Moto 360 Sport Review: A Smartwatch Fitness Tracking Hybrid

Name: Moto 360 Sport Android Wear Smartwatch
Brand: Moto

by Ray Willington — Thursday, February 11, 2016, 10:49 AM EDT

Introduction and Specifications

If three's company, we'd say Motorola has gone and made a full-on family out of its Moto 360 smartwatch. Hot on the heels of its second-generation Moto 360 comes the Moto 360 Sport, an Android Wear timepiece designed to compete not with TAG or Sony or Samsung, but with FitBit, Polar, Garmin, and TomTom. The ruggedized or sports smartwatch field is an interesting one. The target market isn't your typical smartwatch buyer. Instead, it's the fitness tracker buyer that a company hopes to upsell to.

At $300, the Moto 360 Sport isn't exactly cheap. It's a full $50 cheaper than the Apple Watch Sport but it's $100+ more than a lot of the fitness trackers it's competing with. Now that the industry as a whole has had time to mature a bit, pricing is even more diverse. The ASUS ZenWatch 2, for example, can be had for just $129. So, if the Moto 360 Sport is gunning for the aforementioned brand names in the fitness business, surely it offers something that the current establishment doesn't, right? Let's take a look inside.

The Moto X Pure Edition (also known as the Moto X Style in non-U.S. markets) has plenty of competition, but in some ways, it exists in a niche of its own. Samsung and Apple have long since garnered the lion's share of mobile profits in North America, but those flagships start at around $649 and peak at nearly $1,000 with a halfway decent amount of internal storage.

Apple's unlocked 128GB iPhone 6s Plus goes for $949 exclusive of tax, while Samsung's 64GB Galaxy Note 5 checks in at around $800. Rather than bark up that tree, Moto is hawking a great phone, completely unlocked, at a price point that's downright cheap in comparison. While the $399 base price only includes 16GB of storage, even the 64GB model only costs $499. What's that coin get you? Let's take a look.

Apple and Samsung have already had their annual smartphone launch parties, and now, Motorola is taking its turn. For the third year in a row, a new Moto X has arrived on the test bed. There's no mistaking the design -- visual cues that created the silhouette of the original still remain on the Moto X Pure Edition, but it's clear that the company is evolving its flagship phone based on market demands. For instance, the 5.7-inch Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) display would've been viewed as monstrous in 2013, but today, it feels wholly natural. Moto has also included a few useful extras like TurboPower (which injects 10 hours of life into the phone after just 15 minutes on the charger) and a water-repellant nano-coating.

Moto 360 Sport Android Wear Smartwatch (2016)

Specifications & Features

OS	Android Wear 1.3
CPU	1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
Memory	512MB RAM 4GB Internal Storage
Display	35mm (1.37") display, 263ppi (360 x 325 resolution) AnyLight Hybrid Display Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Wireless	Bluetooth 4.0 LE, Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) UMTS/HSPA+ (850, 900, 1700 (AWS),1900, 2100 MHz) CDMA (800, 850, 1900 MHz) 4G LTE† (B1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 25, 26, 38, 41)
Size	Mens: 46mm diameter by 11.4mm high 42mm diameter by 11.4mm high Womens: 42mm diameter by 11.4mm high Mens: 46mm diameter by 11.4mm high 42mm diameter by 11.4mm high Womens: 42mm diameter by 11.4mm high 45mm diameter by 11.5mm high
Audio	Dual digital microphones
Sensors, etc.	Barometric Altimeter, Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Gyroscope, Vibration/Haptics engine; IP67 dust and water resistant (not waterproof)
Battery	300mAh
Color Options	Black; white; flame orange
Pricing	Currently listed at $299 MSRP

One thing that jumped out at us when researching its specs was the 360 Sport's "IP67 dust and water resistant" rating. That's enough to be submerged for up to 30 minutes at 1 meter, but Moto's own tech specs page specifically calls out that the watch is "not waterproof." The 300mAh battery also seems like a possible concern. This is the same battery in the 42mm second-gen Moto 360, which is about on par with other smartwatches on the market as well. However, this device also has a fully functional GPS module on-board that will eat up a more power. We'll see how it all shakes out in the pages ahead.