Smartwatches are being unveiled all over the place, but none has garnered quite so much enthusiasm as Motorola's Moto 360. Compared to the almost-retro square watches on offer from the Sony Smartwatch 3 and Asus ZenWatch, for example, the Moto 360's lovely round face is the epitome of class. We've been lucky enough to get our hands on a sample.
In fact, this was the only round smartwatch around until LG popped up to steal Motorola's thunder with the G Watch R. The Motorola smartwatch has a bigger touchscreen than LG's model, at 1.5in compared to 1.3in, but it has a slightly lower resolution, with 320x290 pixels rather than 320x320 for the LG G Watch R.
The reason for this difference in resolution is that Motorola has left a small bar at the bottom of the watch face for the smartwatch's proximity sensor. This turns the display on when you look at the watch, so you don’t have to tap the screen or press the crown to activate it. It's a shame that the screen isn't totally round, but the proximity sensor worked very well when we tried it out for ourselves, so we think it'll be worth it.
Instead of an OLED display as used by the LG, the Moto 360 has an LCD display, which may impact the battery life you can squeeze out of its 320mAh power pack; although all smartwatches look like they will need charging every day. Motorola said it should be able to last all day, and were keen to stress that meant from an early start to a late finish, so hopefully it will last a bit longer than the competition under more average usage. Either way, the Moto 360 comes with a good-looking wireless charging stand, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem charging the watch on your bedside table every night.
^ The black proximity sensor on the bottom of the display means the screen will turn on every time you bring your hand up to look at it
There were rumours circulating that the Moto 360 would have a plastic chassis, but the samples we saw were all stainless steel with Corning Gorilla Glass, and they looked and felt fantastic. The watch is big on the wrist; its 46mm diameter is similar to that of bigger fashion watches available, but we found its 49g weight and leather strap to be very comfortable. Like the Motorola feature phones of old, the Moto 360 successfully straddles the tech and fashion worlds; this is definitely not just a watch for geeks.
It's also IP67 rated, so is impervious to dust and can survive in one metre of static water for up to 30 minutes, and has a built-in pedometer and optical heart-rate sensor. These two sensors dovetail with a brand new Fit app for the new Moto X, so you can track your steps and heartrate during the week and set yourself goals and fitness targets.
^ A wireless charging dock comes as standard with the Moto 360
Inside the Moto 360 is a TI Omap 3 processor, 512MB RAM and 4GB of internal storage. As smartwatches are such a new category, we have yet to experience how different processors affect performance. From our short time with the Moto 360, we can say that the smartwatch ran Android Wear very smoothly; for details on Android Wear and what it can do, see our Google Android L article.
In our brief time with the device, we were shown six different watch faces, including digital, analogue, light and dark faces and a few more esoteric designs. These can be found in the Moto 360's gallery, which you can access simply by pressing and holding down your finger on the screen. You can also see the date and remaining battery life by swiping down from the top of the screen.
^ Voice-activated Google Now is a big part of the Android Wear OS, so you can ask your watch any question you like without having to dig out your phone
Notifications appear at the bottom of the display. To expand a notification, such as an email or text message from your phone, all you need to do is drag it up and it will fill the entire display. Known as "cards" (no doubt taking its name after the Google Now cards), you can have several of these active at any one time, including Google Hangouts and the heart rate and activity tracker.
To dismiss these notifications, you just swipe to the right, but you can also interact with them by swiping left and using the Moto 360's voice control options. For instance, if you wanted to reply to a text message on your phone, you can simply speak your reply aloud to your watch to compose a message and then dismiss the notification.
Other voice commands you can use include Google Now for asking your watch quick questions, turn-by-turn navigation and setting calendar reminders which then appear on your phone as well. There's also a weather app, which shows you the current weather in your location. Swipe to the left and you'll find a five day forecast for that area as well.
LG may have stolen some of Motorola's thunder with its round G Watch R, but there's no doubt the Motorola Moto 360 is still an astonishingly desirable smartwatch. When it goes on sale in October it will cost £199 - not too expensive by watch standards, and especially not for such a great-looking timepiece. Look out for our full review to see if the Moto 360 is the smartwatch to buy.
