Gadgetory

if you're shopping for a new SmartWatch in the Google Play Store you're faced with a sea of choices from chic to super minimal but only one stands out as a watch that would survive an extended dose of real world use and abuse if that kind of thing is important to you the LGG watch our might just be your SmartWatch of choice i'm michael fisher with pocket now and this is our g watch our video review at $299 the G watch R is the most expensive SmartWatch in the Google Play Store and you could be forgiven for having a little deja vu here the last time a new G watch hit the Play Store it came in at a higher price point than the superior gear live from Samsung this time around the LG product is doing battle with a Motorola competitor and once again the LG offering bears a less premium look and feel despite a higher price tag but the G watch are like most Android wear devices is sold out as a press time so for some price is obviously no object and what you'll get for your money is a watch that feels right at home on the boat or the beach somewhat less so in the ballroom it's almost 10 millimeters thick and made entirely of stainless steel with a changeable leather band attached to big shoulder like brackets that combined with the sunken screen and big side button to give the whole thing a very masculine very rugged look and feel the P OLED screen is on the small side at one point three inches but it's also the best quality we've seen on an Android wear watch it's absolutely gorgeous in both active mode and the power saving ambient display that's all well and good but we can't help thinking the G watch our would have benefited from a few more design revisions overall and in particular a different typeface on the accent numbers which really serve no purpose other than to break up the thick bezel as it is you really can't tell how well-built this watch is until you strap it on once you do you're left with the feeling that the G watch are can handle all kinds of abuse and with ip67 dust and water resistance it can like all Google smartwatches the G watch are uses the Android wear platform to keep you abreast of everything from new emails to weather and social updates to calendar appointments and beyond all of it via a Bluetooth connection to an app on your smart phone it tracks your heart rate and step count to let you know how healthy your being and it lets you talk to it if you really don't want to take your phone out of your pocket or purse LG has made some improvements to the software experience in about the only area Google allows manufacturers to do so watch faces the G watch are ships with faces showing everything from simple date and time to moon phase to health and wellness to the one that seems best suited to the hardware's brawny build a hiking watch face with a compass altimeter and pedometer cool combine all these with the hundreds of custom faces and apps you can download from the Play Store and you can make the G watch R into basically whatever you want it to be on the face anyway as a platform Android wear itself has remained largely unchanged since we reviewed it this summer and that will be the case until the recently leaked lollipop build goes official presumably sometime soon you can find the link to that story at pocket now and to our full Android wear review in the description below that consistency means that everything we loved about Android wear we loved just as much on the G watch our for our three week review period it's convenient to get notifications on the wrist in beautiful color for essentially any app you can think of it's still impossibly futuristic to navigate to a destination by wrist it's great to be able to check the weather just by looking at the watch face or to reply to messages by voice and presumably thanks to the Snapdragon 400 processor responsiveness is consistently smooth and quick and then there's the flipside it's still frustrating to dictate all but the simplest shortest replies by voice just testing out Android wear to see if it's improved at all no it hasn't because I paused and I shouldn't paused and come on dudes it's still irritating that just as you start getting used to the notion of using your watch for more it forces you to pick up your phone for something it could easily do itself and it's annoying that the watch often misinterprets arm movements lighting up when you're not looking at it protip when you want to dim the screen with the palm gesture you'll find the G watches sunken panel makes that tougher a two finger tap works much better back on the bright side with battery life the G watch are more than lives up to the admittedly low bar of Android wear endurance two to three days even with ambient display turned on so you can see the watch face at all times replenishment is a very quick operation with the high quality charging dock which provides a full charge from zero in a little over an hour and finally if you want you can use the four gigs of on-board storage to turn the watch into a simple mp3 player for a workout we didn't test this too thoroughly but it is nice to have that capability we still don't understand why the G watch r is as expensive as it is sure it offers a good Android wear experience but not so much better than the competition to warrant the extra cost and given the kind of half-finished state of Android wear and wearable platforms in general it's tough to aggressively get behind anything on the market at this point but if you're an Android user already sold on smartwatches you don't care about dropping a few dollars and you're looking for something solid the G watch r is just that lurking beneath its clunky case is one of the best Android wear devices you can buy today with the best screen we've seen on any SmartWatch and a platform that's due for some big upgrades coming soon if you're definitely buying an Android wearable this holiday season you could certainly do a lot worse than this if you want to know how the gee watch are stacks up against that other round Android SmartWatch check out our comparison video in the link above and again be sure to see our Android wear review linked in the description below till next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter inviting you to leave your best bezel based ball mall below in the comments thanks for watching and we'll see you next time