Moto 360 Smartwatch Review

Early this year when Google first announced Android Wear, it teased us with the Moto 360. It was by far the best-looking smartwatch we'd ever seen. Many months later it's here at last. It's the best Android Wear device yet, but with the Apple Watch looming on the horizon, it's no longer clear if that's good enough.

What Is It?

It's a smartwatch that works with Android phones (version 4.3 and higher), essentially acting as a second screen for your device. It displays your incoming calls, texts, emails and allows you to reply to them by voice. It displays your Google Now cards to keep you up to date on the things that theoretically matter to you, it gives you turn-by-turn directions, it allows you to translate words and phrases, and it has a suite of sensors that help keep you in shape. And it looks good doing it.

Who's It For?

Android phone users. Bleeding-edge technology must-havers. Productivity obsessers. Runners and bikers. Watch wearers.

Design

Like Derek Zoolander, it's really, really, ridiculously good-looking. Is that subjective? Obviously, but it's also general consensus among design nerds, tech enthusiasts, and the random people I've showed it to. It's discreet enough that it doesn't jump out at you, but it looks cool enough that friends of friends have been quick to ask me about it. The design recalls high-end analog watches of yore. It's extremely simple and clean. The Moto 360's relatively thin stainless steel bezel belies the technology under the hood, and its perfect circle is interrupted only by a single button on the right. Combine that with the standard leather strap, and it really is quite lovely.

Front and center is a bright, beautiful, flat, perfectly round 320 x 290 pixel backlit LCD screen with a 1.56-inch diameter. While it isn't quite as thick as other Android Wear wristwatches, it actually feels larger due to the round screen. It's significantly brighter, too, which is clutch when walking around outdoors. The screen is protected by a very thick layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3, which really does feel like a solid piece of glass. It's a great staging ground for the lovely watch faces Motorola has designed and includes with the 360.

At the bottom of the screen is a blank space, which many, many people hate oh so very much. That's where the display drivers live (which allow the bezel to be thinner), alongside Android Wear's first ambient light sensor. Sure, your display may resemble a flat tire, but at least it can automatically brighten or dim so you can always comfortably read it. Also, while you notice it a lot during the first half-hour, you'll start to forget about it after that. Every now and then you'll notice it again, and while you'll wish it weren't there, it's not going to ruin the experience.

The watch's back is smooth, glossy rounded plastic. Because the watch is charged via a wireless inductive charger (a very nice looking cradle, by the way) there are no ugly breaks in the smooth surface for electrical contact points. In the middle is a heart rate sensor that uses the same pulse oximeter-type technology we've seen from other heart-rate monitoring watches in the last few years, such as the Mio Alpha and the Basis Band.

At launch there will be two colors: black and stainless steel (though they're both made of stainless steel). The black will come with a black band, and the stainless steel will come with a "limited edition" dark gray band while supplies last. (A lighter grey band will replace it.) Black and stainless steel metal bands will also be available in the months to come, too (for $50 more), but if none of Motorola's preferred bands tickle your fancy you can always swap in a standard 22mm band of your choosing. A Motorola rep told me that not all bands would fit cleanly, though, so they do recommend using one of theirs and having a jeweler do any band-swapping for you.

Using It

Functionally speaking, the Moto 360 is almost identical to the other Android Wear watches already out there. You raise your arm to wake up the screen. You say, "Okay Google..." to enter voice commands. You swipe up and down to toggle between cards which hold small amounts of glanceable information which Google thinks you might like, and left and right to dismiss or go deeper into them. I don't think there is anyone who would argue that a smartwatch is a necessity at this point, but is it a convenience? Absolutely.

Having an Android Wear watch on means that I pull my phone out of my pocket a lot less than I otherwise normally do. Viewing a text and sending a quick response is almost always done from my watch now. Checking quickly if I have any new email, too, doesn't require a reach into the pants pocket. If I'm getting turn-by-turn walking directions, I just glance at my watch when it vibrates and tells me to turn, rather than walking around with my face in my phone. If I'm going for a run and I want to see my current stats and/or change music tracks, it's all right there. If I want to look something up real quick ("Is Benny Hill still alive?"), or see which gate I'm supposed to be walking to at the airport, it is simply much much convenient.

