Progress and tradition rarely go hand in hand – you
can have either a feature-packed digital smartwatch or the classic beauty of an
analog watch. The LG Watch W7 aims to offer the best of both worlds. It’s a fully fledged Wear OS
watch with a 1.2” LCD touchscreen (360 x 360px). But poking through that screen
are the hands of a watch mechanism that was developed in collaboration with
Swiss watchmaker Soprod SA.
The smart side of things is handled by the fairly
old Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip. It’s paired with 768MB of RAM and 4GB of
built-in storage. But if you disable those smart features, the 240mAh battery
can run the analog watch for 100 days.
The better option is this – use the smartwatch as
long as its battery lasts, then you have 2-3 extra days of analog-only battery
life, so you’ll always know the time. Speaking of, there’s a dual time feature
implemented in a way that perfectly describes the watch – one half is digital,
the other half is analog.
The LG Watch W7 is IP68 rated and features a suite
of Master Tools for those who like adventure. They include a compass, altimeter
and barometer. There’s no GPS, unfortunately. The watch uses standard 22mm
bands, so you can change those at will. LG itself offers a very wide selection
ranging from the elegant leather or metal to sportier NATO bands.
The W7 will be available from Best Buy and will cost US$ 450. Pre-orders start October 7 (this Sunday) or you can wait until October 14
to check out the watch in stores
