ASUS ZenWatch 2 Appeals To Both Men And Women, Goes For Jugular With Bargain Pricing
It seems like eons ago, but in early June, ASUS first announced its second generation Android Wear smartwatch, the ZenWatch 2. The ZenWatch 2 doesn’t stray to far away from the original when it comes to styling, but it does offer quite a few more design options to appease a broader group of people.
The ZenWatch 2 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor paired with 512MB of RAM and you’ll still find 4GB of storage onboard. Both smartwatches also feature Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 support. ASUS has amped up things a bit with regards to case sizes this time around. ASUS is offering a 49mm casing that houses a 1.63-inch AMOLED display (320x320) or a smaller 45mm casing that is home to a 1.45-inch AMOLED display (280x280).
Like competitors Apple and Motorola — with the Apple Watch and second generation Moto 360, respectively — ASUS has seen fit to not only appeal to men with smaller wrist sizes (which means that a big hulking smartwatch would look rather ungainly), but also to females. The 49mm ZenWatch 2 accommodates 22mm straps, while the smaller 45mm ZenWatch 2 accepts 18mm straps. Both will be offered in your choice of silver, rose gold or gunmetal case colors.
The smaller of the two smartwatches comes with a 300 mAh battery, while the larger one features a 400 mAh battery. ASUS says that users should see over two days per charge in typical usage scenarios, which is about average for Android Wear smartwatches. Speaking of the battery, fast-charging come standard, and a “dead” watch can be charged to 50 percent capacity in just 36 minutes.
We should also note that the ZenWatch 2 is one of the first Android Wear smartwatches that is compatible with the Apple iPhone.
Although ASUS hasn’t yet announced U.S pricing for the ZenWatch 2, we do know that it is priced very aggressively in Europe. Customers can expect to pay €149 ($170) for the 49mm model and €169 ($190) for the 45mm model. I still scratching my head as to why I’d pay more for a smaller display, lower screen resolution, and smaller battery, but I’ll leave ASUS to explain that one…
