Fossil introduced the fourth generation of two of
its Android Wear smartwatch lines - the Fossil Q Venture HR and Q
Explorist HR. They are available for pre-order and will ship out on August 26.
The main difference between the two is size –
Explorist is 45mm in diameter, Venture is 40mm. This means the exchangeable
bands are different too, 22mm and 18mm respectively. The price, however, is
identical, US$ 255 for a leather band and US$ 275 for a stainless steel band.
As you can tell by the name, both watches have heart
rate sensors. And both sport a built-in GPS receiver (which wasn’t there on Gen
3 models). The new watches really are sportier than their predecessors, they
are even swim-proof (the watches are rated at 3ATM).
Another new addition to the Explorist and Venture
lines is NFC, which means the new watches support Google Pay. Those are some pretty significant
upgrades, but the rest hasn’t changed – you still get 4GB of built-in storage
(for offline music playback and such), Bluetooth 4.1 Low Energy, Wi-Fi b/g/n
and a battery that should last you the whole day.
