Kindle New Zone

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus review

Wednesday, September 17 / No Comments

To say that Apple's doing things differently would be an understatement. With the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus, the company introduced two new high-end phones at the same time, both with a complete redesign and a much larger screen size than any iPhone that came before. Gone are the days of 3.5-inch and 4-inch phones that, at one time, seemed to provide more than ample amounts of screen space. Now, the new iPhones make their predecessors look like the tiny handset Ben Stiller used inZoolander. The market has changed, and it was high time Apple did the same.

Even though this is Apple's first attempt at building large phones, it's not breaking new ground -- in fact, it feels more like the company is catching up than innovating. To be fair, finding a fresh take is a difficult thing to do in this crowded space: Samsung's Galaxy Note series, which started out at 5.3 inches and is now up to 5.7, is selling by the millions, and most competing flagships aren't much smaller. Basically, Apple would be leaving money on the table if it didn't address this segment of the market. So how did the company do on its first try at large phones? Pretty well -- mostly.

PROS

Sleek new design
Great display
Comfortable to hold
Fast performance
Generally good camera

CONS

Battery life could be better
Lacks optical image stabilization
NFC can only be used for mobile payments

SUMMARY

Even with a slightly larger screen, the iPhone remains comfortable to hold. With fast performance, a great display, an elegant new design and a much-needed software update, it's one of the best smartphones you can buy right now. We wish it had the same long battery life as the iPhone 6 Plus (not to mention its optical image stabilization) but even then, the iPhone 6 is still the better choice for most people.

Apple

iPhone 6 Plus

PROS

Large, beautiful display
Great camera with optical image stabilization
Long battery life
Fast performance

CONS

One-handed use is frustrating and uncomfortable
NFC can only be used for mobile payments

SUMMARY

The iPhone 6 Plus is difficult to use one-handed, not to mention more uncomfortable than similar-sized phones. In exchange, though, you get more of an iPad-like user experience on a much smaller device. It also has better battery life than the smaller iPhone 6, as well as a better camera. Keep that in mind as you're deciding between the two devices.

HARDWARE

Aside from the screen size and a few minor hardware differences, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are identical. Unlike Apple's last four flagships (the 4 to the 5s), which sported a squarish, blocky shape, the 6 series features soft, rounded sides. Not counting the glass screen, the entire frame is constructed of aluminum, similar to the material Apple uses on its MacBooks.

As you'll see in my iOS 8 review, Apple's following a design approach centered on "continuity" -- the idea that its products should work seamlessly with each other. This is evident in the iPhone 6's hardware as well. The 5 and 5s had straight sides that met the front and back via chamfered edges. On the 6, Apple opted for a unibody build; the bubbled-out sides and flat back are constructed from one continuous piece of material. Meanwhile, the front glass panel tapers down ever so slightly at the edge, producing an uninterrupted look. I'll always have a soft spot for the chamfered edges on the 5 and 5s, but the 6 and 6 Plus feel fresh, especially after years of only modest design tweaks.

But a phone's screen size doesn't have to dictate how large the device itself is. Take the LG G3, a 5.5-inch phone with the exact opposite in-hand feel. Compared with the LG G3, the Plus is nearly 12mm taller, 3.2mm wider and 1.8mm thinner; LG's large-screened option has a smaller bezel and arched back that fit the natural contours of my hand extremely well. It feels much more comfortable to hold for long periods of time, and I never worry about it slipping out of my hands.

Both the 6 and 6 Plus use an IPS Retina HD display, but the Plus is even more high-def than the 6. It has a screen resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, which means you'll get a pixel density of 401 pixels per inch. On the flipside, the 6 maxes out at 1,334 x 750, which translates into 326 ppi. (That's the same screen density as the 5s.) Both displays are sharp, but I do see some minor differences between the two when I look at them side by side. Specifically, the Plus' text and images are sharper, with no jagged lines whatsoever. That said, I don't think it's enough to steer you from one device to the other; they both look fantastic from a few inches away. Additionally, the color representation on both phones is less saturated than the Super AMOLED panel on the Note 3, and is extremely close to the colors on a Retina display MacBook Pro.

