14 DAY TRIAL // After months and months of waiting, the smartwatch created by Motorola is finally ready to debut. Admittedly, we – and others – said this before. However, for once we actually have a date to look forward to.
Motorola could have probably released the device a while ago, but it wanted to hold some design contests for the watch faces first.
Also, it wanted to build a fair bit of hype. At $250 / €250, the wearable electronic is not going to wow people looking for something affordable. Sure, the LG G Watch is not much cheaper, but it still makes do with a MSRP of $229 / €229.
One of the factors that Motorola appears to be betting on is novelty. Like Samsung Gear, the LG G Watch has been around for some time, which means that prospective buyers are likely to try out Moto 360 even if it's a bit pricier, at least until that novelty wears off.
The company has also been encouraging the hype surrounding the gadget, while installing more than a few features that competing gadgets lack.
One of said features is the round OLED display (all other watches are square or otherwise rectangular). Another feature is the ambient light sensor that controls the brightness.
A third and very important asset is the wireless charging technology, via magnetic induction. The latest leak on the wearable does not mention it, but it's more or less clear from previous reports.
Which brings us to today's main point: a launch date for the Motorola Moto 360 smartwatch has finally been pegged: September 4, 2014. That's just before IFA 2014 kicks off. We're hoping for an appearance at the trade show in Berlin, since we'll be there to report on the event.
The leak, which happens to be the Motorola Moto 360 product page on BestBuy (which has been taken down in the meantime, alas), also confirms the price of $250 / €250 and most of the specifications.
For example, Moto 360 boasts a 1.5-inch display with 320 x 290 pixels resolution, Bluetooth 4.0, a pedometer, heart rate monitor, and vibration feature for alarms. An unspecified Texas Instruments CPU runs things, backed by 512 MB of RAM.
Unfortunately, the display is said to be a backlit LCD, not an OLED. Also, wireless charging is not mentioned. It makes us wonder if perhaps Motorola will have two versions of the Android Wear device after all: a plastic one with LCD and normal charging, and a metal one with OLED and wireless charging. No clue how the prices would differ in that case though or how long a battery charge will last (last time we heard anything about it, it was supposed to be of 2.5 days).