Korean tech company LG has recently collaborated with Google to develop two wearables – the LG Watch Sport and the LG Watch Sport – to give the Apple Watch Series 2, and Samsung Gear 3 a run for the money in the highly-competitive smartwatch market.
The LG Watch Sport and the LG Watch Style are the first two watches that have been developed in partnership with Google and they are likewise the first also to feature Android Wear 2.0, Google’s latest operating system for its wearables.
Based on renders and specifications prior to its release, it looks like the LG Watch Sport live up to the hype.
The LG Watch Sport has a 1.09GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor, which is from the Snapdragon Wear range, along with 653MB of usable RAM, which likely means it will have 768MB overall, details Pocket-Lint.
Prior to its release, the LG Watch Style was listed to run on Android 7.1.1 Nougat which is not accurate as it came out with Android Wear 2.0. Also before its release, the motherboard field for the LG Watch Style says swordfish, which refers to an earlier codename.
When it came out early last month, the LG Watch Style was priced at $249 while the more feature-packed LG Watch Sport is being retailed for $349.
Comes in excellent colors
The LG Watch Sport comes in excellent colors of titanium and blue. It also features a rotating digital crown/power button that also serves as a navigation tool, along with two other buttons above and below it on the right side of the watch.
The smartwatch also features NFC for Android Pay, GPS, LTE, and Google Assistant. It has a 1.38-inch screen with 480×480 resolution, 768 MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, 430 mAh battery and an IP68 rating.
The LG Watch Sport seems like it would be the platonic form of a fitness-focused smartwatch. It has an always-on display. It has GPS. It has LTE. It has built-in heart rate sensors. It has a barometer. It’s almost waterproof. And it runs on brand-new Android Wear software.
But to look at the watch, one would think that a bunch of Google and LG engineers sat in a room and mashed all those parts together without a care in the world for how the thing fits on one’s wrist.
There are actually a lot of good things to say about the smartwatch’s fitness features, which makes it even more of a shame that it feels like a handcuff.
Better than the previous software
The LG Watch Sport is running on Android Wear 2.0, Google’s newest operating system for wearables. It is good software and is much better than the previous version.
And it optimizes the fitness-tracking experience. For example, one can now add complications and shortcuts on the watch’s face, which means he has quick access to his daily step count or his total active minutes or even to Google Play Music.
Pressing on the top physical button on the right-hand side of the watch brings him to a series of exercise-tracking options including walking, running, cycling, treadmill running, stationary biking, stair climbing, strength-training, and others.
The watch also offers daily challenges for push-ups, sit-ups, and squats, starting at five reps and building from there.
Pressing on the middle physical button brings the user to apps and settings, which flow nicely in a half-moon curve along the round watch face.
The apps are one of the biggest feature-adds with Android Wear 2.0 as popular workout apps like RunKeeper and Strava will run directly on the watch and tap into the watch’s GPS, without the need for a smartphone.
But one of Google’s biggest brags with LG Watch Sport is that it automatically classifies strength-training exercises.