With the Retina HD display, Apple is also introducing what it's calling "dual-domain pixels," which arrange the display's subpixels into a chevron-like pattern designed to compensate for the contrast that normally shows up when you look at the screen from oblique angles. It also helps produce deeper darks and sharper text; both new iPhones have brighter whites than the 5s, but the Plus has the warmest tint of the three. The viewing angles are indeed among the best I've seen, and it's great to see Apple incorporate this technology into its latest products. All that said, it's worth noting that while Apple makes this screen technology sound brand-new, it's actually been used before on phones like the HTC One M7 and the One X.

Over the years, Apple's continued to fine-tune its reputation for building devices that combine solid build quality with a premium design. While these new iPhones generally continue that tradition, there are a couple quirks that are difficult to un-see. The first is the excessive use of antenna lines on the back. The two stripes stretching across the top and bottom sections enhance the look of the phone's rear -- much like the HTC One series -- but there are two unsightly lines that follow the upper and lower perimeter, and they stick out like a sore thumb. Secondly, though the phones got thinner, the camera module did not; the result is a lens that sticks out from the rest of the chassis, which increases the likelihood of the casing and lens getting scratched.

I am, of course, nitpicking. After all, an aluminum phone needs to have openings for antennas to get a signal, and that's precisely what the stripes on the sides and back do. Unfortunately, though, they do detract from the device's beauty, not enhance it. As for the camera, many flagship phones come with tiny humps around the camera module to compensate for the extra depth they require, but I would've rather seen Apple go with a design that's less severe -- and less likely to scratch.

One final concern: The phones are prone to scratches if you're not careful. After just a day of use, I started noticing a few small marks on the backs of both devices. The most extreme thing I did to the phones during this time was slide them around on an office table. Granted, a case will resolve all of these issues, but unfortunately, cases also add a fair amount of bulk, and I've always preferred showing off my phones in all their beauty.

NFC

Apple's coming out with a mobile payment service in October called Apple Pay. I haven't been able to test it out yet, so I'll revisit that when it becomes available. Once it's up and running, it'll use a wireless standard known as Near-Field Communications (NFC) that comes built into the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. In short, a transmitter on your device can communicate with a receiver located just a few millimeters away; this is incredibly useful for mobile payment transactions because the short distance makes it more secure than any other wireless connection, so you don't have to worry about a third party getting unauthorized access to your sensitive information.

Since NFC is a standard, the iPhone is theoretically capable of doing a lot more than just mobile payments -- tap-to-pair for Bluetooth devices, unlocking doors and hotel rooms, mobile tickets for public transit, Foursquare check-ins, et cetera. For now, though, the iPhone's NFC radio will be limited just to Apple Pay; developers can't do anything with it right now. Apple hasn't said if this will change in the future, but I suspect the company is approaching it with the same timidity as it did with Touch ID; Apple initially used it just to unlock the iPhone and approve iTunes purchases, and now, a year later, it's finally opening up the sensor for developer support.

SOFTWARE

Both iPhones come preloaded with iOS 8. You can find my in-depth review of the updatehere, so I won't go into much detail in this review. But there are a few specific software features on the 6 and 6 Plus worth revisiting. Apple is treating the Plus as a small iPad mini (mini iPad mini?) of sorts: The springboard now can switch into landscape mode, and a few of the native apps (Mail, Calendar and Messages) come with dual-pane windows. This is a great use of the extra screen space, and it gives the Plus a clear productivity advantage over the 6.

While I'm on the subject of landscape mode, the keyboard also looks rather different. The standard keyboard shows up directly in the middle and is flanked by heaps of symbols and other options. Arrows and many of the popular punctuation marks are on the right, while options like copy and paste, undo and voice dictation are on the left.

Both iPhones also feature Display Zoom, which magnifies the screen and makes your icons, text and other materials larger. There's one-handed mode, which Apple refers to as "Reachability." This is technically available on both the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but it makes the most sense on the larger model. Since it's tough to stretch your tiny fingers all the way to the top of the screen, Apple's solution is to bring the screen down to you. When you double-tap on the Touch ID button, the entire UI slides down so the top half of the app is located on the bottom half of the screen. You can scroll and interact with it just like you normally could in full-screen mode, but in case you need to get to a link at the bottom of a website, or you're trying to get down to the end of an email, you'll have to go back out to see the entire screen. It's better than having no one-handed mode at all, but it still feels cumbersome and I only really used it when I wasn't able to use two hands (e.g., when I'm walking down the street while holding a bag).

