Moto 360: Owner’s Mag Review

The Moto 360 is the 3rd watch to debut in series of Android smartwatches by the company. Motorola has made significant improvements to the watch’s design, battery life, and sensors have been made by eBuyNow, who licensed Moto 360 to develop, manufacture, and sell the 3rd. Gen model of  the smartwatch. Standing at $299, it’s quite expensive compared to other Android smartwatches. However, unlike other products on the market that justifies the price on the spec sheet, the Moto 360’s true value comes from its more refined, polished, design that actually looks and feels like a $299 smartwatch.

Stainless Steel Design

The one major thing that sets the Moto 360 apart from any other smartwatch on the market today is its design. Even if firmware stops updating, you might still wear your Moto 360 years later because it actually looks like a watch. The stainless steel design looks classy and timeless. Sized at 42.8mm wide with a thickness of 11.68mm, this is a beefy watch. However, it still looks good even on thinner wrists.

You get a few color selections to choose from. The watch comes in steel grey, rose gold, or phantom black. The outside has a layer of PVD/DLC coating to give it a bit more scratch-resistant.

First Impression

The first impression is important for a watch. And the Moto 360 looks striking at first. The always-on watch dial display mimics the look and feels of a luxury watch while perfectly disguising that it’s a smartwatch. This is a major bonus for those who want the functionality of a smartwatch, but don’t want to be labeled as a techie for wearing one.

When given the choice, the timeless elegance of a mechanical watch will always outlast smartwatches. And Motorola made a smart decision to engineer this watch to be visually more comparable to Omega than to Samsung.

One extra thing to note. This watch comes with both a brown leather strap and a black rubber strap. This is a nice touch, saving you the time to buy extra straps for different occasions or outfits.

Performance

Looks aren’t everything. This is a “smart” watch after all. Powered by a Snapdragon 3100 chip, 1GB of Ram, 8GB of internal storage, and running on Watch OS, the watch is responsive and lightning fast. It feels and navigates like a Samsung Watch Active, which is a good thing.

Swipe gestures work as you’d expect just like any other smartwatches on the market. Swipe up for your notifications. Swipe left for your quick apps. And swiping down gives you the status display. Everything on the software front works exactly as you’d expect from a Watch OS experience.

And I’m glad they didn’t try to do anything gimmicky or add their own “flavor” to the user native user experience. I’ve seen other smartwatch makers attempt to do this to be “unique” the result is often a confusing interface that doesn’t add value to the overall purchase.

The Screen

Coming in at 1.2″, the 390×390 AMOLED display is bright with saturated colors. It’s not as pixel-dense or vibrant as its other competitors, but it gets the job done. The black border around the screen is thick and noticeable. Had they taken advantage of this real-estate and made the face even larger, that would’ve added significantly to its appeal. I’m sure there must be some sort of technical challenge preventing that.

Fitness & Tracking

The Moto 360 comes with all the basic steps tracking and heart-rate monitor you’d expect. You won’t find advanced sensors here, and that’s okay for me. Because the company didn’t pitch this as an advanced athlete-performance inspired device.

The sensors are accurate and gave a consistent reading on my workout performance. While it’s not replacing my phone, the GPS on the Moto 360 was surprisingly accurate and proved more reliable than I’d thought. There were times where I didn’t want to bring my phone with me along for a jog and depended on the watch for guidance – it didn’t disappoint.

Battery & Charging

The 355mAh battery performed well under regular daily usage. It was able to last about 10 hours worth of use managing to still have about 30 – 35% juice left before needing to recharge at the end of my workday. Now when I attempt to use it as a regular watch (turned off al notifications and enabled only the clock dial) the battery lasts much longer.

One major gripe I have with this watch is the charging station. Everything about the watch was well designed, engineered, and thought out…except the charging bay. It’s ugly, doesn’t stay in place, and it’s hard to find a place for it on any desk. It just seemed like this was an afterthought. I was also disappointed it didn’t have wireless charging. That would’ve solved this problem completely and I could’ve just stowed the charger away.

This also made charging at the office or on-the-go impossible since carrying that bulky charger around was out of the question.

One thing I do love about this watch is when the battery dies, it still manages to save a little bit of juice to keep the watch dial on. So even when the battery is empty, you can still use it to tell time. It’s impressive how long the “always-on” watch dial actually stays on. I don’t think I’ve seen it powered off during the entire week of testing.

The buttons

This is a level of detail that often gets overlooked – the buttons. Most of the design emphasis on smartwatches are on the display, the bezel, and often very little thought goes into the buttons. The engineers who worked on Moto 360 3rd generation thought otherwise. The tactile feel of clicking and the smooth dialing on these buttons are some of the best I’d ever experience on a smartwatch. It’s expected of a mechanical watch to have well-tuned buttons, but not for a smartwatch, which added to my surprise.

Everything about them screams luxury. The buttons have just the right amount of spring and travel to provide feedback when pressed. And the dialing feels smooth yet accurate. I was able to navigate through apps and settings easily without over-scrolling too often.

Final Verdict

Overall, the Moto 360 is a great value at $299. It’s everything you’d want out of a smartwatch and a little more. The design is tasteful but not over-the-top. It’s versatile and acceptable in just about any occasion. I can wear this on a jog or with a suit. That kind of flexibility is hard to find, especially in the vastly growing competitive smartwatch market.