apple iwatch price

the first version of the WatchOS was a little limited. In particularly, there were few watch faces, customisation was limited to what Apple gave you and apps didn't run natively on the Watch, making some of them rather slow. That all changes with WatchOS 2, which is now available for all users to download. As a result, I've completely updated this review to refer to the latest OS. Before I get into the details, I can completely understand why Apple took its time to add these new features: with the first OS, it was about getting the look and feel of the Watch right, while showing developers how the new features should work; with everybody used to the Watch, Apple could open up the OS to developers safe in the knowledge that they'd understand how the product worked.           I've also managed to get all of the Sport Edition models, which are available in Rose Gold and Yellow Gold in both 38mm and 42mm, complete with a new range of strap designs. What the new colours do is give you more choice when you're buying. With plenty of new strap options, too, the Sport Watch can be dressed to be as classy as you like or, with the bold new Sport straps, as flashy as you like. I have to say, having started out with a Stainless Steel model, that the new Sport colours would make be seriously pause and think about the model that's right for me. 

                                                                                                                           

Since this review first went live, I've also updated with my impressions of the Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Dock, the first official charging accessory from Apple. Previously, third-party manufacturers had made their own stands, integrating the USB wireless charging adaptor that ships with the Watch, but with Apple's accessory it's a neater all-in-one design that you don't have to worry about cable management with. Check out page two of this review to take a look at my impressions.

Design

As Apple says, the Watch is its “most personal device yet”: that ethos even stretches to the way that company sells the product, with the in-store experience more jeweller than technology retailer. Even the packaging says high-end watch, rather than tech product.        

                             

Available ranges

What makes the Apple Watch more flexible than any of its competition is the sheer range of design choices available. At the base level, you have the choice between two sizes: 38mm and 42mm. Where possible, I recommend the 42mm version, but the smaller version at least means that there’s an option for people with smaller wrists, which is something that other manufacturers have completely ignored: the Moto 360, for example, looks ridiculous on some people.

Once you know your size, it’s a matter of choosing the model that you want. The differences here aren’t in features but in the build materials. The entry-level Sport edition has an aluminium body, with a textured feel to it, and ships with the soft-touch fluoroelastomer Sport Band available in lots of colours. Unlike rubber, which looks and feels cheap, fluoroelastomer looks classy and feels nice to wear. Apple's clasp design is also brilliant, with the strap clipping securely on, while the end tucks out of the way; why haven't other watch manufacturers ever been so innovative with their strap design? The Sport Edition costs £259 for the 38mm version and £299 for the 42mm version. It's now available in silver, gold, rose gold and black, so there's definitely a model that will suit you (click the image to view the full gallery). As of the most recent launch, there are even more strap choices available: see the Apple Store for more information.              

                                                                          In addition to simply adding new body colours, the Sport models also come with new straps that are designed to contrast. On top of that, Apple now sells a new range of Sport straps, which takes in a number of neutral colours and some much bolder and brighter models. It means that you can dress more formally or dress more fun and outgoing, depending on your mood and situation. There's no doubt in my mind that the new colour options are fantastic and I love the new 42mm gold Sport Watch with the midnight blue strap.  

                                                                            Next up is the standard Apple Watch, which has a stainless steel body and sapphire glass. It starts at £479 for the 38mm and £519 for the 42mm version, with the woven nylon strap, which looks nicer and more 'watch-like' than the old Sports band. Here you get more choice of straps to buy with the Watch, although prices rapidly increase: I've got the Milanese Loop on the 42mm version, which costs £599; at the top is a special black Watch with a Space Black Stainless Steel Link Bracelet that costs a whopping £949; fortunately, the black version is now available with a nylon strap for £479, so you can have this version without having to pay a fortune.                                                                                                       

lg g watch r

 After working with Google to identify what the problems were, I was sent a replacement watch that works as intended. I was finally able to test all of the watch’s capabilities, and I’ve arrived at a new set of impressions based on my time testing a fully working unit, so we’ve updated the review to reflect this. If you want to read the previous version, we’ve left it live on the website. But this is a review of the version of the watch you can expect to get if you buy one today.

