LG G Watch R Android smartwatch review

【51CTO translation】Smartwatches such as the LG G Watch R are probably more suitable for people who need to handle various technical tasks every day. Specifically, I mean occupations such as steel workers, auto repair workers, and stonemasons. These types of jobs allow practitioners to have developed wrist strength and strong muscles, so that this huge smartwatch will not look too obtrusive. But then again, if you have enviable muscles and a broad frame, then this will become our most ideal Android Wear watch product at present.

Size aside, the G Watch R has all the right design elements for a sports watch. More importantly, the R easily beats the Moto 360, its Android Wear competitor, in terms of battery life. And it also has the familiar LG Plastic OLED display.

This is a typical columnist wrist size, yours may vary. The watch is currently displaying the world clock interface.

LG says its G Watch R will be available in "early November this year," but the price hasn't been announced yet. Until that happens, this review will serve as an informal, non-final review. But based on what we know so far, we can already judge the G Watch R based on performance alone, and it's definitely the best of the Android smartwatch pack.

A watch with masculine design elements

As a watch, whether it looks good or not is a matter of opinion. You could easily find some more classic or more luxurious designs, but I personally support LG's sports-meets-tech style. LG's original watch design ideas on the G Watch R make this new product look very traditional, but it's only the bottom notification bar mechanism displayed by Android Wear at the bottom of the screen that makes us realize that the R is not just a digital watch.

In other words, I admit that this product's design cannot satisfy every user. It is obvious that the G Watch R has never considered the feelings or needs of female users. LG uses wide and thick lugs that run through the watch body and the strap. Although this design meets the aesthetic requirements of most watches in terms of design, it also makes the product as a whole a big guy among watches. From a horizontal perspective, the distance between the two sides of this R watch is slightly more than 1.75 inches, which is equivalent to the diameter of the Moto 360. From a vertical perspective, the distance between the upper and lower lugs reaches 2.25 inches.

With the two lugs as the endpoints, the G Watch R is 2.25 inches long. Friends with thin wrists will definitely not be able to wear it.

I don't think this size is too exaggerated, and my wrist is a typical writer's type rather than a strong man on a construction site. Of course, some users may find the G Watch R too big and uncomfortable to wear. In short, subjective conclusions are determined.

LG's choice of stainless steel for this watch could have been a huge selling point, but now it's dulled by the black coating. The material itself is very strong and reassuring, but it also lacks the fun, elegance of a handmade product. This is especially true on the bezel, where the 15, 30, and 45 minute numbers are marked.

Bezel and strap

The numbers on the outer bezel are great, and can help you quickly check the current time in its low-brightness ambient mode, where the screen only displays white watch hands. In addition, the digital markings also bring a distinct sports timer style. But overall, the outer bezel doesn't bring any elements we can see on luxury watches. I would like to see more interesting visual designs on the hour hand (such as a slightly convex and concave texture effect instead of a simple printed pointer appearance), or even consider using a rotatable outer bezel like on a diving watch.

The number markings on the outer ring add a little visual richness, but I would have liked to see more. Also, don't worry, the angle of the outer ring will not affect the watch's accurate recognition of swipe operations on the edge of the screen.

But who knows, LG may not want you to wear this watch in the water at all. The G Watch R has an IP67 water resistance rating, which means it can stay underwater for 30 minutes without worrying about damage - of course, the water depth cannot exceed one meter.

Like the Moto 360, the G Watch R comes with a black leather strap that you can swap out for any 22mm-wide band. Motorola's strap is branded Horween, while LG's is simply called "calf leather." It doesn't smell as leathery as the Motorola strap (yes, I sniffed it myself), nor is it quite as soft. But while LG's strap lacks a bit of luxury, it's still far better than the original G Watch's rubber strap and far more wearable than the frustrating Samsung Gear Live strap.

LG says its straps are made from genuine calf leather, but it doesn't feel as high-end as real leather should.

Current ***Android Wear Display

Round watches are the way to go, round watches are the way to go! High-end watches are all round, and square watches just make you look bookish - like the guys wearing the first LED watches in the 1970s. Like me, you may have thought that the Moto 360 had everything a round watch could offer, but now it seems that it has two fatal flaws.

First, Motorola's Moto 360 uses a 1.56-inch IPS LCD display, but it's not really round. Because there is a small area at the bottom of the screen without any pixels, its actual resolution is 320x290 - this area is used by Motorola to hide its display circuit. Secondly, the Moto 360's ambient adaptation mode is very poor, and we often can't see its display content clearly in dim places - unless it is really dark around.

Fortunately, LG has found the right answer - the G Watch R does not make either of the above mistakes.

LG's display is slightly smaller, but it doesn't have a portion of pixel area missing like the Motorola's.

The R Watch has a 1.3-inch, 320 x 320-pixel Plastic OLED display. Like the Moto 360's display, the R's face can be easily read in direct sunlight, which is a significant improvement over the original G Watch. Unlike the Moto 360, however, the G Watch R's display -- using LG's proprietary technology -- is a full circle. LG chose to enclose the display circuitry elsewhere, which results in a relatively small display area despite the larger body of the watch.

But I prefer this slightly compromised design, because the Moto 360's method of leaving a dead spot on the display is a bit obsessive-compulsive. And one thing is very important: the display brightness of the G Watch R in ambient detection mode is significantly higher than that of the Moto 360.

Please note that the last line of the information card is blocked by the dial on the left and right.

I only have two complaints about the G Watch R's display: first, there's no ambient light sensor (so the display brightness doesn't adjust automatically based on the ambient light); and second, the first few lines of text on Android Wear info cards are obscured by the curved edges of the LG display. Hopefully LG can fix this with a software update, but even if it doesn't, I'm fine with it. In my opinion, the G Watch R has a better display and better battery life.

