[Moto 360] BleuZ:
I'll be updating this review regularly with my latest findings.

I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of a smartwatch. The past few years I’ve been using an iPod nano (6th gen) to wear on my wrist, and even though it had some extra functionality over a classic watch it certainly had its limitations. You could use it to listen to music (obviously), it had a fitness app that could count your steps and there were a few watchfaces you could choose from. If you wanted to read new messages, though, you had to get out your phone, and the fitness app wasn’t exactly accurate.

Pebble has been the most prominent player on the smartphone market for about a year, but starting this year four major ones have entered the game: LG, Samsung, Sony and Motorola. Apple and ASUS have announced their smartwatches but since they aren’t released yet I will leave those out of any comparisons.

The major issue with current smartwatches is that the design is naturally very limited. This is hardware in a first-gen form factor, and obviously manufacturers have to figure out the limitations of this hardware. This has led to some smartwatches that aren’t aesthetically pleasing to say the least, but I’m happy to say the Moto 360 is an exception to this. After all, its looks are what made me want the Moto 360 over its competitors.

The Moto 360 comes in a luxurious and appropriately round box. There’s an oddly placed loop on the side; the only use for it that I could come up with was to store it on hanging store shelves. The box has several Motorola logos and “moto 360” markings on it, which are printed with a fancy reflective finish.

When you open the box, you’re greeted with the miniamlistic appearance of the watch and nothing else. When you remove the container it’s in, you’ll find the charging dock and charging cable as well as some booklets. There’s also some dividers which make the little compartment look very nicely arranged.

I’ve said it before: Motorola has made the best looking smartwatch out there by far. In comparison to other smartwatches, the design isn’t compromised: it has a sleek stainless steel housing, which blends into the chamfered glass front that covers the beautiful, almost entirely circular display. This creates a user experience that actually feels like you’re using an actual watch instead of an awkward square shaped device on your wrist.

The bottom plate of the watch is rounded and feels very nice on your wrist. It contains a description of the features of the watch: water resistant IP67 · moto 360 · stainless steel 316L · optical heart rate sensor · wireless charging · pedometer. In the centre you’ll find the heart rate sensor, which emits a green light when it’s active.

My unit is equipped with the “stone gray” watch band, made out of authentic Horween leather; Horween Leather Company is one of the oldest leather tanneries in the United States, and I’ve heard they produce very high quality leather. I cannot conclude anything about its durability, though we’ll see how the band maintains its looks and strength after a few weeks or months of use.

If we’re going to use actual watch jargon, the Moto 360 has a diameter of 46mm. This translates into a 1.56 inch display with a resolution of 320x290 pixels which is covered with Gorilla Glass 3. There have been some people saying the resolution is too low, but I have not noticed any issues with its crispness. Furthermore, the display is very bright and the viewing angles are perfectly fine as well. Now, I have noticed that I usually look at the display head-on but it’s nice to know that the display has a great colour reproduction from other angles as well.

The display is powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP 3 SoC. At first this may seem like a setback compared to the other Android Wear-devices that are equipped with the noticably newer and more powerful Snapdragon 400, but in daily use I don’t really notice the presence of the older SoC. Animations are fluid and fast and apps are fairly snappy.

I have to say, though: I haven’t used any other Android Wear device so it could very well be that the LG G Watch or Samsung Gear Live are a whole lot faster. I really don’t know, but what I do know is that the Moto 360 is plenty fast and snappy for my demands.

As I’ve said before, Android Wear also provides support for heart rate sensors and pedometers; a bit of a letdown in this regard is that Android Fit for phones is only implemented in Android 5.0, so if you’re using a phone with Android 4.3 or 4.4 you won’t be able to access health data on your phone just yet.

As far as storage and memory is concerned, the Moto 360 uses the same 4GB of storage and 512MB of RAM as the LG G Watch (R) and the Samsung Gear Live. The next Android Wear update will provide functionality to use the 4GB of storage to store music locally.

In case you have a Motorola phone, I’ve found that you can also use the watch as a remote control for the phone’s camera. I’m not sure why or when you’d want to do that, since I don’t find it very functional, but hey — at least it’s an option, I guess.

So the Moto 360 runs Android Wear, just like the LG G Watch (R), Samsung Gear Live and Sony Smartwatch 3. Unlike Android on the the phones of these major OEMs, Android Wear hasn’t been altered in any way so the UI and workflow is exactly the same across all devices. The only differences there may be are purely hardware-related (like GPS on the Sony Smartwatch 3).

Of course, Android Wear is still in its infancy, but for the very first iteration of this new operating system I’ve found it to be fairly functional and extensive. The Google Now cards and notifications are well-implemented, even though some apps can be easily improved. That’s mainly due to the app developers, though: with WhatsApp, for example, I can easily read through earlier conversations and even respond to messages using basic replies like “yes”, “no”, “nice”, “lol” or several emojis whereas Facebook Messages doesn’t let me do any of that.

Android is known for its customizability — you can alter your phones UI so that it matches your own style. Android Wear is no different: you can modify your watchface using the preloaded OEM ones, you can make your own or even load other’s creations. The possibilities are endless.

Android Wear also lets you control the music that’s being played on your phone. I’ve found this to be very useful when I’m using public transport and I have little elbow room. My daily driver phone is fairly large so it’s a bit of a hassle to get it out whenever I want to change volume or switch songs.

As far as updates are concerned, I have heard that Android Wear updates are pushed directly by Google. This means that these devices are likely to continue to receive updates to new versions fairly fast (I am curious to see for how long they’ll be supported, though). Just like regular Android OTA updates, Android Wear updates are rolled out in stages, so it’s possible you’ll have to wait a while before the update hits your device.

The Moto 360 uses Bluetooth to connect to any Android phone running Android 4.3 or newer. I’ve heard some cases of instable connections, where the watch would disconnect a lot, but I’ve had absolutely no issues with this using my OnePlus One. I’ve had a stable connection to the watch and I also haven’t noticed any decreased battery life on my phone.

You can charge the Moto 360 using a Qi inductive charging dock. The majority of the smartwatches like the LG G Watch (R), Galaxy Gear Live, Sony Smartwatch 3 and the Pebble use proprietary connectors. This means that the charging port isn’t universal and you always have to use that specific adapter to charge it. Qi inductive charging is a standardized form of charging, so you can use your Moto 360 with every Qi charging platform.

I can’t tell a whole lot about the Moto 360’s battery life yet. I feel like it’s been discharging pretty quickly for the few days I’ve had it, and I’ve brought my charger with me sometimes so I could quickly charge it in the meantime. The charging itself is pretty fast, though, so that’s no big deal but I’ve heard others saying the battery life can be quite crap during the first few days of use. I hope it’ll improve over time, and so I will update this section as soon as I’ve found myself to get a fairly stable power consumption.

I’ve understood that the Moto 360 should be compatible with every standard watch band that is 22mm wide, but apparantly the watch band connector also features two plastic clips that aren’t used in most watches. This means that you’ll likely have to modify your standard watch bands if you want to use them with your Moto 360. There’s also some watch bands that seem to be too thick for the watch band slot on the Moto 360, so be sure to keep an eye out for that as well.

I have no intention of changing my watch band as of now, so I don’t have any exprience with changing the watch band on this device, so once again I can’t really make a judgement about this (yet).