With popular leaker Evan Blass releasing the first hi-res images of the impending LG Watch Style yesterday, we finally got our first look at how the new Android Wear collaboration between Google and LG will look. Today, we’re getting an indication of just how much they will cost. According to an Android Police source, the LG Watch Style will sell for $249 USD, that’s about $330 AUD before all of the local costs get put on top.
If the $249 price is correct it’s likely we won’t see the LG Watch Stye in Australia for much less than $399 AUD. The Watch Style is the smaller, lower-end version of the two expected watches. Check out the expected spec comparison below.
| LG Watch Style | LG Watch Sport | Screen size | 1.2-inch | 1.38-inch | Screen technology | Plastic OLED | Plastic OLED | Resolution | 360x360 | 480x480 | PPI | — | — | Chipset | Snapdragon Wear 2100 | Snapdragon Wear 2100 | Core config | 1.1GHz | 1.1GHz | Ram | 512MB | 768MB | Storage | 4GB | 4GB | MicroSD | — | — | Battery | 240 mAh | 430 mAh | Charging method | Wireless | Wireless | Cellular | No | 3G/LTE | NFC | — | Yes | Speaker | — | Yes | Android OS | Wear OS 2.0 | Wear OS 2.0 | Dimensions | 42.3 x 45.7 x 10.79 mm | 45.4 x 51.21 x 14.2 mm | Weight | — | — | Colours |
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| Build materials | 316L Stainless Steel | 316L Stainless Steel | Band colours | Unknown | Unknown | Band materials | Leather | TPU | Band swappable | Yes | — |
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With both of the new Google Android Wear devices expected to launch on February 9th, we won’t have to wait long until we find out all the details. Until then I think we can expect a few more leaks.
The smaller one is probably the best looking smart watch yet. But I’m sure the battery life will still be terrible so it’s hard to get excited.
I want a speaker. So the sport version is for me. Plus it has LTE and a bigger higher resolution display.
Meh, the price point is too high for my liking. I’d rather get a decent real watch for that price point. Shame as I’m keen to give Android wear a go but I won’t unless a worthwhile device comes out at a better price point
If I were a designer. Thick bezels would never even exist ever. They look so stupid and ugly.
You need it to be as thin as possible because that’s what looks good.
Moto 360 is a good example of a thin bezel. This LG watch looks like a downgrade. It seems they have a thing for humongous bezels originally seen in the pointless LG Watch R.
All thick bezels should be thrown in the fire
I can see why Google is placing these under the Nexus brand. They don’t look like the kind of quality that they’d want to stamp the Pixel name onto yet.
Wake me when I can charge it once a week. Seems they are missing the trick. I don’t want a watch I need to plug in every night. I have a Seiko automatic that can tell the time and it never needs charging. Unused to have a pebble. I could use it for all sorts of things. I ended up using it to ignore calls and read text messages that I’d forget to reply to later. So I stopped wearing it and went back to the Seiko. It looks better (certainly better than this) it tells the time and I… Read more »
Yeah and horses don’t need gas, doesn’t make them a better form of transportation. ?
If time is all you need, stick with your seiko watch. Otherwise, time is the least if not last of things you want from a smart watch.
My point is that the uses for a smart watch aren’t compelling enough at this point to warrant the inconvenience of a nightly charge. Especially when the very specific uses for smart watches are done so well by other specialist devices.
Time isn’t all I need. None of us NEED a smart watch. What we all want is a good looking, useful device. I used to think they were useful until I used one for a while.
Personally I am yet to see the usefulness of a smart watch. I have not yet jumped on the band wagon. I have fitbit charge 2. It records literary all my physical activities and more (e.g. heart rate) . It is just a step below what would be classified as a smart watch. That combined with a smart phone, is more than a smart watch. Any addition is a duplication.
Its sad that automatics are the least accurate watches.
Funny how google ops for wireless charging for convenience, but doesn’t give the same thought to their line of mobiles. Lights on, but nobody’s home.
Except wireless charging on watches isn’t a matter of convenience. It’s a matter of putting traditional ports on the device taking too much space, and pogo pins like the Huawei watch being an epic pain in the a** when you put it on the charger, wake up, and it’s dead because the pins didn’t line up 100% perfectly.
Wireless charging watches is the only reasonable way to do it.
It’s just sad they won’t be as hackable as the Huawei watch. One benefit of pogo charging was that it could use it for a standard USB connection for fastboot.
The Huawei watch doesn’t have real wireless charging like the Moto 360s, Fossils, Micheal Kors, and Tag Heuer smart watches. All these smart watches can be charged on wireless charging pads.
…That’s kind of my point. The Huawei watch is the only one with magnetic pogo pins, which are great for fastboot hacking but absolutely aweful for charging your watch. Wireless is the only *real* option on a smartwatch.
Wireless Charging for watches means proprietary pogo pin connectors, not Qi Wireless Charging. (unfortunately)
Not all smart watches uses pogo pins.
yeah sorry, i should have said “mainly means”. huawei watch, LG G Watch R launch said wireless charging, only to disappoint and have pogo pins.
Hopefully this is true wireless charging. would mean i can use my wireless chargers around the home/office/power bank instead of carrying around the little charging adapter i use now for the Huawei Watch.
The Moto 360’s, Fossils, Micheal Kors, and Tag Heuers smart watches all support wireless charging. And they all are Android Wear. I can get a good couple of days from my new Q Marshal smart watch. If I turn off wifi, and place the watch in theatre mode. Then I can get 4 days. It still tracks my steps. That is really pushing it.
The style looks like what the Apple Watch should’ve looked like. Refined, slim, understated… and round.
Too expensive.
Let’s face it, the market for smartwatches has cooled significantly. People aren’t prepared to pay big bucks for something with an uncertain use case. As such you need to be targeting <$200 to entice people in.
Oh, and they needed to be launched before xmas. I wonder what fault prevented that, and if it will come back to bite.Just imagine a lithium battery fire on your wrist…
I think there’s still a lot of established views to be challenged too; watches were an intergenerational investment, and now they’ve got a useful life of a few years or so. Yet, the pricing is much the same for some.
I have to say, I wouldn’t go spending a lot of my own money on smartwatches at the moment. They’re good, but not sure if they’re hundreds of dollars good.
I have to say, I am -very- much more excited about the LG Watch Sport … the Style looks like anything but.
I’m worried that the Sport will be to focused on the ‘active’ maket and won’t “dress-up well”. I think the Style will end up being my “prefered” one of the two, please last all day and have all the good features.
Bloody hell, that’s a boring looking watch. Even from a traditional design perspective, it looks a bit cheap.
It’s not completely frying my burger either
Yep, looking quite dull. That band looks about as hi-kwality as the original G Watch (i.e. cheap garbage). And the plastic back, wow (because of wireless charging, sure, but at least make it look nice).
Even with Assistant baked in, this thing is worth nowhere near $400AU.
None of the “pizazz” from Google’s own recent hardware designs is present here at all.