Sony’s first go at the smartwatch mostly went unnoticed – a
lot of people, myself included, had to be reminded of its existence when
the
Pebble made big waves for its huge Kickstarter funding success.
But Sony’s not letting its early mover advantage go to waste, nor is it
letting the SmartWatch brand die on the vine: Today it unveiled the
SmartWatch 2, a successor to its original that improves specs and functionality in a number of ways.
The Sony SmartWatch 2 has competition from the aforementioned Pebble,
and from fellow Kickstarter success MetaWatch Strata, which is another
smartwatch category incumbent. If fact, so is Pebble, which means that
this entire generation of devices is actually not the first, but may
well be the first with the chance to actually gain some traction with
the wider consumer market. Accordingly, a tale of the tape is definitely
in order.
Platform support
Both the Pebble and the MetaWatch win this round, as they support
both iOS and Android, while the SmartWatch 2 only works with Android
phones. Sony has improved on the previous generation thanks to opening
up support for any Android phones, instead of just Xperia devices, which
makes this about 1000x more useful. And while the other devices support
iPhone, there are limits put in place by the platform that make using
smartwatches with iOS far less useful, though many of those are on track
to change with iOS 7, which, for example, brings support for
third-party app notifications to Pebble.
Battery
Battery
life is going to be key to any kind of wide smartwatch adoption, and
both Pebble and MetaWatch highlighted their multi-day power capabilities
ahead of their device launches. Pebble says it can keep the watch
powered for over a week on a single charge, and MetaWatch says its
Strata will run for 5 to 7 days on a single charge – in practice, I’ve
found both to be at the low end of their estimates, and the Pebble
slightly under on some cycles.
Sony’s new watch makes some specific claims about its battery life,
as well as making the biggest claim of all: The SmartWatch 2 has the
“longest battery time for a smartwatch,” Sony says in its press release,
a stat which it says has been verified by Strategy Analytics as of June
21, 2013. But the listed battery time expectations fall under those
listed by its competitors; Sony claims 5 to 6 days with low usage, and 3
to 4 days with “typical” use. Testing standards may differ, but it
looks like this will be right in the same general area as the
competition when it comes to battery life overall, so don’t expect
anyone to have a real distinct edge here.
Connectivity
The Pebble uses Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, as well as 4.0 Low Energy (LE) to
connect to your device, which gives it some extra notification magic on
iOS, while the MetaWatch Strata has Bluetooth 4.0 only. Sony’s
SmartWatch 2 uses Bluetooth 3.0, which is interesting since it also
claims the longest battery life without Bluetooth LE and with a much
larger, color screen. The SmartWatch 2 also offers NFC, a trick neither
of its competitors has, which does little beyond simplify the pairing
process. Still, it’s an added convenience for users with NFC in their
smartphones, and shouldn’t be discounted.
Display
SmartWatch
2 is the only one in the crop with a color display, boasting a 1.6-inch
220 x 176 pixel screen. The Pebble has a 144 x 168, 1.26-inch display,
and the MetaWatch Strata has a 96×96-inch screen, which is 1.16-inches.
The screens are all close, but there are key differences that users will
want to consider. Both the Strata and the Pebble offer a nightlight LED
for illumination, but lack any backlighting. This helps with power, but
the Sony SmartWatch 2 with its colour display will be more legible in
dark environments.
The MetaWatch Strata uses a reflective surface as the base for its
screen, which results in it being virtually unreadable in certain
lighting conditions, but the Pebble is mostly very legible, though the
environmental light level detector is hit or miss. Sony claims that its
colour display will be sunlight-readable, but generally speaking an
e-ink screen like the one in the Pebble should fare better in that kind
of environment.
Water resistance
The SmartWatch 2 is “splash-proof,” but that basically seems to mean
you can wear it in a light rain shower or while washing your hands. Sony
says not to wear it while showering, bathing, swimming, diving,
snorkeling, fishing or doing “water related work.” Also, it notes that
the watchband it ships with is neither water- nor splashproof.
Basically, you can get it wet – but don’t get it wet.
The Pebble offers water resistance to up to 5 ATM, in both salt- and
freshwater, which means you can take it swimming, or run in the rain.
Pebble says not to use the watch in hot water, or while diving. The
Strata likewise is rated to 5 ATM, or a submersion death of 165 feet.
Both the existing devices win out in this category, for sure.
Apps
The Pebble has an API that’s being used by developers to build apps,
but apps are coming relatively slowly, and offer fairly limited
functionality. No doubt we’ll see more, but out of the box, the Pebble
offers little beyond watch faces, notifications, and controls for your
on-device music playback. MetaWatch does notifications, but
email, calendar, Facebook and Twitter are still “coming soon” and
there’s no word on third-party apps. The Strata does do music controls,
and has weather, stock and calendar widgets, as well as an out-of-range
alert so you don’t leave your phone behind.
The
SmartWatch 2 offers call handling on the device (as does the Pebble) as
well as a call log, notifications for calls, email, Gmail, Facebook,
Twitter, and more. It does music remote functions, and offers calendar,
weather, runtastic and new events aggregation. That’s out of the box,
and there’s more planned. You can also remotely snap photos from your
SmartWatch, control presentations and more using SmartWatch applications
created by developers. Sony might have the edge in terms of app
features, if only because it has more clout to convince and sign up
developers.
Charging
It’s a small thing, but really important: the SmartWatch 2 uses micro
USB to charge, while both the Pebble and the MetaWatch Strata use
proprietary cables. That means added expense should you lose the single
cable they ship with, and just general inconvenience. Sony definitely
comes out ahead here.
Bottom Line
I don’t know if any of these smartwatches will be the one to break
the mass market; more than likely, they won’t. But they show an
evolution, and Sony’s at least trying to do better than the last time
out, and has also clearly learned from the progress of its upstart
rivals at Pebble and MetaWatch. Anyone other than early adopters might
still want to hold off until OEMs devote and platform makers make more
of an effort to actually support smartwatches, but at this point at
least you won’t be in for an entirely frustrating experience if you pick
one up.
Source:
TechCrunch 
It was only a matter of time before Sony jumped on the phablet
bandwagon. And that day is today. The mobile maker has just announced
the Xperia Z Ultra: a frankly gigantic addition to its smartphone
line-up that packs a 6.4″ full HD display. This phone is so big that one
of the accessories Sony is lining up is a slender Bluetooth handset for
taking calls — i.e.so you can leave the whopping slab on the table.
