Asus has announced its first smartwatch at IFA in Berlin. Shuning the fashionable round faces of Moto and the like, this watch has a whole heap of home-grown software and a hefty price too.
The watch uses a square 1.63-inch, 320 x 320 AMOLED touchscreen — in fact, it’s the same as the Samsung Gear Live — and the body is made from stainless steel with a rose gold coloured band inset. The screen is covered by a piece of curved Gorilla Glass 3. As standard it comes with a stitched leather strap, though you can change it to any normla 22mm watch strap.
Inside, there’s a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 SoC, with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, a 1.4Wh battery, Bluetooth 4.0 and a microphone, There’s also a heart rate and motion sensor, along with an IP55 rating which means it will be showerproof
In terms of software, Asus has opted to use rather a lots of its own home-grown software. Sitting on top of Android Wear are things like Watch Unlock (which lets you unlock the thing by touching the face), Tap Tap (which allows you to double tap for pre-assigned functions) and Cover To Mute (which does what it says and actually sounds pretty neat!). You get the idea.
The watch will cost $US260 — more than some of its Android Wear competitors — and will be available towards the end of the year.
More Asus News From IFA
• Asus IFA 2014 Live Blog: The News As It Happened
• Asus Is Resurrecting The Netbook With The EeeBook X205
• Asus ZenWatch: Home-Grown Functionality With A Big Price Tag