It’s apparently smartwatch week; in addition to Huawei, ASUS, and Samsung, Motorola’s dived (dove? diven?) back into the pool with updated Moto360s.
They’re a lot like their predecessors: Android Wear, round screen, customizable at purchase, small “flat-tire” cutout at the bottom of the dial. But there are also some notable improvements and extensions to the line. This is what you’d expect; between the watch’s initial introduction and this revision, Motorola was sold by Google to Lenovo — a company that really knows hardware.
The watch now comes not only in a 46mm model but a smaller 42mm model, and at 11.4mm fortunately is somewhat thinner than the previous model, though not thinner than other current Android Wear watches. Between the lower profile and some very attractive bands, Moto360 owners no longer have to look like they’re wearing hockey pucks on their wrists.
Besides the two sizes in men’s model, there’s women’s model in 42mm cases come in three colors (black, steel, and extra-cost gold), two colors of leather bands and three style of metal link, and more than a dozen default watch faces, which you can change later. Men and women’s version differ slightly in available options; the women’s watch takes a slimmer band.
And, of course, they’ll run the newest version of Android Wear, which allows new and more interesting interactive watch faces.
The specs are strictly mid-range: Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 4GB of RAM, Gorilla Glass bezel. Depending on size, 300mAh or 400mAh battery, with promised life of at least a day. Bluetooth 4.0 (not 4.1), and b/g WiFi.
Those models are available for pre-order now, with delivery starting in a couple of weeks, depending on what options you’ve ordered. Pricing starts at $300 and runs to $430.
There’s also a Sport version, which will include GPS. Pricing and available for that wasn’t announced.
