While the Apple Watch is currently the cynosure of all eyes as it readies for an April 24 release, another smartwatch - LG Watch Urbane - is preparing to make its way to the Google Store this month.
The LG Watch Urbane is set to release in home country South Korea and the Google Store in April. The roll out of the wearable will start this week in South Korea, followed by other major markets such as North America, Europe and Asia in the coming weeks.
Touted as the first Android Wear smartwatch, the company reveals it will be available for purchase in 13 countries by April end via the Google Store. These countries are Canada, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, India, France, Japan, Italy, Ireland, the U.K., Spain, the U.S. and Korea.
However, LG has not spilled the beans on the price of its much touted all-metal Watch Urbane, which sports a round display.
The attractive looking Watch Urbane measures 45.5 x 52.2 x 10.9 mm. It sports a stainless steel casing in Rose Gold or silver and has a 1.3-inch P-OLED screen with 320 x 320 pixels. The Android Wear smartwatch also houses a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.2GHz and 512MB of RAM. The Watch Urbane offers 4GB of storage and packs in a 410mAH battery.
The Watch Urbane's strap is made of stitched leather and the smartwatch is both dust and water resistant (IP67 rated - up to 1 meter or 30 minutes). The strap can also be replaced by 22mm ones if one chooses so. Running on the Android Wear OS, the Watch Urbane from LG will be compatible with devices running Android 4.3 or higher.
Targeted at the premium smartwatch market, the Watch Urbane also carries special features from the company such as LG Call and LG Pulse. The LG Call displays the favorite contacts and recent calls on the user's smartphone on the screen. It also enables the wearer to dial from the watch itself.
LG Pulse, on the other hand, is a health-based feature and will measure the heart rate of the wearer when they exercise. The average heart rate per second is calculated when one is done and a graph of the same is displayed via LG Health.
While LG will reveal the Watch Urbane's pricing at the time of release, U.K. retailer Clove has divulged its plans of retailing the smartwatch on April 30. It has priced the wearable at £259.99 (approximately $390), making it cheaper than the Apple Watch.
