Motorola Moto 360 smartwatch review

So many smartwatches, so many brands, so many choices. Motorola wants a piece of that cake with the Moto 360 smartwatch. This time, a nice looking circular-face design. The big question, is does it make a place for itself in the market that separates it from the rest when it comes to being a “smartwatch”?

The answer, is “not really”. It is a fine watch and similar to the other smartwatches, but there is nothing “wow” that makes it “better”. It is still limited by Google’s Android Wear OS until the platform can be improved on. It feels as though Google didn’t really take a round design into mind when it comes to their UI.

On a positive note, the Moto 360 has the ability of becoming a watch that does indeed deserve its own spotlight. Through eventual evolution of Google’s OS, watches will have a better chance at providing this. The apps, various menus and notifications will appear as though they properly supported a round face. This is when the Moto 360 will have its moment. Until then, it is just another Android smartwatch getting its feet (or virtual dials) wet.

Its biggest highlight are the watch faces that really create a stylish and highly customizable design. This really allows the watch to pop out when you want it to look like a normal watch; or a high tech watch; or a futuristic watch, etc. The designs are endless and cover just about anybodys personality. It would be (almost) just as cool to have a digital watch that simply allowed you to customize its face like the Moto 360 does (no other “smart” features needed). Of course the price would have to come down (way down), before such a simple watch was worth purchase.

Some of the top watch faces voted by users on Motorola’s Google+ page:

The watch body itself constructed of brushed stainless steel and uses Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 to protect its surface with. The strap is leather and feels comfortable around the wrist. Colors include black, gray and a lighter gray referred to as “stone”. Moto announced that they plan to later come out with segmented metal bands as well. The bands themselves are interchangeable (the price per band will run about $30-80 depending on material).

There is a single button on the side to enable it with and to navigate menus. The backside features heart-rate monitor. There is no speaker on the watch for sound, but it does feature vibration for alarms and other notifications. It does have a great noise-canceling microphone which creates a great experience when it comes to Google Now commands and text messages.

Although it feels comfortable around the wrist, the watch body is kind of bulky and thick. This may or may not bother some. For most, it may take a short time to get used to either way.

On the watch face, it features an ambient light sensor to control brightness with (as well as other purposes as apps begin to make use of it). The screen resolution is 320×290 and 205 ppi (pixels per inch). The colors won’t blow you away, but it’s clear that they are aiming towards a more flat e-ink feel than a vivid light your way in the dark approach. This kind of feels right when it comes to being a watch (more natural).

The Moto 360 supports wireless charging which allows you to simply place it on its dock without having to plug anything in every time. This is becoming more common in mobile devices and always gives something we are reviewing bonus points for including such. This is a wonderful feature that everyone should make use of to help eliminate cable clutter.

Our Conclusion

We love it. It has a lot of potential to make it an amazing smartwatch. Until Google’s OS for watches improves though, its capabilities are limited and still has some direction to go. For now, we decided to give it a 6.5 out of 10. Definitely worth owning, but the price is very steep for what it is “currently”. If Google can evolve their OS into something better and the price can come down a little, this watch would probably score around an 7 or 7.5 out of 10. Even better, if they can manage to decrease the thickness of the watch body and add a speaker so that you can make calls like the Samsung Galaxy Gear can, it will fall around a 9 out of 10. Obviously those latter changes would requires a whole new product, but with a 7+ potential, the Moto 360 still has a lot of wiggle room to make it a great product. For those who can afford it, the Moto 360 is awesome and looks like it too.

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E34L1BWJP2s

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Specifications:

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