Pebble Time Round – screen actually larger than Pebble Time
We look at the specs and dimensions of the Pebble Time Round compared to its competition
Pebble isn’t being cowed by the launch of the Apple Watch, and has also taken on Android smartwatch makers too, with the launch of another new watch, the Pebble Time Round. The new release comes surprisingly soon after its Kickstarter success with Pebble Time earlier in the year.
The new watch, as its name suggests, is round, bringing to mind the Android-wear based Moto 360 and upcoming Moto 360 2nd Gen. But while even the new version of that watch measure 11.4 thick and either 46mm or 42mm across, the new Pebble Time Round is only 7.5mm thick and 38.5mm across. That makes it far slimmer and smaller than any of its immediate (round) competition. And it’s smaller overall than the 38mm Apple Watch too, which measures 38.6×33.3×10.5 mm. In short this is a very small smartwatch, though the face has a farily big surface area.
It’s not entirely fair to make direct comparisons though as the screen doesn’t extend across the whole face, as it does on the Moto 360s. A thick bezel instead surrounds the screen (which we suspect may actually be square) and is marked with minutes.
I calculated the screen to be around 26mm or 1in in diameter, which doesn’t sound big even for the relatively simple Pebble interface. The Pebble Time has a 1.25in diagonal display though, for comparison that’s 530mm2 (round) compared to 471mm2 (Time). I was surprised the Time Round screen is bigger, but it will a be a neat trick if Pebble can effectively use all that screen space efficiently.
So far so good then, the new watch comes in one size but has two strap sizes 14mm and 20mm to make a differentiation for differing wrist sizes, though we think it looks more natural with the larger strap size. It’s available for sale right now for £230 directly from Pebble.com and will ship in 6-8 weeks.
The watch’s slender design has reduced battery life down to just 2 days of use, which is much less than previous designs but still more than the competition. The smaller battery does mean it will charge for a day’s use in just 15 minutes though, which is pretty impressive.
We’re looking forward to seeing the new watch, but if anyone is going to be a little peeved at this new release, it might be Pebble Time owners. The watch, design and price are obviously different, but I doubt anyone Kickstarting Pebble Time expected their relatively new watch to be superseded by frankly a better-looking model in such a short period of time.
With Pebble having made its success largely by wooing a devout crowd of early adopters this could tarnish that relationship, in the meantime though it’s a mighty-fine-looking device.