LG G Watch has Android Gear and water resistance, available for $229 (hands-on)

How many smartwatches can the market sustain at one time? This year we’re likely to find out. The latest to be added to the list is LG’s most recent smartwatch, the G Watch. Alongside the Samsung Gear Live and the Moto 360 by Motorola t’s also one of the first smartwatches to run on Google’s new Android-based smartwatch OS, Android Wear.

Wearing the LG G Watch (pictures)
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What we know now

The G Watch will be available to order later today, June 25, 2014. No word yet on price. The watch is dust-resistant and water-resistant for up to 30 minutes in a meter of water.

The G Watch runs Android Gear, so any reminders you create on your watch will be automatically synced to your Android phone. Other features include quickly and easily placing the watch into a “do not disturb” mode — simply swipe down on the display — allowing you to shut off notifications and any incoming messages at a moment’s notice.

The G watch was designed to support voice command and as a result features no buttons on its chassis. Simply say “OK, Google: set an alarm for 7am” and your watch’s alarm to start blaring at the appropriate time the next day.

The watch will also display boarding passes when at an airport, which is an interesting detail. LG says the watch houses a 1.65-inch IPS display, but your wouldn’t really know that given its presentation during the Google I/O stage demo. During the show, colors appeared drab and the screen resolution — 280×280 — looked anachronously low, despite a claim by LG that it features “true-to-life color reproduction”.

That was only a stage demo however, so we’ll have to wait for some hands-on time before we can judge its quality fairly.

Running things behind the scenes is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, with 512MB of storage, and 4GB of eMMC storage. Providing the watch’s life essence is a 400 mAh battery.

The G Watch weighs a slight 0.13 pounds — 63 grams — and is 37.9mm long, 46.5mm wide, and 9.95mm thick. It includes Bluetooth 4.0, a gyrometer, accelerometer, and a built-in compass.

It will come in both white gold and black titan colors. Look for much more on the G Watch later today.

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