Hands On With the Moto 360 Smartwatch

The Moto 360 smartwatch is a thing of beauty. Albeit, a rather large beauty. It's surrounded by stainless steel, which you can get in either shiny steel or black with a brushed texture. I expected it to weigh quite a bit because of the steel, but it's surprisingly light.

The main reason why the Moto 360 quite simply outshines other smartwatches in the looks department is its narrow bezels and round shape. Also, the display is almost edge to edge, which makes it look more like a watch rather than a piece of technology on your wrist.

The backlit LCD display isn't quite as sharp as I would have hoped, but a 320-by-290 resolution displaying 205 pixels per inch on a 1.56-inch screen isn't bad, either. The very edge of the display dips sharply into the 360's body, which creates a questionable refraction effect around the screen's edge where you can see the backlight's color spectrum.

As it did for the new Moto X, Motorola teamed up with Horween leather makers to manufacture the removable strap, which looks, feels, and smells glorious. If leather straps aren't your thing, you'll have the choice to get stainless steel bands in the same shiny steel and brushed black to match your 360 (for a premium, of course). Those gave the smartwatch an extra bit of weight, but not enough to put me off by any means, at least during my brief hands on.

Motorola claimed the Moto 360's 320mAh battery would last till the end of your day with mixed usage, at which point you place the watch into a wireless charging dock. It's a much more elegant solution compared with charging docks you find with most other smartwatches, such as with the Samsung Galaxy Gear line. But it's still something you'll absolutely need to pack if you'll be travelling for more than a day, as there's no charging port on the watch itself.

Android Wear looks great, but my time during the demo was limited, and it looked like it would need some getting used to, as it's not immediately intuitive. Once you do get used to it, the functionality you get looked very impressive; you'll be able to get Google Maps directions, search Google, send texts, make phone calls, get notifications, and use optimized apps. There are health-monitoring features, too, as the 360 dons a pedometer as well as a heart-rate monitor on its back, and it seemed to work quite well.

You'll need to make a "checking the time" gesture with your arm and wrist to wake the watch and check the time, but thankfully, you don't need to be overly theatrical or dramatic with your gestures, as a simple wrist rotation will do.

The Moto 360 is available today from BestBuy.com, Motorola.com, and the Google Play Store for $250, and it makes the best case yet for a smartwatch you'd be proud to wear. We'll have the review up in the coming days, so check back for more details and analysis.

Motorola today also upgraded its Moto X and Moto G smartphones; check out PCMag's hands on with new Moto X and Moto G.

Motorola has some competition in the rounded smartwatch space. LG unveiled the LG G Watch R recently; we went hands on from the IFA trade show in Berlin.