All-day battery life

It's really hard to do a convincing test of the battery life of a smartwatch. Ars Technica may have the most scientific battery testing solution, but I can't do it - obviously, my stupid method is not that advanced. I just used the G Watch R normally for two days, frequently touching its display, and I believe that most friends will do the same when they buy such a new high-tech toy. The conclusion I came to is exciting: the battery capacity of the G Watch R is enough to easily cope with a full day of normal use, and there is still room for growth.

I put the watch on my wrist at 5:40am on Saturday morning. I plugged it in at 10:40pm that evening - a total of more than 16 hours of use, and it had 42% battery left. On Sunday morning, I put the watch on at 7am and took it off at 10:15pm. After a day of heavy use, it had 21% battery left. Now, I should remind you that this was done with Android Wear's black and white display mode enabled. On the Moto 360, turning on the "always on" watch face display mode significantly reduced its battery life, which is the main reason why Motorola's smartwatch makes me uncomfortable.

[[121898]]

When it's time to charge, all you have to do is place the bottom cover of the G Watch R directly onto the charging dock. The whole process is easy but not very impressive.

For now, the G Watch R's display isn't affected by ambient mode, and it has better battery life when used as an everyday watch - although I should stress that I'm not using it constantly as a test subject. It's also worth noting that the G Watch R has a more powerful 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, while the Moto 360 uses a four-year-old (and much less powerful) TI OMAP 3630 chip.

Thanks to a more generous battery (410 mAh in the LG watch versus 320 mAh in the Motorola) and a special "power saver mode" that lets the P-OLED display run at low brightness, you can get through a full day without worrying about it. Of course, a day's worth of battery life isn't cause for celebration, but it's still 2014, and battery technology is still a core challenge for most wearables.

The charging base is magnetic, which helps us place the watch on it more easily.

Unstable step counting and altitude data

The G Watch R offers 18 watch faces to choose from, some of which may make you feel confused and helpless on high-end timepieces - only this time it's digital. One face shows the current moon phase, while another renders the current time and two world clocks. My favorite is called Hiking, which shows your current step count and altitude - while it looks great and shows the potential of smartwatches, LG's performance is really disappointing.

Based on my personal testing on Sunday, the number of steps the G Watch R recorded was completely inconsistent with reality. I was walking around for a long time that day, and according to my Jawbone UP24, my total steps for the day were 15,705. However, the G Watch R only recorded 5,540 steps in that period of time. This result is not only inaccurate, but also a bit ridiculous. However, the situation on Sunday was much better. The data recorded by the two was more consistent this time - UP24 recorded 8,676 steps, while the G Watch R recorded 8,385 steps. Although my mood improved a little, I was still unhappy about the poor performance of the previous day.

Don't trust the measurement results of the altimeter on the right.

Next up is the altitude reporting on the watch, which has a built-in barometer that "provides an estimate of altitude based on the current air pressure conditions at your location." I even climbed to the top of Mt. Davidson two days in a row. Last Saturday, the watch reported that I was 263 feet above sea level. On Sunday, the watch reported that I was 282 feet above sea level at the same location. Do you think that's an acceptable error? The problem is, I know Mt. Davidson is 928 feet high - what the hell is this!

On the positive side, the watch's built-in heart rate monitor provided very accurate results, almost always in line with LG's heart rate earpieces - which are excellent little tools that can give accurate heart rate measurements when they are pressed against the chest. Of course, you can't get an accurate reading of your heart rate during exercise; instead, you need to stop moving and keep your wrist very still. But it's all worth it: As you can see in the picture below, after I stopped working out on the elliptical machine for a while, the beats per minute number displayed by the watch was exactly the same as the LG earpiece.

Note that the 126 beats per minute reported by the G Watch R is exactly the same as the result given by the LG heart rate earpiece (shown on the smartphone screen).

LG could really consider developing a Wear app for the heart rate earpieces to deliver on its promise of giving users a real-time, continuous view of their heart rate from their wrist. Of course, they'd better fix the weird step counting function first. Oh, and while the firmware is being updated, LG should also revamp the wrist-twist gesture on the G Watch R. The system works basically without any problems, and I never experienced a loss of Bluetooth connection between the watch and my phone during three days of testing. However, sometimes I shook my wrist and the watch didn't wake up properly, which was really detrimental to my image of being tall and majestic - this must be corrected immediately.

Closing Statement

Aside from a few minor quirks, I think the G Watch R finally shows me an Android Wear product that I'd be happy to wear on my wrist every day. Granted, it's not as extravagant as my Tag Heuer F1, and it lacks the tangible mechanical feel of a watch -- in other words, it doesn't feel "artificial."

But if you add Google Now and other features from the Google world to your life, Android Wear is indeed a very useful operating system - the notifications and information flow of the system can really make our daily activities more convenient. The G Watch R really packs many of the most attractive elements into a small body - including a smooth content viewing experience and ideal battery life. To be fair, the G Watch R will not be the best Android Wear watch I have seen, because Google's platform is still lacking in maturity, and we all hope that it will bring better rationalization performance.

The G Watch R's black and white display mode does not compromise on brightness - this is also a design concept that a good watch must have.

But with the upcoming Android Wear update, the G Watch R is now even better than it was when it was first announced in August. It's an excellent and remarkably durable smartwatch that I'll keep wearing on my wrist until something better comes along.

Original link: LG G Watch R: Best battery life, best display, best Android Wear watch available today

Nuka-Cola Translation