Montblanc, the German company which manufactures luxury products such as watches, writing instruments and jewelry, has launched its first ever smartwatch.
The luxury smartwatch — which has been dubbed the Summit — was unveiled by Montblanc at an event in London on March 16. The device launches just a couple of days after TAG Heuer unveiled its premium wearable dubbed the Connected Modular 45.
"Meet Montblanc Summit. Our first smartwatch. Introducing a world-first for wearable technology: 1.39" of traditional curved sapphire glass meets the latest Google power. Powered by Android Wear 2.0, it works with both iPhone and Android smartphones," shared the company on its Facebook page.
The Summit boasts "cutting-edge technology" coupled with a classic design, asserts the company. It is targeted at people who are "always on the ascent."
However, being a Montblanc product, the Summit will not come cheap despite its basic features and specs.
The Summit: Specs And Features
The Summit will sport a circular 1.39-inch (400 x 400) AMOLED display and will come pre-loaded with Android Wear 2.0. The smartwatch will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset.
The wearable will house 512 MB of RAM and support 4 GB of storage. Montblanc also asserts that the watch will feature a 300 mAh battery, which will be capable of powering it for an entire day.
The first-ever smartwatch from the company will also include a heart rate monitor, gyroscope, e-compass, barometer, light sensor and built-in microphone. The Summit is IP68 certified, which basically means that it is both dust and water resistant.
Surprisingly, the Summit will lack an NFC chip, which is essential for Android Pay and GPS support. This means that owners of the Summit will not benefit from these features. The smartwatch, however, offers Google Assistant integration and support for a voice-activated Global Translator.
The device will be compatible with handsets running iOS 9 or above and Android 4.3 or higher.
The Summit's specs indicate that Montblanc is focusing more on the style and less on delivering a product that houses innovative features.
Design
The Summit will bring lots of choices to the users in the context of its look as the company will launch several variants of the smartwatch.
These variants include silver and black PVD coated stainless steel models, a dual-colored steel version with a silver body and black watch face, and lastly, a silver titanium model.
However, the dimensions of the Summit have come under some criticism with experts calling the watch too large and clunky.
The presence of a physical crown — a button on the side of the product — has also come under scrutiny.
Pricing
The Summit has a starting price of $890 for the stainless steel models with a simple leather strap. If the user wants a colored strap, then they have to shell out an additional $40. The titanium model of the Summit starts from $980.
It remains to be seen whether consumers will be willing to shell out such a hefty sum to purchase the Summit, which falls in basic smartwatch category based on its specs and features.
The Summit is expected to go on sale in the United States in May and is listed as "coming soon" on the Montblanc website.