Despite being one of the first twoAndroid Wear watches you could buy, LG didn’t really make much of a splash with the original G Watch. It was pretty bland-looking, particularly when compared to the beautiful round Moto 360. Now, LG is back with a round watch of its own.

The LG G Watch R, which, despite having too many individually separate letters in a single product name, is undeniably a massive improvement over the original G Watch. The only problem is that’s actually not much of an achievement. The better way to measure its worth is to compare it to the most well-received smartwatch so far, the Moto 360. Let’s start with looks.

Both watches are made of stainless steel, and both feel very solid. The 360 has a very thin bezel (which comes in silver or dark gray), whereas the G Watch R is thicker, and has some numbers permanently etched into the rim. This looks pretty good if you choose a watch face with analog hands, but it seems superfluous and out of place if you have a digital clock.

The G Watch R is a good deal heavier, weighing in at 62 grams versus 43 on the Moto 360. That makes the watch 44 percent heavier, and it’s definitely a difference you can feel on your wrist. It feels more like a heavy-duty GPS-laden triathlon watch. The G Watch R’s body is 2.17 inches in diameter, versus 1.81 inches for the Moto 360. Technically, that makes the LG 20 percent bigger on your wrist, and yet, the 1.56 inch diameter screen on the Moto 360 is 20 percent bigger than the 1.3 inch LG. In other words, with the Moto 360 you get a fifth more screen size for a fifth less wrist real estate, which is good.

But displays are about more than just size. For starters, the Moto 360 has the infamous “flat tire” at the bottom of the screen. This is where the display drivers live, which is how Moto kept the bezel so thin. What this means, though, is that there’s a big dark chunk missing at the bottom of the Moto 360’s screen, and it’s hard to unnotice it. At the same time, I found that large blocks of text (like emails, or even text messages) were generally easier to read on the Moto 360, and that was really just because it has more width. The G Watch R also uses an OLED display vs IPS on the Moto. I found that the inky blacks on the G Watch R were generally more pleasing to the eye, and OLED typically uses less power as well.

Speaking of power, the G Watch R mops the floor with the Moto 360. It has a 410mAh battery—28 percent larger than the 320mAh on the Moto 360—and that difference shows. The Moto 360 generally makes it to the end of the day if you have it set to the mode where the screen is always on (called “ambient mode”). If you want to stretch it to 24 hours, you’ll have to turn ambient mode off and manually wake up the screen with a tap or a gesture. In contrast, the G Watch R generally makes it 40+ hours before it needs a charge, and that’s with ambient mode on! Having to charge it less is a big win.

Another clear win for the LG (at least on paper) lies in the horsepower. The Moto 360 runs a geriatric TI OMAP 3 processor that is not only slow, but is known to hemorrhage battery life. The G Watch R has the new 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 under the hood, which helps make it extremely snappy. While Android Wear is still prone to the occasional bugginess, I found that there was minimal lag while using the G Watch R.

Aside from that stuff, these watches are more alike than different. Both have 4GB of storage, both are water resistant (i.e., fine for the shower, but don’t go swimming), both have optical heart rate sensors, and neither have built-in GPS or standalone wireless connectivity. There’s a little differentiation in the sensors, though. The Moto 360 has an ambient light sensor, so it can dim the screen when it’s dark. This is actually a pretty great feature. All other Android Wear watches require you to adjust the brightness manually, which can be annoying. On the other hand, the G Watch R has a barometric altimeter, so it can display your elevation (along with a compass) on some of its custom watch faces. Theoretically, it could be used to track how many floors you climb in a day (Fitbit does this), but that hasn’t been integrated.

So that’s the technical stuff. What’s more important, though, is what it’s like to use them.

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Despite the fact that both watches use leather bands, it feels as if the hide were cut from two very different animals. LG’s strap is extremely stiff. It feels like it was cut from some mythical Cardboard Beast. In contrast, the leather on the Moto 360 feels like it came off an angel’s butt. Combine that with its lightness and its smaller footprint, and the Moto 360 is unquestionably the more comfortable of the two.

