When I covered the announcement of the Apple Watch, one of our readers pointed out that we had very little smart watch coverage. That is fair critique, and I can see how it appeared to give Apple an unfair slant. As far as I know, we will not be reviewing any smart watch, of any sort, for the foreseeable future (my phone still runs Froyo). Engadget and Ars Technica did, though.
Android Wear launched with three smart watches: the LG G Watch, the Samsung Gear Live, and (after a little delay) the Motorola Moto 360. The third one is a bit different from the other two in that it features a round screen. Both sites like the design but complain about its use of a TI OMAP3 SoC and its limited battery life. The OMAP3630 is manufactured at 45nm, which is a few process shrinks behind today's 28nm products and soon-to-be-released devices with 20nm and 14nm processors. With a 300mAh battery, a little less than a half or a third of a typical AAA battery, this leads to frequent charging. The question is whether this will be the same for all smart watches, and we don't know that yet. The Samsung and the LG smart watches, under Ars Technica's custom benchmark, vastly outperform it, though.
Engadget also complained about its price, at $250 and $299, which is actually $100 and $50 less than Apple's starting price. Ars Technica neither praised nor complained about the price.
Scott, Engadget proclaimed
Scott, Engadget proclaimed the iWatch the clear winner the day it was announced. And all the non tech serious news sites, in particular the nyt and the wsj, have been going on about the iWatch since it was announced as if it is amazing and as if no other smart watches exist. I really don’t get it. First off, I don’t get why this will not be a niche product and I don’t get why these sites are so subjective. It sickens me to say the least. Anyway, I am still in the dark ages, as I have managed to live without a smartphone or tablet. I don’t get why people want to wear something just to monitor their heart rate and some other goofy things. Fucking weird.
My hypothesis is they are all
My hypothesis is they are all hyping Apple because that is where their savings are – in Apple stocks. So no matter what crap apple poops they serve it as creme brulle.
I was thinking the same
I was thinking the same thing. The other day I read that analyst Kramer saying anything crApple makes he wants because they are the only real innovators. How fucked up is this guy? But, as you said, I am sure it is about promoting crApple stock for his own enrichment.
My hypothesis is that Apple’s
My hypothesis is that Apple’s marketing department, directly paid, or promised to buy Ad space on the websites with the most glowing reviews! Note this is also done by Microsoft, and Intel, ever wonder why Intel’s new server SKU, was reviewed on so many non enterprise server websites, and why the Intel server SKU was never directly compared to the competitions’ Oracle, IBM, or others server SKUs, or why the Server style benchmarks were not run on these non enterprise server technology, tech websites?
Always take with a big chunk of rock salt any review from a tech website, that gets more than 50% of their income, from the very Manufactures/Industries(Ads, review samples) whose products are reviewed by said tech websites. The timely arrival of review samples can be a big carrot or stick, for websites competing to be the first to review, as well as buying big blocks of ad space. The truth is hard to find behind all the Quid pro quo.
what can i say, engadget and
what can i say, engadget and the verge are real apple bots. anyway i saw that watch in best buy and wasn’t impressed at all. saw the apple event at least when the stream worked and the apple watch is no better. i couldn’t see myself paying 250 or 399 for these ugly watches. my analog watch cost half as much and looks 100 times better.
Firstly, the Apple Watch only
Firstly, the Apple Watch only works with the iPhone and Android Wear only with Android Phones. These are not meant to be standalone wearables.
Secondly, this is not a proven category yet and there are totally different takes on the same initial concept, a smartphone connected wrist watch.
It doesn’t matter if you find one to be more innovative than the other, for the hundreds of millions of Android phones and hundreds of millions of iPhones out there, these watches are not interchangeable. So they have to be evaluated on their own merits.
To convince someone to switch to an Android or iPhone based on the functionality of the watch is entirely up to the unique feature set of each device. Some would argue it is more likely the customer chooses based on phone features, price and the ecosystem before wearable compatibility.
If someone has an iPhone today do you think they’re excited about the Moto 360? PROBABLY NOT.
Whichever they choose the watch becomes an expensive anchor to the platform. .