We have been talking about Smart Watches at techjaja for some time now. It has longed been believed that Smart-Watches will be the next big innovation for big tech companies like Apple, and up to now we still await for the so called iWatch. At the Orange Expo this year, Orange has brought us some watches to play with. And we get to see a full demo of the Sony Smart watch in action. As we commented before; to our disappointment the model we had is an early 2012 version; as we expected the latest and this still beats our understanding why they are calling it a future product, but for Uganda of course it is.
VIDEO REVIEW
Well it’s not a Samsung Galaxy Gear but it’s your average SmartWatch that connects via Bluetooth to your smartphone, there is no NFC though like in the 2013 Smartwatch.
DESIGN
Sony uses a simple design to with an aluminum finish on along the edges, that surrounds the 2 inch capacitive touch
screen. We found it a little to small to operate but it gets the work done. Unlike the Samsung’s Galaxy gear, the Sony counterparts only put one power button on this watch. The wrist band is made of rubber and will come in black
or white colors. We tried it on the Sony Z1 phone and the experience was seamless.
HOW TO SET UP
You have to initially install the LiveWare™ manager application from the app store to connect your Android phone to this smartwatch (Look out for the list of android supported devices ) Next install on your phone applications which are tailor-made for SmartWatch, such as Messaging, Calendar, Find phone, Facebook and Twitter. These applications help you run specific functions on your SmartWatch device. You can get notifications, control your music from this device. It will be compatible to most Android phones running 2.3 and above.
ANDROID PHONE COMPATIBILITY
Expect full compatibility with all Xperia Phones, plus the following Android devices
- HTC Desire C, Desire S, One S, One V, One X, Wildfire, Wildfire S
- Huawei U8650>
- Motorola ATRIX, Defy, Droid 2/Milestone 2, RAZR
- Orange San Francisco
- Samsung Galaxy 5, Galaxy Ace 2, Galaxy Fit, Galaxy Gio, Galaxy Mini, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II, Galaxy SII ICS, Galaxy SIII, Galaxy SL, Galaxy W, Nexus S
Some devices have partial compatibility and these include HTC Wildfire S, Motorola Defy +, Samsung Galaxy Ace, Galaxy Fit, Galaxy Gio, Galaxy Note.
