It hasn’t been too long since the Pebble Time series was launched and now Pebble has stepped it game by introducing a new Pebble smartwatch, Time Round. And like its moniker suggests, Pebble has decided to move away from its typical square and toyish design to a more traditional watch face with a variety of colours and bands to match. That’s not all as the Pebble Time Round is the lightest and thinnest smart watch yet, weighing in at 28g with a 7.55mm thickness.
Pebble has made the Pebble Time Round in two strap sizes, a 14mm size for the ladies and a broader 20mm version for men, making it slightly narrower than the 22mm of the previous Pebbles. For now, the smartwatch only comes the leather band options, which are easily swappable via a quick change mechanism. And of course, since smartwatches are supposed to also be fashion accessories, Pebble is giving a couple of options when it comes to colour.
In total there are three colour options for the 14mm Pebble Time Round which are Silver, Rose Gold and Black while the men’s 20mm version only comes in Black and Silver. And if you’re wondering if there are any other straps aside from the leather ones, there will be a metal band version, but that would only be made available later.
Aside from the round design, Pebble has not really made too much changes to the Pebble Time Round, when compared to the Pebble Time. There’s the always-on colour E-Paper unit, a built-in microphone for voice commands, and the same buttons with a back button on the left and the 3 navigational buttons on the right. So if you’ve already ponied up the current Pebble Time, you might find there isn’t that much of a difference, aside from design.
However there is one big sacrifice that the Pebble Time Round has made for its thinness and that would be its battery life. We usually expect around 7 to 10 days of use from Pebble smartwatches, but this time the Pebble Time Round is rated to last just up to 2 days on a single charge. Now that’s a major difference from its predecessors but according to Pebble this is a worthy trade off for style. To counter the shorter battery life, the Pebble Time Round has a quick charge feature that’ll give it 24 hours of use with just a quick 15 minutes charge. So if we got our maths right, a full charge for two days of use IN THEORY can be done in just 30 minutes. And all this is done via its magnetic USB charger that snaps onto the back of the watch.
The battery life isn’t the only trade off for the Pebble Time Round had to make as now, it isn’t as water resistant as before. Previous Pebbles including the Time Steel could be submerged under 30 metres of water with its 5 ATM rating. The Pebble Time Round however is only splash resistant even with its IPX7 rating.
So here’s what the Pebble Time Round is; it has less battery life and less water resistant, and like other Pebble smartwatches before it, don’t expect any major functionalities that you see in other smartwatches like the Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Gear. But hey, at least it’s thinner, lighter and prettier. Oh that and it supports both Android and iOS devices.
So if you were pretty happy with the previous Pebbles’ functions but wanted it to look way better, the Pebble Time Round might be your cup of tea. It’s now available for pre-orders at US$249.99 (RM1,095) with shipping to start sometime in November. However if you just want to stick to the basics, there;s the original Pebble Classic which is now going for US$99 (RM438).