While there’s no accounting for taste, I can’t imagine I’ll be in the minority when I say the Moto 360 is far better looking. Yes, despite the flat tire and the less poppy screen, the design on the Moto 360 is just plain nice. It’s extremely simple and yet it feels elegant. You could wear the Moto 360 with formal wear and it wouldn’t look out of place. In contrast, the G Watch R looks totally fine for walking around town, or even for a business casual ensemble. It’s not bad-looking, but its size is a bit jarring, and it looks more at home in the outdoors.

While both watches have a heart rate monitor sensor built in, the Moto 360 records your heart rate data constantly throughout the day. It’s not always perfectly accurate, but it gives you a much more realistic estimate of your caloric burn compared to simple step-counting. The G Watch R requires you to fire up an app when you want to see what your ticker is doing. It’s not something you could use while running, or really, while doing anything.

The coup de grâce is that at $250, the Moto 360 is fifty bucks cheaper than the $300 G Watch R. Even if they were both $250 I think I still might go with the 360 here. The Moto 360 is just far more comfortable to wear, and it’s better-looking. Add in the round-the-clock heart-rate monitoring and auto screen dimming, and it counter-balances the LG’s superior battery life, which seems to be its only meaningful advantage. Yes, the G Watch R is a bit quicker, but we’re talking about a barely noticeable difference. And the quality of the G Watch R’s screen is better, but the additional size on the 360 makes it easier to read.

lg g watch

 

The LG G Watch is like the opening act to a headliner you're waiting for: this isn't the star of the show, and never will be. It's a solidly built piece of hardware, but it's extremely generic-looking, as if it was designed to be a blank slate for Android Wear. It feels like a developer's tool more than a watch you'd want to show off.

To wear the future on your wrist means submitting to a present that can't quite get us there yet. In the case of Google's new Android Wear watches, it also means confronting an odd number of compromises: in particular, some pretty bad battery life.

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If you're really serious about Android Wear, you should wait. For future watches, and for software improvements. But if you're curious about what Android Wear is all about, read on.

What is Android Wear, and what will it become?

Android Wear is Android, on your wrist. But it's really like Google Now on your wrist, or Google Glass on your wrist minus a camera: it pushes notifications, can use voice commands ("OK, Google"), and also has a touchscreen for swiping and tapping cards or menu commands. It also allows compatible Android phone apps to load bits of themselves onto your watch, and add on extra features.

Indeed, iPhone users are out of luck -- but we can safely assume Apple's rumored iWatch will be iOS-exclusive, too -- welcome to the increasingly segregated ecosystems of the Apple/Google Cold War. Android Wear is voice command-driven, like Google Glass, but the watches don't have any cameras or speakers: just a microphone, a touchscreen, and a vibrating motor. Android Wear watches can be round or square, but they all need to be connected to an Android phone running 4.3 or later. And they're all supposed to work roughly the same: same operating system, same-looking software. So, no matter what Android Wear watch you choose, it looks like they'll end up feeling like the same type of watch.

That doesn't mean they're all utterly identical: the LG G Watch has different watch faces than the Samsung Gear Live, the other first-out-of-the-gate Android Wear

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I tested both the Samsung Gear Live and LG G Watch using a prerelease Android Wear app on a Samsung Galaxy S5 , and running a handful of prerelease apps alongside it.

Android Wear pushes cards, just like Google Now, onto your watch face: they could be notifications like incoming emails, Facebook updates, Google Hangout chats, texts, Twitter interactions, or phone calls: it could be the score to a local game, the weather, directions to a place you've been before, or a reminder that music is playing on your phone. Each card can be swiped away, or you can tap to read more, as well as occasionally swipe to reply.

In some cases, you'll need to do the rest on your own phone: with Twitter or Facebook, I clicked a "open on phone" icon and then had to wake up my phone in my pocket. The thing I was trying to read popped up immediately on the phone, but I sometimes wondered whether this defeated the purpose of using a smartwatch in the first place.

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Samsung Gear Live (left), LG G Watch (right)You can dictate a lot of things to the watch -- write a note, send an email, ask for directions -- but it doesn't always mean that Google will understand you. And if it doesn't, you'll have a hard time correcting what you said, or canceling that mistaken message before a quick timer expires and it's sent away.

