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  • Jon Tseng - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Reviews indicate battery life ain't great... only 12 hours

    Any thoughts on whether this is down to the (bizarre) choice of a TI SoC? Curious why they went with this part (recycling the Glass platform?) can't be good for power draw...
  • Impulses - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Weren't they given out at yesterday's press event? Just curious how much time has any reviewer realistically had with it.
  • Jon Tseng - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Think WSJ and The Verge were seeded with early versions for review.

    Man... spec sheet is up and its OMAP 3 (45nm part I think) <facepalm>
  • Impulses - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Heh, did Moto just face a truckload of these to unload or what? I thought TI was out of the game... Battery life isn't even my biggest worry, continued update support would be a concern too. Seems they tweaked it so it goes bright enough for decent sunlight visibility too, which is surely doing it no favors in battery life...

    So tempted to get one still, battery life being the only big drawback, meh.
  • Guspaz - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    TI *is* out of the game. The OMAP3 is ancient (like 6+ years old), and wasn't even the last OMAP (that was the OMAP5 IIRC) so maybe there was a big surplus stock somewhere that Moto got on the cheap.
  • SodaAnt - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Even that doesn't make all too much sense. SoCs aren't all that expensive, and I doubt the difference between the OMAP3 and whatever is much better is less than $10, and I think they could have found room for it in the BOM.
  • jakebruno - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link

    I do like it, but I really doubt that it will sell anywhere close to the top smartwatches that are already available. /Jake from http://www.consumertop.com/best-wearable-tech-guid...
  • aegisofrime - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    It totally doesn't make sense. A Mediatek MTK6572 (a dual core Cortex A7) will probably outperform the OMAP 3 while consuming lesser power at the same time. I can't help but think this biazzre choice of the OMAP 3 (and virtually all tech press is calling it biazzre) is going to kill the 360.
  • barleyguy - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Doesn't Motorola own TI? I thought I remember Motorola buying TI before Google bought Motorola.

    Maybe they literally had these in a warehouse...
  • barleyguy - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Nevermind. Can't find anything about it. Maybe it was a rumor that never came true...
  • EZoo - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Hmm I think all these OMAP3 come from MOTOACTV which they killed back in 2013, they must have a tons of these lying around and simply stripped them apart for the processor.
  • tuxRoller - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    The screen is generally off, aiui. It's only when it senses you lift your wrist to view the screen (nice heuristic, that) that it turns on.
  • A5 - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    I don't really keep up with low-end SoCs, but has anyone done a low-end chip on 20nm yet?

    But even on 28nm, they could have gone with better options.
  • aegisofrime - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    The market is filled with low-cost and low-power chips. A dual-core Cortex A7 will probably be perfect for this role. Unless Motorola were being paid for taking the OMAP3s, this decision makes no sense at all.
  • HuskyHuskie - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    The video review from The Verge was taken from Chicago so I get the feeling The Verge didn't get one early. Could be wrong though.
  • xunknownx - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    the choice of processor might be a deal breaker for me. im sure battery life would have drastically improve with a newer snapdragon.
  • tipoo - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Does it even need a modern snapdragon? I wonder if they couldn't go even lower, for what this does. Like, just a single Cortex A7 or something. But maybe for voice recognition you need more.
  • tuxRoller - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    An a5 would be fine, imho, and more efficient.
  • BuddyRich - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Any word on if the wireless charging is in fact Qi compatible?

    In all the reviews Ive only seen it mentioned that it works with the included dock, but nothing has said Qi specifically, let alone what verson of Qi (likely 1.1, 1.2 was just announced and its not a big battery anyway to need the faster charge rate).

    Also the bezel is metal, what about the back plate? Is it metal?
  • Impulses - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Back is plastic, charging is Qi, according to Phil at AndroidCentral anyway.
  • bleh0 - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Smartwatches still aren't there yet. The Moto 360 while being highly anticipated is hindered by from what other sites have noted as weak battery life. For me I can wait for a smartwatch that will at minimum have a battery life around two months on a charge. They don't need to replace my phone but they need to last more then a few days.
  • A5 - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Yeah, none of these first-gen products quite do it for me.

