The Pebble Steel smartwatch is the latest example showing that simple, high-quality technology always triumphs over devices with a bloated collection of features, according to Yahoo Tech's David Pogue.
Naming the $249 gadget the best among smartwatches, Pogue details many of the Pebble Steel's highlights and a few drawbacks.
Smartwatches, which display text messages and provide other alerts by connecting to the user's phone, are up-and-coming devices as the world moves closer to the Internet of Things.
The Pebble Steel stands up to competitors like the rather oversized Samsung Gear for being sleek, comfortable and completely waterproof, according to the Yahoo Tech review.
A good smartwatch can be handy for when you're riding a bike, sitting in a meeting, carrying groceries and in many other scenarios when pulling out a phone is inconvenient.
While the Samsung Gear compares to "an HDTV strapped to your arm," the straightforward Pebble Steel smartwatch has a black and white screen, no speaker and no microphone. It also lacks a touchscreen, working through four buttons: Up, Down, Select and Back.
The watch's simplicity works in its favor. Users can't get lost in a touchscreen full of features, and its battery charge lasts for about a week, compared with the Samsung Gear's two days.
Yahoo Tech breaks down exactly what the Pebble Steel can do.
First, the watch vibrates to alert the user to new texts, emails, phone calls and Facebook messages. Both text and Facebook messages can be seen in full on the Pebble Steel's screen.
The smartwatch also controls music, showing the name of the song and letting you flip between tracks and hit pause or play.
The device's third main feature is the capability to run apps from the Pebble app store, which includes more than 1,000 free apps. To keep the smartwatch simple, it can only have up to eight apps installed at a time.
Pogue lists a few of the device's issues, including the way it sometimes loses connection to the user's phone and the smartwatch's lack of instructions.
But overall, "the Pebble Steel adds another chapter to the Great Book of Simple, Elegant, Limited, Focused Tech Products That Triumphed Over Bloated Ones That Had Lots More Features," Pogue said.
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