New Delhi, December 9 – So far all the Android Wear watches have been either too big or bland looking. The same can’t be said about the Asus ZenWatch. It looks classy. Asus has announced that it will be releasing the product in Q1, but we managed to take an early look at it at an event in Delhi. Read on for our first impressions.
The ZenWatch is definitely the classiest Android Wear smartwatch we have seen so far. It is better looking than the Moto 360 and the LG G-watch R despite being a square watch. It has a neat leather strap which looks nice and has a solid clasp.
The design of the watch works well with formal and informal attire, something which we can’t say about other smartwatches. The thing is that the ZenWatch exudes a level of “zen” for formal wear, an area where most smartwatches struggle to shine.
On the front, its 1.63-inch 320×320 pixels screen is the star of the show. It is a clear display, which showcases the number of good-looking watch faces that Asus has preloaded on the product. The display also has 2.5D curved gorilla glass for extra protection.
The size looks just right. Even if you have thin wrist, it will fit and look well. The device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 4GB ROM and 512MB RAM, which is the same as many of its rivals.
It does not have a heart rate monitor, instead there’s a pulse tracker which is not as accurate as the heart rate monitor on Samsung’s Gear line of products. Software wise, it runs on Android Wear. Unfortunately, our test unit was buggy and lagged quite a lot.
The interface elements remain the same and Android wear is totally dependent on swipes and a series of informative cards. Right now, the platform doesn’t seem mature enough. Pricing, something that we don’t know yet for the Indian market, will also decide how well the ZenWatch will be received in the market.
-INDIA TODAY
