Moto 360 Reviews Arrive 87
An anonymous reader writes: Reviews for the Moto 360 smartwatch have started to roll in. David Pierce at The Verge praises the design: the circular display is framed by an unadorned, stainless steel shell, and fastened to your wrist with a simple leather strap. At the same time, he criticized the battery life, saying the device averaged around 12 hours of use before it needed to be charged. Pierce adds, "The Moto 360's most impressive feature is that I stopped noticing it almost immediately. Whenever I wear the LG G Watch or the Samsung Gear Live, I'm constantly compelled to fidget with it; there's this unexplainable feeling of having something alien on my wrist that is there because I need to use it. The 360, on the other hand, just vanished into the spot left on my wrist by the Seiko watch that conveniently died this week." AnandTech takes a deeper dive into the device's hardware, noting that the TI OMAP 3 processor is built on a somewhat old 45nm process, which necessitates higher power consumption than newer, smaller processes. The Wall Street Journal says it's easy to get used to speaking into your watch for basic functions, but the software — and thus, the Moto 360 as a whole — still isn't quite ready for prime time. However, almost all the reviews agree that the smartwatch's time is coming.
software not ready? (Score:3, Insightful)
You say the software isn't ready? I say the hardware isn't ready. How in the world is a watch with a battery life of 12 hours even close to usable?
Ooh, nice watch you have there? What time is it?
I don't know, the battery died around dinner time.
That sounds annoying. Does it happen often?
Yes, every frickin day!
Re:What's next after the smart watch? (Score:4, Insightful)
definitely won't be people
Re:A watch? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the quest for choosing bigger numbers, Android manufacturers have been increasing average screen size to the point where the phones themselves are too big to hold in one hand or put in a pocket.
This makes the phones great for watching movies and Netflix, and gaming, but positively lousy if you want to communicate with people. I mean, you can't put it in your pocket (at least the small tight formfitting ones), and it's too big and tiresome to keep digging it out every 30 seconds to see if you have a new text or email or Facebook post.
So they invent a smartwatch that lets you keep the phone in your bag or purse (because you can't carrying it anywhere else due to size), but you can still get texts and remain "connected" without having to dig out the monstrosity.
Of course, you may argue there are plenty of small screen phones, and yes, you're right, however, the flagships have been getting bigger and bigger. And people who have flagship phones generally are more interested in smart watches (more $$$), than someone who just gets whatever phone is free today.
That's why smartwatches are around - phones have been getting bigger and bigger, and soon we'll be hauling around bricks like 80s style cellphones. (Ironically, the move to smaller and smaller phones in the late 90s and early 00s lead to more people using Bluetooth because they were too small to talk to comfortably).
Re:Screen FAIL (Score:3, Insightful)
yeah, except for the part where it actually works fine in sunlight.