Moto 360 (2019) review - A good watch on a so-so platform (Buy now from B+H) - Android

Update: March 19, 2020 at 3:23 p.m. ET: If you were holding off buying the new Moto 360 from moto360.com, good news! The Moto 360 (2019) is now available from B&H. It’s still the same price, but now you have one more buying option.

Original article: December 11, 2019 at 11:32 a.m. ET: Motorola’s Moto 360 smartwatches made their mark on the Wear OS ecosystem as two of the first fully circular smartwatches available. Just about when we were hoping for a third-gen Moto 360, Motorola said it would put its smartwatch efforts on hold until there was a good reason to bring another one to market. Apparently, that time is now, but Motorola is doing so with a little help.

A Canadian company called eBuyNow has licensed the Moto 360 brand from Motorola to create the new Moto 360 (2019). It’s very much a continuation of the Motorola smartwatches we’ve grown to love, with updated specs and a modern (if not a little chunky) design. For a Wear OS watch in late 2019 it doesn’t push many boundaries, though it delivers on the basics — something most other Wear OS watches don’t do.

Read our full Moto 360 (2019) review to find out why you might (and why you might not) want to buy this great Wear OS watch.

eBuyNow and Motorola got a lot right with the new Moto 360. A lot of that has to do with the hardware. The watch is made of stainless steel and feels solid and well-made. I know using the word “premium” is a little tired these days, but I’d say everything about the Moto 360 is premium.

The case isn’t huge and only houses a 1.2-inch display. It is a little chunky compared to its overall size, though, so it may look bulky on smaller wrists. The circular AMOLED display gets plenty bright and has nice viewing angles, and no, there’s no “flat tire” here. It isn’t as pixel-dense as other smartwatch displays at 390 x 390, so expect things to look a little grainier than the latest Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch Active 2.

Oddly enough, there’s only one Motorola-made proprietary watch face preloaded on the Moto 360. None of them are ported over from the old watches. (I was really looking forward to using the Rotate watch face again.) Instead, Ustwo’s Looks watch faces come preloaded on the device. There’s a good variety of styles available, and all nine of the preloaded faces are customizable.

Left to right: Fossil Gen 5, Moto 360 (2019)

The watch is available in three color options: Steel Grey with a brown leather/black silicone strap (our Moto 360 (2019) review unit), Phantom Black with a black leather/black silicone strap, or Rose Gold with a white silicone and brown leather strap.

Performance and battery life are the Achilles heel of Wear OS watches, but the new Moto 360 handles both in spades. eBuyNow packed all the latest, high-end specs into this watch: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 3100 chip, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of onboard storage, and a 355mAh battery. Performance-wise, this watch is just as quick as the Fossil Gen 5 or Galaxy Watch Active 2. The only lag I noticed throughout the review period was when launching Google Assistant voice commands, but every Wear OS watch lags when that happens.

Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch review | Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 review

Battery life is good, too! I kept the always-on display turned on at all times, and at bedtime after a 16-hour day I found it still had about 40% left in the tank. That’s good enough to wear it through the night for sleep tracking. Considering other Wear OS watches are running on fumes at the end of the day, I have to give Motorola and eBuyNow credit here.

The watch will also charge from 0-100% in an hour, which is quicker than many other smartwatches you can buy today.