It may sound like the Plus isn't ideal, and indeed, it's not for everyone. But for many, the additional screen real estate is worth sacrificing some one-handed comfort. Not only do you get more rows of icons on each screen (the 5s is 6 x 4, while the 6 is 7 x 4 and the 6 Plus is 7 x 4 with slightly larger icons and more space in between), but you're also going to be able to see more emails, tweets, Google search results, Engadget posts, calendar appointments and, well... more of everything. More screen space equates to more room for consuming, creating and manipulating content, and since it's still small enough to fit in most jeans pockets (provided they're not too tight), it's still more portable than any iPad.

CAMERA

While the megapixel war rages on among manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, LG and Microsoft Devices (Nokia), Apple doesn't seem to feel compelled to join the fray. Instead, it's sticking with a modest 8MP iSight camera similar to the one found n the 5s. Although the aperture and pixel size haven't changed, Apple's added "Focus Pixels," which is the company's fancy term for Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF). The tech is used in many DSLRs and phones like the Galaxy S5, and the idea is to lock autofocus faster. Fortunately, Focus Pixels doesn't disappoint; in several side-by-side shots in which my goal was to snap a photo as quickly as possible, the 6 and 6 Plus did considerably better at producing focused images.

In case you need extra perks for going with the larger device, the Plus comes with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS). This feature is designed to reduce the amount of blur that can come from the natural shaking of your hand, and it produces better low-light performance and less shaky video as a result. I took several nighttime shots with the 6 and 6 Plus side by side, and although there was no difference in how much light the cameras took in, the images from the Plus consistently came out sharper -- both when viewing at standard size and especially when zoomed in.

I also pitted the Plus head to head against several other flagships. It bested the HTC One M8 in sharpness and white balance, though it didn't get quite as much light; it had more natural colors and less noise than the LG G3; it got more light, better colors and clearer focus than the Galaxy S5; and although the Lumia 1020 brought in the most light, it also did so at the expense of unnatural colors and noise.

Motorola Moto 360 review

Monday, September 8 / No Comments

Normally that’s impossible. My phone is always either in my pocket or in my hands, because missing an email or a text or a killer snap is just entirely unfathomable. But this morning, I was reading an email on my wrist, and walked out the door without even checking my pockets. That's what the Moto 360 has done to me: I already feel naked without it, but I don’t notice my smartphone so much anymore.

The Moto 360 is the smartwatch I’ve been waiting for, the $249 timepiece that promised to be the first Android Wear device I’d actually want to wear. It’s designed to prove that smartwatches don’t have to be ugly. That they can, and must, be beautiful. That a smartwatch should be a watch, and that being a watch is ultimately the only thing that matters.

Motorola has said all the right things for months, but it’s time to put up or shut up. The 360 goes on sale today, and it does so under the watchful eye of the smartwatch industry. Everyone from Apple to Rolex to Swatch is looking on, waiting to see what happens next.

It’s go time.

Motorola never talks about the 360 as a gadget or a technological marvel. It’s not meant to be a computer on your wrist, a smartphone shrunk to a new form factor. It’s a timepiece. A wristwatch. That was the starting point, the founding idea — Motorola came not to create a new category but to evolve an old one.

IT'S NOT A GADGET, IT'S A WATCH
It’s an ambitious goal, and Motorola pulled it off. The Moto 360’s most impressive feature is that I stopped noticing it almost immediately. Whenever I wear the LG G Watch or the Samsung Gear Live, I’m constantly compelled to fidget with it; there’s this unexplainable feeling of having something alien on my wrist that is there because I need to use it. The 360, on the other hand, just vanished into the spot left on my wrist by the Seiko watch that conveniently died this week.
There’s an understated elegance to this device. It’s utterly without flash or flair, but it’s classy as can be. Its leather strap, made by Chicago tannery Horween, is high-end and comfortable — and not just compared to the plasticky, rubber straps on other smartwatches. Its round, stainless steel shell (which comes in black or silver) sits neatly on my wrist, without sticking out off the sides of my arm and knocking against my desk or catching on my sleeve. It’s lighter than it looks (just 1.7 ounces), smaller than it looks, more comfortable than it looks. At 11.5mm, it’s a little thick for my taste, but it still feels good on my wrist. It feels like the watches I’ve always worn. It’s tough enough to wear in the shower or get dirty with, and I stopped worrying about it or fidgeting with it as soon as I got it working.

