14 DAY TRIAL // The Moto 360 smartwatch from Motorola has been turning the market upside down even though it's not available yet, for a variety of reasons, but some things are too good to be true, and we finally know the one deterrent that prospective buyers will get once sales begin: the price.
Admittedly, nothing has been officially confirmed yet, but when we're so late in the game, it's unlikely for a report about the remaining mysteries surrounding a product to be inaccurate.
Anyway, reports from MobileFun website say that the Motorola Moto 360 smartwatch will bear a price of £199 / $337 / €249. Compared to other smartwatches, it's pretty high.
On the flip side, if exchange rates are ignored (as we think they will) and the price in the US and Europe is closer to $200 / €200, then the sum is quite a bit lower than other previous estimates. Easy to assume, since the price in the UK is frequently the highest for any product sold around the world.
In a way, the public seems to have built up bleaker expectations in order to be pleasantly surprised by the reality. It will soften the blow of the price, if nothing else.
Not that the device doesn't deserve the cost. Well, no product really costs as much money to make as you have to pay for them, but that's neither here nor there.
Anyway, the Motorola Moto 360 smartwatch has two main advantages over all of its peers, past, present and future (or, well, the ones set to debut in the near future).
The first is the shape: Motorola Moto 360 is the only watch with a round screen. You see, it might be easy for a normal wrist watch to be round, but electronic displays make it a bit troublesome to use that shape.
Motorola pulled it off though, and did it with OLED technology to boot. It will even provide multiple faces, just to make sure it has the entire customer demographic covered, fashion-wise.
The other main advantage is one that we have never missed the opportunity to draw attention to: the wireless charging technology. Specifically, magnetic induction.
If Motorola hadn't gone this route, it would probably have had to integrate hardware into the strap, and to add a USB port at one end of it. Or somehow made the watch use a rechargeable, removable battery. Or just included a micro USB port like so many smartphones.
Instead, the watch will ship with a wireless charging adapter, essentially a pad you have to put the thing on and leave it there for a while. Well, we hope the item will be included. Motorola might ship it separately, as much as we hope it won't.
Motorola Moto 360 smartwatch will be put up for order on June 25, 2014, probably. Pre-orders can already be placed.