    The Moto 360 v2 (or something similar) next year could be really great, though.
  • nbgambler - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    IMHO battery life isn't a big concern after about 3 days... I figure I take the watch off at night anyway, but a weekend away without having to lug yet another charger around would be nice. 12 hours though, and I might not even be home from work/dinner/happy hour/gym.

    Now a wireless charging keyboard wrist rest.... that's an idea!
  • Impulses - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    You're gonna be waiting years if a month of battery life is an absolute requirement...
  • bleh0 - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    I don't mind the wait but something that is going to be on your wrist with the current level of functionality that the smartwatch provides needs much better battery life. A few more improvements on the Mirasol display technology and lower power components along with battery tech advancements could change things sooner.
  • tuxRoller - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    Do you plan on wearing your watch to bed? Take it off and charge it along with your phone.
  • Stochastic - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Until we get custom SoCs made for smartwatches specifically, I don't think battery life on these devices is going to be great. This is a segment that should improve rapidly, though. Hopefully we'll see the same pace of innovation as we did in smartphones in the late 2000s/early 2010s.
  • Stochastic - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Also, for wearables to take off in a big way, they need to be priced closer to the $100-$150 mark IMO.
  • Notmyusualid - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Sorry to disagree, but there are people, like myself, that have paid out $10,000s USD on watches.

    If it is built right, people WILL pay...
  • shadowjk - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    I have no clue what these things are supposed to do. Show time, callerid, provide phone controls and media controls?

    In idle, the omap3 would have a battery life of around 64 hours. Wakeup every second to update time on screen, and we're talking around 24 hours for the omap3.

    I dont have specific data on current SoCs, but anecdotally as a user of them, it seems wakeups have become more expensive.

    Full cpu use time would sit at hour and half for omap3, and less than half hour for the qualcomm in my phone..
  • Notmyusualid - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Try a Gear 2 Neo, (who needs the camera anyway on the Gear 2), it is lighter, nice to look at, and useful.

    I think if you are a commenter on AT, you just might like it.
  • SilthDraeth - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    That watch looks absolutely terrible. At the least, you should get the metal band for the $250, since the band it comes with looks like a .99 cent band. I have also seen $10 watches at walmart that have better aesthetics than the moto 360. Which looks nothing like the concept art, aside from having a round display.
  • mkozakewich - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Wow. Just wow. With that platform, they're basically building a cheap 2009 smartphone, and at a similar price, to boot. At least it's smaller?

    And it's over 10 mm thick, which kind of kills it.

    They should have put in a new low-performance SoC and reduced the height a little. If they thought this battery life was acceptable, they could have kept it and reduced the battery height.
  • Hans Koenig - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    Would love to hear what you think about our watch face collection for the Moto 360:
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Zu...
  • Brian Z - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    When apple announces their watch that will almost certainly be done right at the hw level. All these android OEMs will look even more like armatures than they already do. And apple has to do the hw and the software as well. All these android guys have to do for the most part is the hw. And this is the crap that they release. SMH

    Speaking of moto. Even with the G. I know its cost restrictive device. But they decided to keep the same aging snapdragon 400 in order to put a bigger better screen on it. Not a 410. I was a big fan of the original G. But reusing the same SoC as last year = instantly not a fan for me
  • isthisajoke360 - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link

    Went to best buy to purchase, they had a display, I was very disappointed, the black version look like something you would buy for a kid at Toys r Us plastic not responsive, in order to use cards you must say OK GOOGLE, not worth the money check out before you buy
  • isthisajoke360 - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link

    Go with Samsung gear 2.at least two day battery life with heavy use. Quality excellent. You won't be disappointed

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