Some of the first Android Wear apps show extra promise: Tinder's Android Wear app has you swipe pictures like you can on a phone. DuoLingo has quick language-learning flashcards. Eat24 lets you quickly order food. Lyft can call a car service. Runtastic can start and track a run. Thomson Reuters Eikon gets quick business headlines and stock prices. Spendable and PayPal are offered for quick finance tools, but PayPal wasn't working for me yet in its early build. Wink will have an app to connect to its smart-home app and connected-appliance controls. That's already more than most smartwatches can boast, and Android Wear should get lots more apps in short time. How useful they'll be remains to be seen, but the potential for Android Wear to transform beyond what it seems to be now could be sky-high.

At the moment, though, it still feels like a hobbled version of Google Glass: notifications, but without the fun ability to record video hands-free.

Pushing notifications has its ups and downs, too: I tried navigating via Android Wear while driving and nearly caused a car accident. Basic vibrations and no speaker mean the display randomly lights up, and upcoming turns weren't clearly indicated. And, it kept losing the GPS signal from my phone even though I was in an unobstructed town in New Jersey.

And if you're saying to yourself, "How's this any different from what I get on my smartphone?" you're right. It all comes down to whether or not you think interacting with a smaller screen on your wrist is more convenient than always whipping out your phone.

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Design

The LG G Watch just isn't attractive-looking. Its big, plain black face and rubber wristband feel like the sort of generic smartwatch nobody really wants to own. It's reminiscent of the plastic chunkiness of the original Pebble watch . The G Watch comes in either white/gold or black; my review model was black.

Motorola Moto 360 review

The first generation of the Moto 360 turned heads last year, with some calling it perhaps the best Android Wear device to-date.  Back then it would have cost you $250, but this week the price just dropped from $149.99 to $99.99 at the Google Store.

If you’re looking for style, the Moto 360 (Gen I) has it in spades. Its minimalist design allows it to elegantly with pair with a variety of ensembles, and it’s round face struck many as a refreshing, retro-futuristic design move. The screen face is a little bit too big for some, especially those with narrower wrists, but the larger display brings ease of interaction and readability to this small device.                                                                                   The second generation of the Moto 360 took things up a notch both visually and in terms of specs. Admittedly, the first generation Moto 360 doesn’t quite have the power to run the large, circular screen as swiftly and responsively as users have come to expect from their smartphones, and the battery life ranges from about 8-14 hours, depending on usage. For some, this saw the Moto 360 (Gen I) dying just before bedtime each day. The Moto 360 (Gen II) increased processing power, RAM, and battery life… but the pricetag on that gorgeous beast still towers over its still-functional predecessor at $300.

If you’re looking to give Android Wear a spin for the first time, and you want something that’s attractive and effective – if not the absolute bleeding edge of the industry – maybe it’s time to give the Moto 360 (Gen I) a whirl. It’s never been more affordable to get this much style and usefulness out of an Android Wear device                                 

sony SmartWatch 3 review

sony SmartWatch 3 review sony's previous efforts at making a smartwatch haven't exactly been successes. In fact, the SmartWatch 2 was pretty awful. Seemingly keen to learn from its mistakes, however, Sony is back with a third generation of its computerised wristwear, unsurprisingly named the SmartWatch 3.

The SmartWatch 3 has an improved design -- including better waterproofing and interchangeable straps -- and crucially, Sony has ditched its clunky and unpleasant custom interface.

It now runs Android Wear, the smartwatch software developed by Google that aims to provide a unified platform for companies like Sony, Samsung, LG and Motorolato load on to their products and allow developers to create apps that can run equally well across all devices.

Design and display

Instead of opting for a more traditional circular watch face, like the LG G Watch R , the SmartWatch 3 has a square face. Together with the rubber strap, which meets the glass of the display, this makes it look much more like a fitness device than a regular watch. It certainly doesn't have the same luxury charm as the metal and leather G Watch R.

