Gadgetory

hi I'm Scott Steinem by my qualcomm toq watch its 1142 am Qualcomm is in the SmartWatch business and you may have heard about this around the time that the Samsung Galaxy gear launched but Qualcomm's release run for this watch is pretty small the idea is more of a reference design for we're smart watchers are headed according to Qualcomm and the talk is more of a bare-bones SmartWatch that's built around the screen that is new and different and that they think will take smartwatches into a more battery conscious direction this is a mirasol display now Mirasol has been kicking around for a while in the e-reader world and what it is is a reflective color display more like what you'd see on an e-reader but it does have the ability to show a bunch of colors it does look very crisp and highly readable and that's Mira Sol's advantage it's like Ian gets very very reflective the qualcomm toq does have a backlight right on the top you DoubleTap and bring up it sort of looks it's a side lighting and it looks a little more like an old-fashioned Game Boy Advance with lighting than something like a you know a fancy backlit tablet or phone the feature set is a lot like maybe a pebble it's built largely around notifications you can turn on notifications for any apps you can also connect it with built-in apps for you've got the stocks you've got whether you've got messaging and that's what's interesting is the qualcomm toq will allow you to give can responses directly from the watch and you can set those up on your phone it's kind of useful and it has a music player connectivity that can work with any app on Android now the talk is only on an Android connectivity right now it will work with android 4.0 point three phones or later and you've got to have bluetooth of course but it's not as restrictive as some phones and watches that have for instance like the year that makes you go through a samsung galaxy family in order to use the watch what else can it do well if you're into the Internet of Things this does connect with Qualcomm's all join but that's pretty in the weeds right now as far as what you would do for that with that as a normal human it's not cheap the qualcomm toq is three hundred dollars and comes with optional fully wireless stereo earbuds and a little fancy charge case that uses its own little contact charger so you don't have to use cables you put your watch right into it and there you go wireless charging for your qualcomm toq because of its reflective low-power display a low-power processor and a battery tucked into the watch band the qualcomm toq should last for up to a week of use which puts in a territory that only the pebble watch really matches you have to cut this band yourself though which is a little weird and it only comes in two colors black and white you might also have noticed that the touch elements are not only on the screen but they're also outside the screen on the face and even on the band to control some functions don't think of this as qualcomm entering smartwatches think of this as qualcomm trying to sell their technology into other manufacturers smartwatches in the future this run is limited so you may see a mirasol display in another watch in the future for now stay tuned for a full cnet review it's an interesting if limited watch that's entering a very crowded market i'm scott stein and that's a look at the qualcomm toq