The centerpiece of the 360 is the 1.65-inch display that protrudes ever so slightly from its round shell. It runs almost completely edge to edge, encircled by only the smallest of bezels. The display has terrific viewing angles, and is easily (and surprisingly) viewable outdoors. It's not a perfect circle, though, not quite — there's a small cutout strip of black plastic at the bottom, which houses the device's internals and sensors. It hurts the look a bit, but I hardly notice it anymore.

The screen looks great at a glance, but not under close scrutiny: its 320 x 290 resolution is low enough that you’ll see jagged edges on letters and can easily make out individual pixels, and the beveled edges of the Gorilla Glass give off a sort of shimmering moiré pattern. The edges almost glitter, making everything harder to read and just a little bit dirty looking. (It’s a fingerprint magnet, too, which doesn’t help.) It’s the only thing about the 360 that looks or feels cheap.

For a device you’re not likely to spend a lot of time looking at, this screen does its job fine. But a crisper display that sits flush with the bezel would feel even more immersive, more like a sapphire wristwatch. Motorola loves to talk about what an engineering accomplishment the round screen is, but there’s work left to be done.

Round is hard, though, and not just for Motorola. Google may technically support round displays with Android Wear, but the 360 provides constant confirmation that this operating system was designed with rectangles in mind. Scrolling through a list will often cut off titles and images; sometimes list items get kicked way down to the bottom of the screen for no apparent reason. As with the display, there’s nothing necessarily broken here; these are just small cracks in the armor that keep the 360 from feeling truly like a perfect, polished device.

There’s not much Motorola can do about it, either. For all its hardware prowess, the Moto 360 is functionally just like every other Android Wear device. This is Google’s platform, and it controls it tightly. That makes the 360, at its most basic, just a much more attractive way to see all the same notifications on your phone. New emails, texts, calls, tweets, weather information — everything pops up on your watch. In many cases, there’s also an easy way to respond without ever taking your phone out of your pocket. You can also perform basic Google searches, set reminders, take notes, and get quick directions to the nearest Starbucks. Android Wear is the everything inbox, and it’s the same thing no matter which device you’re shouting "Okay Google" at. (I should note, though, that the 360’s voice recognition seems to be even better than the other watches. It has two microphones built in, plus Motorola’s impressive software; it almost never misheard me.)

YOU CAN CHANGE THE HARDWARE, BUT YOU CAN'T CHANGE ANDROID WEAR

A few months in, there’s still really not that much you can do with Android Wear. Whenever I show it to people my demo almost always either ends in ten seconds ("look at all the watchfaces!") or involves me forcing someone to text me so I can respond from my wrist. There’s a heart rate monitor and a pedometer inside the 360, but neither are terribly accurate, and they feel like only a gesture in the direction of how powerful a fitness device a smartwatch could be. Runtastic’s Android Wear app is handy, too, letting you start and track a workout from your wrist, but it's not very powerful yet.

But that’s exactly the point: the Moto 360 isn’t meant to be used all the time. It’s meant to be a delightful and occasional source of useful information, reminding you at the perfect moment of the thing you forgot. You’re not supposed to ask Android Wear what’s next on your calendar; you’re supposed to trust that it’ll tell you when you need to know. And that it’ll direct you there when it’s time to go. All you have to do is say "Okay Google, call a car."

That’s why smartwatch hardware is so important. Most of the time you won't be using the Moto 360, yet it’s always visible. When it’s just hanging on your wrist, it better look and feel good. That's what Motorola is getting at: the Moto 360 isn’t something completely new, something you’ll use for hours at a time like a phone or tablet. It’s a watch. You flick your wrist, check it, and go back to your life. This watch just happens to do more than tell time.

MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, YOU WON'T BE USING A SMARTWATCH — SO IT BETTER LOOK GOOD

Until, that is, it doesn’t do anything at all. That happens about 12 hours after I take the watch off its charger, a cool black wireless dock that the 360 slots into sideways. Motorola says the 360’s battery lasts a day, but I haven’t seen it last that long yet. I don’t expect a smartwatch to last weeks or years, but it ought to be able to last a day and a night no matter how much I use it. My watch now dies before my phone does, and that’s unacceptable. I’ve already spent too much time wearing a dead Moto 360, and good-looking a bracelet as it is, that’s not what I’m spending $249 for.

As long as it's charged, the Moto 360 feels different from any of its competitors. In many ways, it feels like the first real smartwatch. Everything before it was a screen on your wrist, a mini-tablet made to bring you easy notifications. Those are a warped evolution of computers, not watches. But the Moto 360 is to a sundial as the iPad is to a stone tablet: it’s the same, only completely different. Better. Swapping my Seiko for a Moto 360 involved zero cognitive effort, no idle touching of my wrist because it feels different now. It just fits.

But the best yet had better not be the best we can do. Motorola needs to figure out how to make the battery better, and how to do it without sacrificing style. It needs to release more straps, more colors, more options. If it wants to play in the watch industry, Motorola needs to offer variety. It needs to not be one-size-fits-all, because one size doesn’t fit all. (There are more leather and metal bands coming, but that's not enough either.) And at some point, some company is going to have to up the smartwatch ante again. It might be Apple, it might be Google, it might even be Motorola. But whether it’s more powerful health features or just better notification management, we’re not even close to fully realizing what a smartwatch can do. We’d better not be.

If you’re buying a smartwatch today, spend $249 and buy the Moto 360. That’s an easy call. But buy it knowing that this is only the beginning, that looking good is only the first step toward being great.

The road ahead is still long for smartwatches, but the future looks better than ever.

Photos by Jordan Oplinger

Motorola Moto 360

8.1VERGE SCORE

GOOD STUFF

Gorgeous design
Great voice recognition
Round is the right form factor
Nice, interchangeable straps

BAD STUFF

Frustrating battery life
Round display causes some software awkwardness

THE BREAKDOWN

More times than not, the Verge score is based on the average of the subscores below. However, since this is a non-weighted average, we reserve the right to tweak the overall score if we feel it doesn't reflect our overall assessment and price of the product. Read more about how we test and rate products.

DESIGN9
DISPLAY7
SOFTWARE7
PERFORMANCE8
BATTERY LIFE

Meta Watch Meta M1 review Smartwatch

Wednesday, September 3 / No Comments

It’s been a busy year for the smartwatch. In just the past few months, we’ve seen numerous smartwatches from Pebble, LG, Motorola, Samsung, and countless companies you’ve probably never heard of. And Apple’s expected to announce a smartwatch of its own in just a week’s time. The ones we've seen so far vary in capabilities, but one constant remains: they are more gadget than watch. I’ve long said that smartwatches look and function too much like “computers on your wrist,” and it’s an apt description for the vast majority of the smartwatches that you can buy today.

Meta Watch, a company born from former Fossil engineers and one of the pioneers of the modern smartwatch movement, claims to buck this trend. Its new Meta M1, which begins shipping today and starts at $249, trades the futuristic gadget fantasy for another, older kind of gadget: the chronograph style watch. It’s still a smartwatch in that it connects to my smartphone via Bluetooth, buzzes my wrist with notifications, and shows me my upcoming calendar appointments. But it’s not the gadget that other smartwatches aspire to be. I can’t bark orders at it with my voice and I can’t turn my smart lights on and off with it. Forget about ordering a pizza with the M1 — it can’t even count my steps as I walk.

Meta Watch’s watch industry pedigree shines through loud and clear with the M1: this is a watchmaker’s smartwatch, not a wrist-worn electronic Swiss Army knife made by the same company that produces your smartphone. That can either be a good or a bad thing; I’ve spent the last two weeks wearing the M1 to find out.