In addition to that, the Moto 360 has some unique functionality. It's the first Android Wear watch with an ambient light sensor, so it fluidly becomes more visible when it's bright outside and doesn't blast your eyeballs with light in a dark movie theatre. Really, all smartwatches should have that. It's also the first smartwatch that charges wirelessly. The watch comes with a cool little curved dock you simply drop it into, without having to futz with lining anything up. It just falls into place and starts charging. The watch face turns into a cool little clock that looks pretty damn good on a bedside table and doesn't put out too much light.

Perhaps the best unique feature, though, is that this is the first smartwatch that has a sensor that is constantly monitoring your heart rate, not just when you do it on demand. Motorola added its own special app which tells you how many minutes you've spent in different heart rate zones, in addition to the step counter that Android Wear includes by default. There's Inactive (40-92 bpm), Active (92 - 129 bpm), and Vigorous (129-185 bpm), and the app recommends you spend at least 30 minutes a day in the Active zone. It tries to motivate you to do that five days in a row via the occasional notification. I think the metric is a great idea, generally presenting a much better look at your activity levels than a simple pedometer. After all, counting steps doesn't help much if you're biking, lifting weights, doing yoga, having adventurous sex, and so on.

Generally the heart-rate monitor works very well. The catch is that it needs to maintain good contact with your skin, which means that if you prefer to wear you watch loosely it may not be able to keep tabs on your ticker. The other annoying thing is that you have to actually launch Motorola's heart rate apps if you want to track your progress. That requires a voice command, or digging through a menu. It would be much more convenient if this could be integrated into the standard stack of cards like Google Fit does with your steps. You will get a very occasional notification when you're half-way to your activity goal, and a second one once you've completed it, but that's it. It's a great feature, but it needs to be more fully integrated.

Android Wear

Let's talk about Android Wear in general for a moment. Having now spent a couple of months using it every day, I feel that I can conclusively say that it's a good operating system with a lot of potential, but it definitely feels like a beta. There's a general lack of consistency that plagues Android Wear at this stage of its development. Sometimes useful cards pop up at the right time, sometimes they don't. For example, the first time I flew with Android Wear, my boarding pass popped up on my watch, I was able to scan its QR code, and the whole airport thought I was a magical time-traveler. I've been on at least five flights since then and that card hasn't once shown up again and I don't know why and I don't have a Sonic Screwdriver to fix it.

It's the not knowing why part that's really irksome. Yeah, it's great that everything happens more or less automatically, but when it doesn't, you should be able to bring up the stuff you want. There is almost no way to control the flow of information you get, and the flow of information is less useful as a result.

There are larger problems, too. Sometimes the watch will spontaneously unpair from the phone and then refuse to reconnect for an hour. Sometimes when you enter a voice command it will say the phone is disconnected, even when it isn't. Sometimes it looks like the Moto 360 is ready to receive a voice command, but it ignores you, leaving you to shout, "Okay Google. Okay Google! OKAY GOOGLE!" into your wrist like an idiot.

[Shown on a small woman's even smaller wrist]

The voice commands that it responds to are often very specific, which means you have to memorize a list of commands rather than use natural language (Cortana would laugh, hard). It's harder to launch apps than it should be, and if you accidentally close out of an app (or let the screen go to sleep) you'll automagically be transported back to the main screen, like it or not, and have to navigate your way back there. There's no multitasking, and there's no undo button.

Most of this was stuff we could let fly... until we saw the Apple Watch two days ago. Now, granted, that watch isn't a real or purchasable thing until the spring of 2015, but it looks freaking fantastic. The suite of features the Apple Watch promises at launch, and the seemingly dead-simple navigation could take a lot of the shine away from Android Wear, assuming it all works as advertised. Google had created the best smartwatch OS we'd seen yet, but Apple's software demos make it look very beta indeed. Again, Apple's watch isn't real yet, and Google now has roughly six months to get its shit together. We're rooting for both teams.

Battery and Performance

Here's where things get dodgy. The Samsung Gear Live and the LG G Watch are both driven by the Qualcomm APQ8026 System on Chip, and both generally feel pretty snappy and responsive. Motorola, for some unknown reason, decided to go with a Texas Instruments OMAP 3 for the Moto 360. That chip is roughly four years old, which, in silicon terms, makes it practically paleolithic. Honestly, it doesn't make that big of a difference in speed, but there is a noticeable difference. Things seem to load up just a bit slower, voice commands take just a moment longer, and there's just a blink more hesitation when swiping through the OS. It's not bad, but when the whole point is to be more convenient than looking at your phone (which is probably a speed demon), every millisecond counts. Generally, it still succeeds at this, but there's obvious room for improvement.

