The Motorola Moto 360 was the first ever smartwatch to hit the market with Google’s Android Wear platform aboard. It was also the first such wearable to truly capture our interest by working its charm on the shallow part of our brains. It showed up rivals for what they truly were; generic-looking devices with square faces.
The round casing of the Moto 360 sports a 1.5-inch screen with a thin bezel, an appearance which is spoiled slightly by the fact that it’s an LCD and the black bar at the bottom. But into which other space could Motorola have shoehorned the display drivers, digitizer and ambient light sensor if it wanted to stick to the slim dimensions intended for the smartwatch?
Very rarely do you see products that beat offerings from Apple in terms of aesthetic qualities and the Motorola wearable does it so well, it probably makes Steve Jobs (meaning no disrespect) turn over in his grave. The LG G Watch R was also inspired to take on a roundish exterior, but the resulting design seems utilitarian as opposed to classy.
The Moto 360 comes with a stainless steel casing and Horween leather straps in black or brown. The company will let you choose from metal bands in the future. Its rather largish face does nothing for slim or delicate wrists. The Apple Watch on the other hand, can be picked up with in a 38mm or 42mm build and a nice variety of straps as well as finishes.
You’ll be setting yourself up for disappointment if you hope the Moto 360 will change your life in any way. It’s a device that connects to your smartphone and brings some of its functions right onto your wrist. It is compatible with handsets powered by Android 4.3 or higher. A ‘step counter’ to keep tabs on how active you are throughout the day, is also present.
Since it’s always best to be prepared for any kind of weather, the Motorola smartwatch is IP67 certified for dust- and water-resistance. You can pull up the settings panel and bring it in or out of sleep mode with the little button on the side. Other ways to view notifications being beamed to the watch involve bringing it up to your face in a deliberate motion or tapping the display.
So what can you do with the Moto 360? A dozen useful things for starters and then you can make it even more handy by going to Google’s marketplace and downloading apps for it. Some of the tasks work best with voice command considering the small screen. You can send texts/mails, get directions and weather updates, set an agenda, control your music, activate the connected phone’s dialer and more.
Also see: Motorola Moto 360 smartwatch released in India for Rs 17999
Providing an entire day of average usage, the smartwatch charges quickly and without a mess of wires. All you have to do is drop it onto the Qi charging dock which arrives in the bundle and feel like a really cool geek. The worst we can say about the Moto 360 is that several reviews have painted the interface to be shaky at times and you can see the same point coming up in the video posted above.
Moto 360 features:
– Google Android Wear platform
– 1.56-inch 320 x 290p LCD
– Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection
– TI OMAP 3 processor
– 512MB RAM, 4GB internal memory
– IP67 rated for water- and dust-resistance
– 320mAh battery, wireless charging
– Bluetooth 4.0 LE, ambient light sensor
– Optical heart rate monitor, activity tracker
The Motorola Moto 360 carries a price of $250, or Rs 17999 on Flipkart in India. You’ll have to wait a bit before the metal bands are available for purchase.
UPDATE: A Lollipop-based Android Wear update has been rolled out for the Moto 360 and you can now choose from its metal as well as leather versions at reduced prices.