The biggest difference between the M1 and other smartwatches is, well, it doesn’t really look like a smartwatch. Its design recalls a busy analog chronograph, with more buttons and details in one small area than should really be there. It’s certainly polarizing, most people either love it or hate it, but it’s not unlike many traditional chronographs in that respect. Think modern Tag Heuer, not vintage Dieter Rams Braun. For what it’s worth, the design has grown on me, and I think it looks a lot better when worn on a wrist than when sitting on a desk.

The M1’s premium materials are really what set it apart from the rest of the smartwatch field: even the base model has an all-metal body with a substantial weight that feels much nicer than plastic smartwatches like LG’s G Watch or Samsung’s Gear line. The $249 model has a natural rubber band (scented with vanilla, so it "doesn’t smell like a used tire") available in an assortment of colors. If you’re willing to spend a little more, you can get leather or steel band options (there are eight different configurations in total). My gold-and-blue review unit has a thick, stiff leather band that takes a day or so of wear to break in, but it’s clearly of a much higher-quality leather than you get on a cheap wristwatch.PREMIUM MATERIALS SET THE M1 APART

The M1 unique armature system is supposed to make the rectangular watch conform better to your wrist and was designed by Frank Nuovo, formerly of Vertu. The watch’s buttons are integrated into the hinges of the armatures and control the various functions of the watch (there’s no touchscreen on the M1’s black-and-white digital display). There’s a charging port on the bottom and the Micro USB charging connector smartly snaps to the back of the watch with a magnet. It’s a comfortable watch to wear, and if you’re used to wearing an analog watch, you likely won’t notice its weight.

The display is a black-and-white rectangular screen, similar in size and resolution to the Pebble’s display. It’s easy to read outdoors and is always on, so I didn’t have to shake my wrist or press a button to quickly check the time. It’s noticeably pixelated, and doesn’t compare to the high resolution displays on today’s smartphones, but it’s easily read with just a glance.

Despite using a similar display as the Pebble, the M1 uses a different backlight, and it is terrible. Unlike the Pebble’s even, backlit glow whenever you jiggle your wrist, the M1’s backlight requires a button press to turn on. The light itself is pathetically weak, similar to what digital watches offered two decades ago before Timex changed the game with Indiglo. For all intents and purposes, it doesn’t work, failing to illuminate the screen and making the watch all but impossible to read in the dark.

Aside from the backlight issues, the hardware experience of the M1 is exactly what Meta Watch is going for. It doesn’t look or feel like a smartwatch, and though I got a couple of odd glances when wearing the blue-and-gold model, nobody stopped me to ask about the computer on my wrist. I could see wearing it with a suit or dressier attire; it's more formal than the straight casual look of the LG G Watch or any Samsung smartwatch.

If you’re considering the M1, the first thing you have to acknowledge is that you’re not buying into the same ecosystem you’d get from Google or Pebble (or, presumably, Apple). Meta Watch doesn’t have an app store and doesn’t plan on launching one any time soon. There isn’t a community of developers building new apps, watch faces, and functions for the M1. That said, if you’re looking for a nice watch, and the M1’s design appeals to you, its smart functions do add a dose of utility to what is otherwise a basic timepiece.

There are eight digital and analog-style watch faces on the M1. The faces are rather traditional — you won’t find an LCARS imitator or a face with your favorite brand or sports team. My preferred analog style face doesn’t include a date indicator, so I do wish Meta offered slightly more control over the faces.
Certain parts of the M1’s software feel incomplete: the music-control screen doesn’t show artist and song information for most music apps on iOS, the timer function doesn’t include a stopwatch, and there is no built-in alarm of any sort. It also has a tendency to reset itself to the default watch face whenever it disconnects from my phone. Further, the font size is too small to read comfortably, which makes it a bit of a chore to read notifications.THE M1 DOESN'T OFFER THE SAME APPS OR ECOSYSTEM AS GOOGLE OR PEBBLE

Fortunately, there is a notification center, which groups all of the incoming alerts sent to your wrist. You can’t actually do anything with the alerts: you have to go back to your phone for that, but it’s convenient to page through them to get an idea of what you recently missed. I like Meta’s approach to notifications, but I do wish there was a way to immediately delete or archive unwanted emails or simultaneously clear notifications from my watch and my phone.