The way bigger problem with the TI OMAP 3 is that it's not as efficient. When you've only got a 320mAh battery in there you need a chip that absolutely sips power, and the OMAP 3 ain't it. Having a backlit LCD instead of a AMOLED screen probably doesn't help either. The result is that the Moto 360 does indeed have the worst battery life of any Android Wear watch yet on the market.

That said, I wouldn't call the battery life "bad," as it certainly doesn't render the watch unusable. As we noted Monday, we haven't yet found battery life nearly as bad as some other outlets initially reported. The Moto 360 has two screen modes: ambient mode, and ambient mode off. In ambient mode, the screen dims when you're not using it, but is not supposed to turn all the way off. What odd is that it does, in fact, turn all the way off sometimes, but then it comes back on with the slightest twitch of your wrist. With ambient mode off, the screen goes completely black when you're not using it, and to turn it on again you either make the "looking at my watch" gesture, tap the screen, or press the button on the side. I would say, on the whole, that ambient mode is slightly more convenient, but it's not night and day.

With ambient mode on, you will probably make it a good 14 or 15 hours on a charge, depending how aggressively you use it. That's generally enough to last you from the moment you wake up until you get home from work. With ambient mode off, however, I consistently got more than 24 hours of use. In fact, as I write this now, it's been off the charger for 26.5 hours and still has 25 percent battery life in the tank. So, while we prefer ambient mode, it's definitely better to leave it off so you can use your watch with impunity.

But here's the thing. The Samsung and LG watches both have ambient mode set on by default, and even with it on they get more than 24 hours. With it off, they get around two days. Not only that, their ambient mode actually keeps the screen fully on so it's always easier to steal a glance at the time (though they lack Moto's slick ambient light detector). So is the Moto's battery life a deal-breaker? No, but it's behind the curve. If you forget to charge the Moto 360 one evening, you might be okay. If you forget twice, you're probably out of luck.

Like

It's just so pretty. It's the first smartwatch that doesn't make you feel like a dork. It has the brightest screen of any smartwatch yet, and it's way more visible outside. It's easily the most comfortable smartwatch out there, too. It's light, it has a smooth back, and the leather straps feel good on the skin. The constant heart rate monitoring is a great feature.

It also really is just very convenient. If you're an Android user it actually does make life just a little bit easier. It has the best charging dock of any smartwatch yet, and because it supports the Qi protocol, you can just toss it on any wireless charger may already have on your desk (it worked fine on the Nokia DT-900 charger, for instance). It's also dust and water resistant, and the screen feels rock solid. It's easy to like.

No Like

Battery life, while not as dreadful as some have said, is worse than the other two Android Wear watches, and it's also a tad slower. I wish it had a faster, more efficient processor. You shouldn't have to disable ambient mode to get 24 hours on a charge. It's a bit thicker than the other two Wear watches (but because it's rounded it doesn't catch on things very easily). The mic seems to be a bit less sensitive than the other watches, too, and it occasionally struggled to hear me or respond to an "Okay Google..."

There are definitely some software gremlins, too. In addition to Android Wear still feeling like an advanced beta, there would be occasional snags, like a third-party app being rotated 90 degrees for some reason, which is something I've only seen happen on the 360 (but, to be fair, it only happened with one app, so it could be an isolated problem). The heart rate stuff would be much more useful if you could always see it at a glance, or if it integrated with an app on your phone or in the cloud. On its own, most people wouldn't know what to do with that data.

Should You Buy It?

Despite its flaws, we are still calling this our favorite Android Wear watch yet. It looks great, it feels great, and it generally works very well. So, if you're sure you want an Android Wear watch, then yes, go ahead and get this one. We think you'll probably like it. At $250 it's $50 more than the Samsung and $20 more than the LG, but we think it's worth it to have a smartwatch that's this attractive.

That said, there is work to be done, and much of it is on Google. If Apple really can deliver everything it's promising the Apple Watch can do by next spring, then it will simply blow Android Wear out of the water. Full stop. And I say that as a longtime Android user. The Moto 360 still has a chance to be the best smartwatch out there-and it probably is right now-but if it wants to remain on top, it's going to need to improve in meaningful ways, and quickly.

