Moto 360 Sport review: Run Forrest, run

If I had to identify one other technological trend besides Virtual Reality that would most likely hit big this year, it would be smartwatches. Or smart wearables, whichever you prefer.

For people like us at SoyaCincau.com, smartwatches may not be the “latest” in terms of tech, but for everyone else who doesn’t blow all their money on gadgets, this is a relatively new concept. And oh boy what a concept.

I mean, you have to charge your watch every day?

When I think of smartwatches, one of the OG smartwatches to really revolutionised the smartwatch industry — especially in terms of looks — has to be the Moto 360. When I first laid eyes on it, I was stunned.

I didn’t mind the flat tyre or the fact that it runs Android Wear (which, btw, is mighty confusing to use), it just looked right. It reminded the world that the smartwatch doesn’t need to look radically different from the regular watch.

I yearned for one of these, so imagine my excitement when I finally got my hands on a brand new Moto 360. Not just any Moto 360, mind you, it was the Moto 360 Sport edition. Unfortunately, the saying “don’t meet your idols for they will disappoint you” rings painfully true.

A watch you have to charge every day

Having never used a piece of wearable tech before the Moto 360, this was the most jarring change I had to adapt to. On average, watches can go on for ages on a single charge. I even have a digital watch from when I was in primary school which — until this day — still beeps me occasionally to remind me that a new hour had begun.

With the Moto 360 Sport, you don’t get that luxury. Charging each day is a necessity. It doesn’t matter if the quoted battery life is 1.5 days, you really don’t want your watch running out of juice in the middle of the day do you?

The good news is that Motorola gives you a nice little charging cradle that you can dock your watch into. Once it’s docked, it turns into a little desk clock that dims and brightens depending on the brightness of the surrounding light. It sits quite elegantly perched on the side of your bed. What’s more, when you charge it each night, how fast it charges doesn’t really matter (about 2 hours if you’re curious) anymore.

Getting used to this will take some time, and at the end of those long tiring days where you forget to charge your watch, you’ll just have to manage the next day without a smartwatch. Alternatively, you could bring your charging cradle along to your office.

So why is it called the Sport?

Well, it’s supposed to be sportier than the classic Moto 360. To achieve that, Motorola has augmented this 360 Sport with built-in GPS functionality. They’ve also given the watch a more rugged and weather resistant look with a case encased in the same rubberised material that the strap is made from.

The only problem with that is the strap then becomes a proprietary piece of hardware that doesn’t seem very user-swappable — and that’s a problem since the strap is rather fragile.

First thing’s first, I really dislike this Sport band. Not only does every single fleck of dust/particle/fibre/hair stick to it, it also isn’t very durable. By the end of my review session (about 2 weeks) the top layer of the rubberised band started peeling.

It also doesn’t look particularly pretty — especially when compared to its classier brothers. In fact, I think the Gear S2 pulls off that sporty look even better. The worst part? This watch isn’t even very sporty because the only sport this thing can track is running.

The Moto 360 Sport does track running rather well with Motorola’s Moto Body app and the built-in GPS is incredibly accurate, but can you really call it a “Sport” watch? Perhaps they should have called it the Moto 360 Run instead.

If you’re a die-hard sports enthusiast looking for the perfect fitness tracker smartwatch, this isn’t the one for you. A Garmin Forerunner or Fitbit would definitely suit you better. That said, this watch isn’t completely pointless as there are things to like about it.

[nextpage title=”It’s a good smartwatch, not fitness tracker”]

Android Wear is getting pretty nice

In the past, Android Wear wasn’t the best watch OS and although it has come a long way in the Moto 360 Sport, I couldn’t really shake this nagging feeling that the OS was designed for people who knew how it worked already. In other words, it wasn’t terribly beginner friendly.

It does, however, bombard you with endless tips and “how-tos” on understanding the little gestures and shortcuts you will need to master to get Android Wear to work properly. That said, there were many times where I felt a little lost trying to operate it, juggling between hand gestures, wrist flicks, swiping and voice controls.

Nevertheless, in time you’ll learn all the little tips and tricks and probably even come to like to OS like I do now. Notifications look really good as you scroll through them, with the UI looking very similar to the smartphone experience. It’s a slick OS that supports quite a number of apps and notifications pushed are detailed and unobtrusive, what’s not to like?

It’s got an awesome display

As part of Motorola’s effort to make the 360 sportier, they’ve included what they call an AnyLight Hybrid display which is supposed to improve sunlight visibility. They should’ve called it magic because the AnyLight display works like an absolute wonder.

The display mounted in the 360 Sport’s 45mm case is a hybrid display because in addition to the regular backlit screen, the display also doubles as a reflective panel that uses direct sunlight to improve screen visibility. This means that no matter how bright it gets, you will have absolutely no problems seeing what’s on your display.

Of course, when it comes to the display on the Moto 360 line of smartwatches, many would undoubtedly find issue with the “flat tyre”. In all honesty, the flat tyre didn’t bother me once. You don’t lose any meaningful screen real estate and it actually makes text on notifications easier to read because the line at the bottom underlines the words.

But the bottom line is…

I’m still having trouble trying to wrap my head around this particular watch. The way I see it, this watch appeals to a very specific clientele: One that is sporty but only does running and is into sporty-looking watches that run Android Wear. Either way you slice it, that’s a rather niche Venn diagram you’re looking at.

For the average joe who simply wants a nice Android Wear device, I would tell them to go for the classic Moto 360 instead. It looks much better, doesn’t have the horrible rubberised band, is more elegant and you can swap out watch bands.

If you’re a fitness enthusiast, go for something from Fitbit, like the Surge or other similar dedicated fitness tracker. But if you’re dead set on Android Wear and want to do some fitness, then the Moto 360 Sport is for you simply because there aren’t really many other options out there.