd rather have a watch that syncs in charging cycles with my phone. I plug my phone in every evening anyways - the marginal effort to plug in a smartwatch is virtually zero.

Sure, it'll be obsolete in a few months - but now people buying into Wear (and gen 1 Apple watches) should be conscious that they are early adopters, and the badge comes with faster depreciation. In a sense, smartwatches now are similar to smartphones in the early 2000s - useful but quirky.

 

[Lostfanboi]

Personally, I think this is the best looking smartwatch yet! Really tastefully done. Will it be for everyone? Of course not! But that is EXACTLY the way the "watch world" works. Millions of different designs for the millions of different tastes out there, and that's just the way I like it.