It's not unattractive as such, but the plain square face and black rubber strap are a little dull. It's not the sort of elegant watch you'd want to keep on while all dressed up in your best party outfit -- whereas the G Watch R remained on my wrist in my best suit at a birthday bash and didn't look at all out of place.

The flexible rubber strap is comfortable to wear, although the watch unit itself is quite chunky and a little on the heavy side. I certainly didn't want to keep it on while I slept. Part of the reason the watch is quite chunky is that there's a micro-USB port for charging built directly into it. It allows you to plug the charging cable directly into it, without needing to use a separate charging cradle, something that's required on all other Android Wear watches. This is a real bonus, as I find the cradles a massive hassle -- you need to always remember to take it with you if you're going away overnight.

A neat trick the SmartWatch 3 has up its sleeve is the ability to remove the actual watch unit from the strap. The screen pops out from its rubber surround, allowing you to change the colour and style of the strap. Although only black and bright lime-green straps are available right now, Sony tells me that different colours will become available, which should help make it look a little more uniquely yours than this bog-standard black version.

The SmartWatch 3 is totally waterproof, not just water-resistant, meaning you don't need to worry about ruining your expensive new toy when you're washing the dishes. It also means you don't have to take it off in the shower -- handy when you're cleaning off after a good workout in the gym -- although be aware that the falling water droplets will activate the touchscreen, which will accidentally pause whatever you're listening to. (Listening to podcasts in the gym shower while your phone sits in a locker may admittedly be a fairly niche use that only I will ever worry about.)

Display and watch faces

The watch face itself has a 1.6-inch square display with a 320x320-pixel resolution. That's basically the same as other watches we've seen, so it's no surprise that the screen looks about as sharp as its competitors. It's fairly bright -- although under very bright lights it can be difficult to read -- but its colours are quite weak, particularly when compared to the more vibrant LG G Watch R. Viewing angles aren't great either, meaning you have to angle it in just the right way to get an optimal view.

Colours aren't a huge problem, as you won't be watching videos or browsing images on it -- Android Wear could be in black and white and it wouldn't make much difference to functionality. The viewing angles are more of a problem, however. Given that the watch will move around on your wrist, you won't always have the best view when you bring it up to your eyeline. The display is at the very least legible, but it's generally unimpressive and it's definitely a mark against it, in comparison to the G Watch R or Samsung's Gear Live .

It comes with a selection of faces to choose from, which help customise the look of the watch, but it's not a big selection and few of them really stand out to me. They're mostly digital clocks that, while matching the sporty look of the watch itself, don't really help make it look any more elegant. The LG G Watch R has a much wider selection of faces, many of which look like they've been lifted straight off real luxury watches.

There are at least a whole bunch of third-party watch faces available in the Google Play Store, and they're easy to get on to the watch using the Android Wear app. So you can still customise it to your tastes, it's just a shame Sony hasn't put much effort in to help you on your way.

review smart watch 2

review smart watch 2Sony was the first large company to release a smartwatch, when it debuted the Sony LiveView back in 2010, and was still ahead of its time when it launched the Sony SmartWatch in 2012. Both of those devices provided color screens and a variety of alerts from your phone, but each suffered from small flaws. Now that competitors like Samsung have started competing for wrist dominance, Sony's back with the SmartWatch 2 -- and it looks like the third time's a charm. Though it doesn't make calls or snap photos, the $199 SmartWatch 2 delivers detailed updates and a wide ecosystem of apps in an attractive, water-resistant package, but is it a must-have mobile companion or a nice-to-have gadget?

Design

With its rectangular, black, aluminum body; chrome-colored, aluminum power button; and side accents and glossy bezel, the Sony SmartWatch 2 is the classiest-looking smartwatch we've tested, matching the elegant design of high-end phones like the Xperia Z. Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Gear and the Pebble Watch, both of which use proprietary chargers that are easy to use, the SmartWatch 2 has a standard microUSB power port, quietly tucked away behind a black port cover on its left side

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Also unlike the Galaxy Gear, which builds key components into its nonremovable band, the SmartWatch 2 uses a standard 24mm band, which you can replace with any third-party watch band or one of Sony's $20 colorful replacements. The watch is sold with either a black resin band or a metal band (at Best Buy only). We found the black band extremely comfortable and easy to adjust, unlike the hard Gear band, but we prefer the bold color of Sony's aqua or purple replacement bands.

