Review: Moto 360 Second Gen Smartwatch is Old Wine in a New Bottle
The Moto 360 2nd Gen looks great but is just another Android Wear watch with nothing truly special.
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The Moto 360 was an amazing Android Wear powered smartwatch in 2014. We even thought it was better than the Apple Watch. But Motorola came out with a 2nd gen of the 360 and unimaginatively named it the Moto 360 2nd Gen.
After spending almost a month with the smartwatch, here’s what we think.
Key Specifications: Moto 360 2nd Gen
- Display Size: 1.37-inch (42mm)/1.56-inch (46mm)
- Display Type: Backlit LCD, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, 263 PPI
- Display Resolution: 360 x 325 pixels (42mm)/360 X 330 pixels (46mm)
- Processor: 1.2 GHZ Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 APQ8026
- Operating System: Android Wear
- Internal Memory: 4 GB
- RAM: 512 MB
- Dust and Water Resistance: IP67
- GPU: Adreno 305 With 450 MHz
- Battery Capacity: 300 mAh (42mm)/400 mAh (46mm)
- Price: Rs 19,999 (42mm) to Rs 23,999 (46mm)
What’s Good?
It’s not a square or rectangle shaped smartwatch, it’s round. That’s what a classy watch should look like, and Motorola understands that.
There are two new sizes and a plethora of new straps and colours. You can now get the Moto 360 2nd Gen in 42mm and 46mm – a cue that Motorola took from the Apple Watch. But unlike the latter, the 46mm Moto 360 2nd Gen is a huge and stylish watch with a big dial and display on offer.
The display is slightly better than the previous generation as Motorola ups the pixel count to 360 x 325 for the 42mm model and 360 x 330 for 46mm.
The AMOLED LCD display is bright and vivid. The Android Wear watch does everything that you expect it to do.
It primarily tells you the time, gives you phone notifications, weather information, the number of steps you take, heart rate, a new watch face every day and tracks your fitness.
The Moto Body by Motorola also syncs with Google Fit to give you much more data on your fitness.
The second gen 360 runs on a Snapdragon 400 processor by Qualcomm and it improves the battery life on the smartwatch. You get a 300 mAh battery on the 42mm watch and 400 mAh battery on the 46mm one. They gave us a battery life of 1.5 days and 2 days respectively, which is decent.
The watches also have 4GB of storage and standard 512MB of RAM.
The watch is also water resistant to IP67 and can be immersed in up to 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes. But if you get one with a leather strap, don’t even try to do this.
What’s Bad?
There’s just too much focus on customisation with the Moto 360 2nd gen, and no actually new standout features on the wearable.
It’s the same old smartwatch in new sizes and colours. You still can’t take a phone call on the phone!
I was partially expecting that they will bring the call function to the new generation of the Moto 360.
Finally, it does connect with an iPhone now, but that’s about it. There are a very limited number of apps that work with the Moto 360 2nd Gen on the Apple iPhone.
On an Android smartphone, though, it offers a seamless experience.
Why Buy It?
The Moto 360 2nd Gen starts at Rs 19,990 (42mm) and goes all the way up to 23,999 (46mm) depending on the strap and size that you want.
Now that’s almost Rs 10,000 cheaper than the starting price of the Apple Watch.
If you are looking for a stylish smartwatch with minimum functions that can help you track your health, the Moto 360 2nd Gen makes sense. But so did the older version which is very similar to the new one.
The 2nd gen has a classy, light, customisable design, but no real features that stand out from its other Android Wear rivals like the Asus Zenwatch 2.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)