What is a smartwatch? ™ We have heard for a little while about this tiny gadget and the increasing interest a lot of people have shown, but what is a smartwatch and what does it do? Well, a smartwatch looks like a normal wristwatch but, besides showing the exact time, it comes with "smart" capabilities. You will have to connect it to a smartphone or tablet in order to access the smart functions. Some have called them an add-on to smarter gadgets. What can a smartwatch do? Smartwatches come with various configurations and applications but the most common features are the possibility to read emails, text messages, take pictures, act as GPS and a lot more. (Note: Right now, the Pebble company has implemented about 5500 apps for their smartwatch.) In order to access the applications of other smart devices, the smartwatches usually connect via Bluetooth. Note: Some smartwatches may not connect to all smartphones and others may lack compatibility to various operating systems (not all are compatible with iOS and Android). Why do I need a smartwatch? If you don't like to check your phone every 5 minutes and fancy the idea that your watch may alert you when you receive emails, keep up with important news, check your social feed or other important services you may have subscribed to, then the smartwatch is the perfect device for you. Basically you will be far less distracted than you would be when checking a smartphone, you will not be interrupted from your work and when an important notification arrives you will know about it. Besides all this, smartwatches are used extensively for their fitness applications. Applications like RunKeeper will monitor your heart rate, count steps, measure your stress level and how many calories have you burnt. Hopefully we managed to capture your interest so let's have a look at one of the best and non expensive smartwatches available, the Pebble Smartwatch. Note: The Pebble SmartWatch took birth thanks to a very successful Kickstarter campaign that managed to raise over 10 million dollars in about five weeks. Design and Display At the first glance, the Pebble Watch looks like a normal watch. It has a simple, yet elegant look, without being bulky or heavy. The casing is made of plastic and has a comfortable and sturdy strap. It weighs 38g and its dimensions are 50x32x11mm. On the right side you will find the up-down and select buttons and on the left side a single menu button along with a set of contacts for the magnetic power connector. The Pebble Smartwatch is not fragile and is capable to withstand temperatures between 14 to 140F and will function even if it is submerged up to 160 feet in water (this is great for explorers!). The display features a 1.26in 144×168 Sharp Memory LCD e-paper, it is black and white and is covered by a plastic lens that can reflect light. Although the viewing angle is not a full 180 degrees, you will be able to see notifications or any other running screen app without the backlight during the day quite easily. Comparing to its competitors, the screen is a bit of a low point but it does its job properly. Performance and Battery Life The Pebble Smartwatch features an ARM Cortex-M3 processor and 512 KB on-chip storage that will be able to retain some apps and customizable watch faces. Besides the main specs, the watch has a magnetometer, an ambient light and a three-axis accelerometer. The apps should take advantage of all this features and create a great user experience. Thanks to its tiny low-resolution display and the 140 mAH battery, the Pebble watch is capable to keep up to 5 days of extensive use and over a week of occasional usage. Note: Pebble watch does not have a battery indicator. To be able to be waterproof, the Pebble watch can be charged by connecting a bespoke cable to the small magnets on the side of the watch. iOS and Android What's really interesting about this watch is that it supports both the iOS and Android platform. After downloading the Pebble app, first we tested the watch along with an iPhone. It was a bit of a hassle to make it run, as iOS doesn't really seem like it tried to make a good management for Pebble but after we configured it properly, the watch worked perfectly along the iPhone. We were able to download new watch faces or access contact support but it does seems like everything happened at the iOS level (iOS acted as a placeholder). The Android experience is quite different. The settings on this platform seemed to be more in place and the apps made more sense. Comparing to iOS the Android seemed more open and with a lot more applications to choose from. In the end we were able to synchronize with both platforms and we were able to receive emails alerts, income calls or text messages and thanks to the Pebble store we could successfully customize the display, download cool apps and even some games (like Flappy Bird) no matter if it was made along iOS or Android. Note: The Pebble Smartwatch is compatible with iOS 6 or higher and Android 4.0 or higher. As a conclusion we can say that Pebble did not make the same mistake that many manufacturers make when trying to build a smartwatch, they did not try to create a small wrist strapped smartphone. Instead they made one of the best smartwatch configurations, by creating a light, simple and capable device that put smartwatches in the list of one of the most wanted devices right now in the world. Check out more reviews on In the beginning the Windows Mobile OS and the Palm OS ruled the Earth. One day, the Apple iPhone OS began to dominate the market. Today, a new competitor has climbed into the ring, Google Android. Google is slowly taking over the world, they took over our search engines, and we loved it. They took over our YouTube and we loved it. Now they're taking over our cell phones, and I'll love it, but not today. Currently the only official Android compatible phone is the T-Mobile G1, which has already shown that the Android operating system has a lot of potential because huawei freebuds se it's open source. I've been seeing a lot of programs for the Android platform but the iPhone has vastly more interesting programs. I see programs hit the iPhone first and then a similar program arrives for Android. It's a great idea to let people develop programs on their own, not to mention it creates a very inexpensive market where you can get most of your programs for free. I have downloaded numerous programs but there's so much more customization that can be had, we just haven't seen it yet. One thing I am personally waiting for, is a today theme, just like on the Blackberry and Windows Mobile where your home screen shows your daily tasks, messages, and emails. I'd also like to see an onscreen keyboard that trumps the iPhone. There are a few on the market right now but they're not that great and you can only use them when you're text messaging, they don't work in your calendar or your emails. This is something Android developers must be working feverishly on because the proposed T-Mobile G2 doesn't have a physical keyboard, but will that port over nicely to the G1? Only time will tell. I'll love the Android OS one day, but not yet. I do love how there's not one, not two, but three desktops, who needs that much space? I need all that space! It allows me to place my icons and application shortcuts in a quick accessible location with just a swipe of the finger, no more digging through Program Menus. One thing I would like to see is a seamless slide from one screen to another. Right now the Android OS has the screens locking on one desktop then another and another. Another thing that bothers me about the Android system is not being able to install programs onto the SD card, programs have to be installed on the phone and as you know the G1 doesn't have infinite memory. It would be nice to install and run programs from the SD card, just like Windows Mobile. Of course the iPhone doesn't have this problem because has plenty of onboard memory and no expansion slots. The Android operating system is great, possibly better than Windows Mobile and the iPhone OS, but it has a lot more potential to become even better and completely take over our cell phones. I only have simple grievances about Android, it's not anything big, but with such a powerful and dynamic operating system, I am disappointed it's not mind blowing. I expect more, I expect a lot more, and I think Android will offer everything and anything you can imagine in the future revisions, but not yet today.
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