At 1.6 x 1.6 x 0.35 inches and just 1.7 ounces, the SmartWatch 2 is a lot

smaller and lighter than the 2.2 x 1.4 x 0.43-inch, 2.6-ounce Galaxy Gear. However, the 2 x 1.2 x 0.4-inch, 1.35-ounce Pebble is a bit lighter (though longer).

Water Resistance

Sony claims that the SmartWatch 2 can survive up to 30 minutes submerged in up to 3 feet of water, and our tests show that the watch can spend time under water without sustaining damage. When we dropped the SmartWatch 2 in a vase with 1 foot of water, its screen stayed lit, and it remained Bluetooth-connected to our smartphone, even showing a notification on the home screen. However, the device did not change screen modes under water: It would not go to sleep when we dropped it with the home screen showing, and it would not wake up to alert us when showing the watch face. Unless you're a scuba diver, however, you probably don't care if the watch runs well underwater, as long as it survives. The Pebble can also work under water, but Samsung makes no such claim with the Galaxy Gear.

Screen

The 1.6-inch, 220 x 176-pixel touch screen on the SmartWatch 2 isn't quite as sharp as the 320 x 320 Samsung Galaxy Gear, but provides vibrant and colorful images. Sony claims that the 262,000-color panel is visible in sunlight, and indeed, we were able to see the screen very clearly when we tested it outdoors, though it was slightly overcast.

Unlike other full-color watches that turn their screens off to save power, the Sony SmartWatch 2 has a transflective display that goes into a low-energy gray-scale mode and shows the watch face when it's asleep. So, if you want to just see the time, there's no need to hit the power button .

Sadly, the watch goes to sleep after only 15 seconds of inactivity, which made it difficult for us to read emails if we weren't actively tapping on the screen. The Galaxy Gear allows you to change its screen timeout, but the SmartWatch 2 does not.

Installation and Setup

Like most smartwatches today, the Sony SmartWatch 2 can't do much without being connected to your smartphone. Fortunately, the watch will work with any phone that has Android 4.0 or above. (We tested it with a Galaxy Note 3.)

Setup was a breeze, as we tapped the back of the watch against our NFC-enabled phone and watched as the phone took us to the Google Play store to download Sony's Smart Connect software. After the software installed, we tapped the watch again, and it paired automatically without a single prompt from the phone. Users without NFC can pair their phone with the watch manually using Bluetooth.

Smart Connect Control

With the Smart Connect app installed and the watch paired, a watch icon lives permanently in your phone's notification bar, with the icon changing to show whether or not you are currently connected. When you pull down the notification drawer and tap on the watch icon there (it never goes away), the software takes you to a list of the apps installed on your phone. You can also get there by launching the Smart Connect app.

From the Smart Connect control panel, you can either search for new apps or change the settings on installed apps, controlling everything from the frequency of Facebook alerts to whose tweets appear on your watch. Smart Connect also has a list of recommended apps, which include the SMS messaging app, phone dialer and email app .

The Samsung Gear manager, which controls the Galaxy Gear, also allows you to install apps, change the watch face and control which apps can generate a notification on the watch. However, Samsung's app also lets you assign an app shortcut to double-tapping the power button, and it has a Find My Gear feature that sets off an alarm on the watch to help you locate it.

User Interface

At the top of the home screens, there's a status bar that looks a lot like those you'll find on an Android phone. It shows the time, Bluetooth connectivity and battery level. Pulling down the status bar shows a notification drawer with all your most recent alerts. There's also a built-in app called New Events that lets you scroll through all your recent alerts.Though the SmartWatch 2 uses its own proprietary operating system, its

UI looks and feels an awful lot like Android. Like many Android devices, the bottom bezel has capacitive buttons for back, home and menu. Hitting the home button takes you to a home screen with Sony wallpaper and shortcut icons for six apps. As you move right to left, you move to other home screens with more shortcuts. Hitting the menu button allows you to sort the shortcuts either alphabetically or by most frequently used. Hitting the back button doesn't do anything when you're on the home screen but will take you back a step from within any app.

