Thursday, April 2, 2015

A Motorola Android Wear device carrying the codename ‘Smelt’ could be the Moto 360 followup

Moto 360 DSC06958


Even though the Moto 360 was late out the gate compared to Android Wear devices like the Samsung Gear Live or LG G Watch, it’s still considered a first gen Android Wear device. While there’s a lot that we loved about the Moto 360 — as mentioned in our review — it did come with its fair share of shortcomings and thus, there was still plenty of room for improvement in a followup.


With OEMs introducing quality watch designs with solid aluminum builds, the Moto 360 is no longer the only fashionable — or most durable — Android Wear device on the market. We got a sneak peek at what Motorola could have planned for a Moto 360 followup after a Lenovo CEO posted an image to social media of what appeared to be an all new smartwatch housed inside a soft briefcase (Lenovo bought Motorola last year for $2.91 billion). Other than that brief look, not much else is known. That is, until today.


We received a tip from a popular app developer who recently noticed a mysterious Motorola-built Android Wear device pinging his Android developer console from Mundelein, a city not too far from Motorola’s HQ in Chicago, Illinois. The device carrying the codename “Smelt” and is reportedly running Android 5.1 and carries a screen resolution of 360 x 360. While we’re not too familiar with the word “smelt” outside the context “whoever smelt it, dealt it,” Webster’s also defines it as “extract (metal) from its ore by a process involving heating and melting.” Interesting.


Currently, Motorola’s only Android Wear device is the Moto 360 and only makes sense that this mysterious “Smelt” could be their replacement/sequel/followup for 2015. If that definition is anything to go by, we could be looking at a device that’s even more premium or luxurious than last year’s Moto 360 and that recent Lenovo leak seemed to show a device that follows this definition. At the very least, it might be better built (the plastic back on ours has already begun cracking). We’ll keep our eyes peeled for details.






from Phandroid http://ift.tt/1DsMbk7

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