Meta’s companion app, available for iOS 7 and Android 4.3 or newer devices, lets you rearrange the six home screens on the M1 (time, weather, calendar, music, notifications, and timer) and monitor the remaining battery life on the watch. The companion app also gives you control over what notifications will hit your wrist, down to specific apps. For example, you can have something light up your phone’s display, but not buzz your wrist, a nice improvement over the all-or-nothing alerts that Pebble offers on iOS. The same feature is available on Meta’s Android app, and it behaves similarly to the Android Wear app’s notification controls.

Meta Watch says that it has other features planned for the M1, including custom feeds for sports scores and other news information that can be pushed to your wrist or instantly available when you look at your watch.

Since the M1 doesn’t have a color display and isn’t always listening for a voice command, Meta Watch boasts that its battery can last up to a week between charges, longer than the Pebble. My experience with the M1 lines up with Meta’s predictions: I was able to go a full five days between charges, even with the watch connected to my phone and receiving alerts the entire time. Meta Watch tells me that future firmware updates will improve the M1’s battery life even more.

With the M1, Meta Watch’s goal is not to appeal to most people. Rather, the company is going after the traditional watch buyer, the person already wearing one on their wrist and are willing to spend a few hundred dollars on a nice watch that also might have some smarts. Meta is aiming for the Tissot buyer, not the G Watch wearer.

For the most part, the M1 succeeds in that relatively unambitious goal. It has much nicer materials than any other smartwatch I’ve ever used, has a distinctive, if polarizing, design, and is available in a number of different configurations depending on taste and budget. Its smartwatch functions are genuinely useful, and the long battery life means I don’t have to worry about charging it daily.

The M1’s design is not for everyone: it’s unique enough that some people will like it, while many others may hate it. But that’s fine. That’s how the watch industry has always worked: there are thousands of designs from hundreds of different makers, each appealing to a different type of person. The M1 is a watch made by watch people for watch people, and if you’re not a fan of its style or aren’t interested in it as a piece of jewelry, you should look at the litany of other smartwatch options flooding the market.

For me, I could easily see the M1 replacing my day-to-day watch (just not the blue and gold model, I’ll take silver and black or the brown and black model), which is a huge step forward for smartwatches in general. It’s not a do-all gadget with a laundry list of functions: it does a few things and does them relatively well. That’s probably not enough for those seriously thinking about Android Wear watches or eagerly looking forward to what Apple has up its sleeve. But for the rest of the watch wearing world, the M1 is a good watch with a few smart tricks to boot. And that’s all it needs to be.

HTC One (M8) for Windows

Friday, August 29 / No Comments

Since Windows Phone's humble beginnings, Microsoft has been the underdog in the wireless industry. Four years later, nothing's changed -- except, perhaps, a few more percentage points of market share. Even then, it's got a long way to go before catching up to Android and iOS. Let's give the company credit for pushing forward, improving its platform and not giving up, though: When I reviewed the last major OS update, I said I could finally use Windows Phone as my daily driver. The one element that Microsoft continued to lack, however, was buy-in from large phone makers. They put more focus on Android products, which meant anyone interested in Windows Phone had a small selection of devices to choose from.

For Microsoft, it's time to experiment with a new, simpler approach. The software giant has buddied up with HTC to convert the One M8, its Android flagship, into a Windows Phone. That's all there is to it. There's absolutely no change to the hardware -- and it's a fantastic idea. If it fails, neither company loses much from the deal; since they're using an existing phone, the cost of design and engineering is far lower than it would be on a standalone device. If it's successful, it may inspire other manufacturers to follow suit, resulting in a market with a wide variety of Windows Phones to choose from. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?

PROS

Beautiful aluminum design
Above-average performance
Good battery life
Global LTE roaming
Latest version of Windows Phone

CONS

Missing some features unique to the Android M8
Mediocre camera compared to competing devices
Only one color option
Difficult to quickly access the camera

SUMMARY

The One M8 for Windows is worth considering if you're looking for a beautifully designed Windows Phone with fast performance.