You can get the Moto 360 now from Google Play, Motorola.com, and Best Buy for $250. Who's taking the plunge?

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AT&T Will Give You $200 Minimum For Your Old IPhone 4

As expected, would-be iPhone 6 owners are currently wading through a torrent of trade-in and upgrade offers. It's all very, very confusing. But AT&T is being clear about one thing: If you trade in an iPhone 4, 4S, 5, or 5C, you will get at least $200 credit towards a new device.

That's pretty good, if you want a new AT&T contract! And it's especially good if you own an iPhone 4 which is about to be obsolete. If you trade in an iPhone 5S, you'll get $300 in credit. You can also get an extra $100 in bill credit "with the purchase of any iPhone when activating a new line of service with a smartphone on AT&T Next." The AT&T Next upgrade program does come with a monthly service fee, however, so you'll be giving AT&T that money back eventually.

This is a good deal, but not necessarily the best out there. T-Mobile and Sprint promise to meet or beat any other trade-in deal. T-Mobile will also give you an extra $50, if you can find someone that will offer as much as they will. In a phone call with Gizmodo last week, a T-Mobile representative said that they're offering as much as $350 for the iPhone 5S. Which is super good. So trade wisely.

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It’s Time To Say Goodbye Nokia!

In life, many times we are aware of things that are about to happen yet when they happen you feel really unhappy. This is true even for Nokia brand. We knew when Microsoft had taken over the company that will eventually be fading out the Nokia brand and now it is happening for real.
Having grown up in an era where mobile was synonymous with Nokia, it makes me really sad that the brand is going to be around only for a few more days.
As per an internal document obtained by GeekOnGadgets, Nokia Lumia 730 and Lumia 830 are the last smartphones to come with the Nokia branding. However, the devices will continue to have the Lumia branding.
Another change that will take place is that the operating system will now be now referred as just Windows rather than Windows Phone. Well, this move makes a lot of sense as it shows Microsoft's intent to be seen as one operating system across various devices be it mobiles, tablets, or computers.
As a matter of fact, the "Phone" in the OS name was also dropped in the recently launched Windows edition of HTC One (M8).
Coming back to Nokia, we sure know that the brand has lived its days of glory with great price. We still can't think of any mobile that has been such a rage as Nokia N-Gage, Nokia 6600, or even Nokia 1100 had been in India. At the end, all I can say right now is RIP Nokia, you will always be missed.

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Xolo Q1200 Review

Xolo, the Indian smartphone brand that started out with phones based on Intel's reference design, is now pretty aggressive in the budget segment. We see a new launch from the company almost every alternate week. With Q1200, Xolo promises to add value with gesture control and software enhancements. Can the company's attempt bear fruit? We try to find out in our review.

Build & design
Compared to other Xolo smartphones, Q1200 features a more premium design with its partially metallic back panel and slim frame (it's just 6.85mm thick). The phone is as slim as the iPhone 5 if you discount its protruding camera lens.

However, as soon as you pick up the phone, you realize that the use of metal has also added to the weight of the phone. Yes, the phone feels bulky and Xolo has not specified the weight of the phone.

It's also one of the few Xolo phones that don't come with a removable cover (and battery). We have no qualms in saying that Q1200 is one of the better-built smartphones compared with those from other Indian brands.



The power/screen lock key and the volume rocker key are located on the left side while a tray that houses slots for micro-sim card and microSD card is placed on the right side . While the location of the keys facilitates easy access, the keys don't really offer good tactile feedback and are a bit soft.

The back features a big metal panel sandwiched between two plastic pieces. It features an 8MP rear camera with Sony's Exmor R Sensor and a dual-LED flash, besides two speaker grills. The camera lens protrudes out, but Xolo has protected it with Gorilla Glass to prevent scratches.



Overall, Xolo Q1200 feels durable and solid, although a bit bulky.

Display

Xolo Q1200 features a 5-inch HD IPS display (720x1280p, 294PPI), which is a LG panel, with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection to guard against minor scratches. The panel supports gestures like double tap-to-unlock and unlock-via-pattern to open a specific app. The display offers great viewing angles, vivid colours and good contrast. Images and text appear crisp and sharp and sunlight legibility is also good.