The SmartWatch 2 also has an on-watch settings menu that allows you to turn vibration on or off, set an unlock pin, adjust the screen brightness or change the watch face. The watch comes with only five faces: One face just shows the time in numerals, while the other four have an analog look with hour and minute hands.

Unfortunately, there's no option to load third-party watch faces, and none of the faces show anything more than the time. Because the face stays visible and tells the time even when the watch is asleep, we would have liked to see other information there, such as the weather, date or number of unread emails.

Alerts

As you walk around throughout the day, the SmartWatch 2 remains tethered to your phone via Bluetooth, but its screen remains in gray-scale mode, showing the face. However, when you receive an alert of any kind, the watch will wake up and show you the alert on screen for a little more than 5 seconds, vibrating on your wrist if you have vibrations enabled.

Because the watch doesn't make sounds, if you have vibrations disabled, you'll only know you have an alert if you're actively staring at the device during the few seconds when the notification appears. Disappointingly, there is also no way to change the notification duration. You can always see your recent notifications by pulling down the drawer from the watch home screen.

Each app that provides notifications has its own settings. Sony's Facebook and Twitter alert apps allow you to select not only what types of events generate an alert (direct messages only or news updates), but also which friends' posts generate alerts. However, if you don't allow alerts from a particular friend, you won't see his or her updates on the watch at all. Unfortunately, the Gmail and Touchdown (for Exchange mail) apps do not allow you to choose alerts by sender, which means you either get alerted about all your email or none.

When opening an alert, the amount of content you can read on the watch depends on the app. The Twitter app will show you full tweets, and the Facebook app will show entire updates, but neither displays images or videos that are embedded in the updates. The Gmail app cuts off emails after a few lines, but Sony said a fix for this issue is coming in an update. Gmail also does not show attached images, but it does show the profile pic for each sender. When we received a text message with a JPG attached, the JPG displayed on the SmartWatch 2. While Pebble also shows a lot of information from each service, the Galaxy Gear does not show Gmail or Facebook messages, instead directing you to open them on your phone.

Unlike the Galaxy Gear, which allows you to reply to emails from the phone by using your voice, the Sony SmartWatch 2 does not provide any means for replying to emails or social networking messages because it doesn't have a microphone for accepting voice commands. There's also no way to fit a keyboard onto the 1.6-inch screen. However, Sony's messaging and call apps allow you to send canned responses from the watch -- such as "Where are you?" or "What are you up to?" -- either in response to a text message or a call you reject. You can also craft your own canned replies within the apps' settings menu on your phone.

Apps

While the Pebble watch has about 100 apps and the Galaxy Gear has about 60, the Sony SmartWatch 2 has an ecosystem of more than 300 apps available. When you search for watch apps using Smart Connect, you can choose to see only apps that are optimized for the SmartWatch 2 or those that work on both watches.

Sony says that nonoptimized apps will not fill the whole screen. In our testing, we didn't see a graphical difference between the two types of apps , but noted that some of the nonoptimized apps seemed a bit buggy. Calculator app Quick Calc, which was not optimized, was very sluggish and froze on us.

Sony divides SmartWatch apps into 11 categories, ranging from Music and Audio to Communications and Fitness. Though Sony provides a list of the categories, when you tap on one, you are transported to the Google Play store to download the apps.

The games apps are mostly card games, such as Poker and Blackjack, along with Tic-Tac-Toe and Sudoku. The communications category contains a wide variety of apps, including some phone dialers and the Twitter and Facebook apps. We found the Accuweather app fairly useful but wish it detected our location rather than forcing us to choose a city.While there are more apps available on the SmartWatch 2 than on the Gear or the Pebble, few are really helpful. Most, like the card games and camera monitor, are somewhat useful, though others, like the $2.99 app that just shows a "Knight Rider" animation, are downright useless.

