Gadgetory

motorola captured the adoration of a tech geek nation with its first Android wearable the Moto 360 was a round-faced anomaly in a sea of squares a distinctive wristwatch that actually looked more like a timepiece than a piece of technology its sequel updates the originals underpowered processor and brings additional sizing options but leaves other controversial aspects intact at nearly twice the price is the new moto 360 worth the premium over its predecessor i'm michael fisher with pocket now and i've spent about a month finding out join me for our moto 360 second generation video review the new moto 360 packs a number of hardware improvements a few of which are obvious right out of the gate there's the two sizing options to start with motorola finally heeds the call for smaller watches for smaller wrists with a 42 millimeter addition of its watch which we took a look at back at Aoife for our review device we selected the larger option a 46 millimeter casing with a commensurately larger battery you're also permitted to style your watch how you like during the ordering process which is handled through moto maker casing and chamfer color and texture are all customizable and you're also free to choose between leather and metal bands of course the more premium you go the more you'll pay whichever option you choose all the hardware is ip67 water and dust resistant just keep in mind those leather bands won't hold up to immersion nearly as well as the metal ones on the wrist the basic silver and black leather configuration feels much larger than last year's 360 thanks in part to those pronounced lugs at top and bottom they make the watch less space-age and more traditional looking which motorola tells us was exactly the intent company wants the new 360 to appeal more to wristwatch people than SmartWatch people the strategy everyone seems to be using this year the lugs carry an added bonus too they allow for simple catch mechanism so you can swap in any 22 millimeter band you want this one is from the pebble time steel the back panel is a single piece of glass punctuated by a Center mattered heart rate sensor and it's mirrored on the front side by a sheet of Gorilla Glass 3 protecting the one Finch 233 PPI display that screen is brighter and offers better color than the previous generation but it's still an LCD rather than an OLED and it still bears the curious hallmark of Motorola watches the so-called flat tire the latter doesn't bother us much because it allows for an ambient light sensor and slimmer bezels overall but Motorola's use of LCD is a minor letdown OLED screens tend to have crisper contrast and deeper blacks which is perfect for a SmartWatch finally the single Hardware button has been enlarged and moved from the 3 to the 2 o'clock position and it now offers a much more satisfying almost chunky click it all comes together in a package that's very comfortable well made and quite attractive in a big bold kind of way the new moto 360 runs on Android wear 1.3 which is based on Android lollipop and functions much like prior releases at press time we are expecting a major revision to the Android wear platform basically any day now but for now we're stuck with wear 1.3 notifications are stacked in a vertically scrolling list of cards in theory they pop up when they're relevant they disappear when they're not for incoming alerts they work quite well texts hop from the phone to the watch with a short haptic buzz and replying is a simple matter of choosing a canned response dictating a message of your own or drawing an emoticon which is awkward but kind of fun app support has gotten much better since Android wear debuted using Shazam to quickly identify a song without ever taking your phone from your pocket is one of the best examples of how useful a SmartWatch can be and games like dragon laser show off what's possible when you don't need to be useful but also don't want to be bored these notes are all exclusively based on using the 360 with an Android phone by the way while you can use it with an iPhone as we did for a week the experience is significantly hobbled and we don't really recommend it motorola switched from its ancient TI silicon to a more standard snapdragon 400 for this watch and it shows in the software responsiveness it is faster than its predecessor maybe more importantly it now allows you to leave the display on all the time so you can see the watch face had a glance and despite the common wisdom about LCDs being less power efficient than OLED we left the ambient display on while we slept for nine hours and it lost only 3% in battery life sure we weren't wearing it and it was a dark room but that's impressive nonetheless unfortunately the ambient lighting sensor is much slower than it should be to adapt in brighter environments sometimes takes upward of 4 or 5 seconds for the watch to brighten the display in direct sunlight for an Android wear watch battery life on the whole is acceptable for all but the most notification heavy users this is a solid 2 day device our days were an average of 15 hours long and we ended most days with an average of 53 percent battery remaining keep in mind these figures are for the larger Moto 360 the more petite model has a significantly smaller battery with either size replenishment is as hassle-free as it was on the first gen the 360 is still the only Android wearable to come with a wireless cradle right in the box and it uses the Qi standard so you can charge it with any Qi charging pad you've got lying around if you need to at a starting price of $2.99 and 349 for the configuration seen here the new moto 360 lens smack in the middle of the pack when it comes to Android wearables it's not as pretty from some angles as the pricier Huawei watch and it also has a somewhat less impressive display but it does have better battery life it's much more expensive than the newest Zeus Zen watch - and the first moto 360 but it's also more stylish than the former and its internals will aged better than the latter's where the 360 shines is in customizability few of its competitors offer so many hardware options at this price point and the fact that you can now use your own bands only adds to the versatility it's not as groundbreaking as its predecessor and like most Android wearables it's pretty expensive for what you get but if you're sold on Android wear and you're looking for a watch that'll turn heads the second generation Moto 360 should make you happy just keep in mind that the discounts are probably coming right after the holidays for more details see our additional moto 360 coverage at PocketNow and for more context see our reviews of the competition here on YouTube until next time this has been michael fisher captain two phones on twitter thanks for watching and we'll see you next time