Software

Xolo Q1200 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, but the company has promised the Android 4.4 KitKat update in the first week of July. Unlike other Xolo phones, Q1200 has been skinned and the UI looks different from stock Android. The phone's UI, based on Kobee launcher, can be themed and some themes even eliminate the app launcher, placing all app icons and widgets on the home screen, similar to the UI seen in MiUi, Gionee and Lenovo software. It includes some transition effects as well.

The settings menu, notifications tray and setting toggles, all look very different, and may not appeal to everyone. One peculiar thing we noticed was that Xolo's system apps had a soft back button, which is a redundant element given that Android has a back key.



One of the headline features of the phone is support for gestures, including double tap-to-unlock, flip to silent and cold access apps. If you activate these gestures, the phone's proximity sensor looks for them and triggers an action. Drawing the letter 'm' on the phone in locked state unlocks it to the music app. There's support for motion gestures similar to Samsung Galaxy S4 and Lava Iris 504Q, allowing users to browse through content and apps by waving their hands.

We tried using the gesture control features and found that these worked pretty well. But most users would get bored and abandon them after the initial fascination. So these are a bit gimmicky. Also, we don't understand why settings for gestures are hidden under the Accessibility menu.

The phone also offers voice commands for accepting and rejecting calls, capturing a shot with the camera, and for snoozing or silencing the alarm. We were not able to get them to work in the first go. You're really better off not using them.



Xolo Q1200 also offers a floating panel that lets you play music and videos in floating windows on top of other apps. It can be minimized when not needed.

The phone also includes a security vault to password protect apps as per the user's preference.

Overall, Xolo has added a number of software and gesture features to the phone to add value. We don't think everyone will find them useful though. Also, some parts of the software feels unfinished and include prompts with grammatical errors.

Camera

Xolo Q1200 sports an 8 MP rear camera with Sony Exmor R sensor, an LED flash, and a 2MP front camera. The rear camera takes good quality images in daylight, and even pictures taken indoors in less light turned out to be decent.



Colour reproduction is good. We did not face any issues while taking macro shots and the outcome was good.

The rear camera is capable of shooting full-HD videos and the quality was acceptable.



The front camera doesn't take good quality images. It is good for video chats though.

Performance

Xolo Q1200 is powered by a 1.3GHz MediaTek MT6582 quad-core processor and 1GB RAM. While using the phone, we did not encounter any hiccups while launching and switching between apps and there was not much lag except for scrolling through the notifications. The reason for this could be the custom app launcher.

Casual games such as Subway Surfers run smoothly. However, we encountered some minor frame drops while playing graphics-heavy games like Asphalt 8.

In terms of synthetic benchmarks, it scored 5,871 in Quadrant Standard, 16,436 in AnTuTu, 1167 in Geekbench 3(Multi-core) and 54.1 in NenaMark 2, lagging behind Moto G by a big margin in some tests. But we'd not recommend a phone based solely on benchmarks as real world performance is different at times.

Q1200 sports a 2000mAh battery and lasts a full working day (14-15 hours) with moderate to heavy use.

Out of the 8GB storage, about 5GB is available to the user. You can also expand the storage with a memory card of up to 32GB.

We were able to play most video and audio files on the phone without any hiccups. The phone offers good call quality and signal reception. The phone was able to lock to GPS without any hiccups.

The external speaker on the phone offers loud stereo sound output. It also features DTS technology for clear and richer sound. While the external speakers offer good quality sound, we were not satisfied with the quality of sound delivered through the headphones. The output lacked bass as well as clarity.

Of course, the sound gets muffled when the phone lies on its back, which is a problem with all such designs that place speakers at the back.

Verdict

Xolo Q1200 is just another budget option among the multiple smartphones from Indian brands available in the market. In terms of differentiation, the phone offers gesture control and voice command in this price segment. Both the features are not new and the novelty wears out after the initial excitement. Some software features also lack finesse. Lava Iris 504Q+ (both Xolo and Lava brands belong to Lava International) also offers similar features at the same price point.



Xolo Q1200 does not offer dual-sim functionality so if you're looking for that, this phone is not for you. It also doesn't offer performance as good as Moto G or even Xolo's own Q1100. However, the rear camera and good build quality are the strong points of Q1200. At a price of Rs 13,999, we'd not recommend this phone if you're looking for good performance. You should take a look at Moto G and Xolo Q1100 instead.

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