The lifestyle category contains a cocktails app and a number of language-learning apps. The Spanish app only contained a few common phrases rather than a comprehensive dictionary. By contrast, the Galaxy Gear has the CamDictionary app, which lets you photograph foreign-language text and have it translated.

The photography category contains a few useful apps for controlling your camera, including Sony Smart Camera, which allowed us to shoot photos and video on our phone by tapping some buttons on the watch. The Watcher app turned our phone into a security camera, which we could view through the watch. Because the phone and the SmartWatch 2 connect over Bluetooth, which is much slower than Wi-Fi, the camera previews lagged quite a bit.

While the Pebble has an RSS reader and even a copy of the Bible available, the SmartWatch 2 doesn't have much in the way of reading material. We appreciated the effort behind WebBrowser, an app that lets you browse the Web from the watch, but it was extremely slow and laggy with Web graphics and jagged text.

The SmartWatch 2 also has a few interesting tools available, including SmartWatch File Explorer, which allows you to browse the folders on your phone and even open image files, a sound meter and a compass. The watch comes preloaded with a Flashlight app and a timer .

Offline Experience

Like most smartwatches today, the Sony SmartWatch 2 needs to be paired with your phone to make use of most of its features. However, some functions -- such as the time, alarm, timer and flashlight -- still work even when not paired with the phone . Any data that you already downloaded in notifications -- Twitter messages, for example -- is also still visible when the watch is offline.

Music Control

One of the most intriguing uses for the Sony SmartWatch 2 is as a remote control for music players on the phone. You can skip tracks and pause playback, which comes in handy when you're wearing headphones or if your phone is across the room or connected to a Bluetooth speaker.

Though there are more than a dozen apps listed in the SmartWatch 2, most of the major music services are left out, with only Spotify, Sony's Music Unlimited Service and local music files supported . We found both the Spotify and Sony Music Unlimited apps attractive but minimally useful, as they allowed us to skip songs on an existing playlist or radio station and showed album covers for each track, but did not let us conduct a search, change playlists or perform any more serious functions. Music Player On and NRG player did little more than allow us to play, pause and move forward or back a track on our locally stored MP3s, and in both apps, there was significant lag when we tried to change songs. None of these apps enabled us to jog through tracks on other music services such as Rhapsody and Slacker.

Fitness

The Sony SmartWatch 2 has a couple of apps that help you keep track of your exercise regimen. Runtastic Pro, which normally costs $4.99 but is free when you purchase the silicon-band version of the watch, allows you to see how far you've run and how many calories you've burned on your wrist while the app keeps track of more details on your phone. WalkMate is another free app that just tracks your steps.

Battery Life

Sony claims that the SmartWatch 2 can last 3 or more days on a charge, and the company is not exaggerating. In our tests, we were able to use the watch Friday, Saturday and Sunday without running out of juice. The SmartWatch 2 also did not appear to have an adverse effect on our phone's battery life, as the Galaxy Note 3 we tested it with lasted all day long. The Galaxy Gear, in comparison, is rated for a full day of use.

VerdictLike the Pebble, the Sony SmartWatch 2 is more about reading what's on your phone than interacting with it. Though it doesn't have a camera, speakers or microphone, this wrist companion provides detailed alerts for your email, Gmail, Facebook, SMS messages, calendar appointments and other functions. However, after several days of constant use, the SmartWatch 2 just didn't feel like an indispensible part of our mobile life, and unlike the Gear, it wasn't even full-featured enough for us to play with it when we were bored.

We found the barrage of notifications sometimes distracting, and wished that we had the ability to both view our social feeds without being alerted and to restrict email notifications only to certain senders. Better and more complex apps, such as newsreaders and additional radio services (Pandora , Slacker), would make the SmartWatch 2 more useful.

Users looking for a similar passive watch experience for less money may want to consider the Pebble, which costs $149 and works with iPhones as well as Android, but has a gray-scale screen without touch. Those who own a Galaxy Note 3 or other compatible Samsung might consider splurging $300 for the Galaxy Gear, which allows you to issue voice commands and take pictures from your wrist. However, if you're looking for a stylish wrist companion that serves as a second screen for your Android phone, the SmartWatch 2 is a compelling choice.

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