After releasing two new watches earlier this year, Pebble, a smart watch company, has announced yet another new product: Pebble Time Round.
The Pebble Time Round is more like a normal wristwatch than a smart watch- it has the same light, thin composition. The men’s version has a 20mm band, the women’s a 14mm band. Its face is 38.5mm wide and 7.5mm thick. The display is powered by color e-paper technology.
The watch is also packed with nifty features. The timeline feature allows you to keep track of things like upcoming appointments, the weather, and sports scores. Pebble Time Round runs on the operating system created by the company, Pebble OS, but allows for third party apps.
It is far from the perfect smart watch though. The battery life is weak compared with other models and it is not very water resistant. Battery life is often the determining factor for smart watch consumers. Apple and Android watches both have batteries that last a full day or more. Pebble’s earlier models first made waves by offering a watch with a battery life of two days. Yet, the newest edition will only run for the standard 24 hours.
Engadet, a technology review site, gave the Pebble Time Round a praised the watch’s design in a review, but was off put by the reduced battery life:
“The Pebble Time Round is the most elegant smartwatch Pebble has ever made… Yet, Pebble made significant tradeoffs to achieve such a slim design. The reduced two-day battery life is a big blow; worse, it negates one of the few factors that made previous Pebble watches so unique. Designing it to be less water-resistant feels like a misstep as well.”
Others have bemoaned its steep price. Unlike the Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steal, which were comparatively cheap, the Pebble Time Round is around the same price as Apple and Android smart watches, $250.
“Pebble offers a better experience, for less money mind you, with it’s $199 Pebble Time,” concluded a Fortune review.
The Pebble Time round will be available in stores starting November 8.
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