 So while the smartwatch wars have definitely heated up a fair bit with heavyweight Apple allegedly selling more of the first generation Apple watch within days of its launch than every other smartwatch maker combined ever, Pebble's original concept of offering notifications on your wrist at a reasonable price with cross-platform compatibility is something that nothing else addresses in quite the same way. Which is why the original Pebble continues to be available in spite of its lackluster hardware specs and decidedly lesser build quality, especially when you hold it next to something like an Apple watch or a Moto 360. But that doesn't mean Pebble's been sitting on ass, and today's video is about the next generation Pebble, the Pebble Time. By the way, we're mostly back on track as far as production scheduling goes, so throw a like below the video if you're stoked to finally see our Skylake coverage. John is hard at work on that as we speak. Last drop is offering a killer deal on a DJI Phantom 3, so if you're into drones, scroll down and check out that link in the video description to get yours now. So let's start with what Pebble hasn't changed since the original. The Pebble Time is still water resistant to 30 meters only this time, but it works for reals. I've gone swimming with mine lots of times, although I did that with the Apple Watch 2 and had no issues. It features multi-day battery life with an always-on display, always showing you the time. They say seven days, but in practice I get closer to four or five since I'm a bit of a heavier user. It features backwards compatibility with the rich third-party app ecosystem for the original Pebble, with everything from GoPro remote control to ringing your phone remotely to find it, to fitness trackers that use the onboard sensors, to pretty advanced music control. Usable whether the app has been updated for the new color display or not. Pretty cool. Now let's get into the things that are different. The big one, as I just alluded to, is the display. The original Pebble used a 144 by 168 resolution e-paper display, which because e-paper requires no backlight to function and only needs to be powered when the image is changing, is what made it readable in direct sunlight and allowed it to achieve such monstrous battery life, compared to its competitors at the time, which there weren't really any, and in fact compared to its competitors now. But being low resolution and monochrome in the year 2015 is just not as cool as it was in the 1980s. So the Pebble Time features a color e-paper display. Unfortunately, from my experience with the Pebble Time, the viewing angles are so poor sometimes and the color is so washed out that it feels a little bit more like a novelty. Not to mention that the resolution itself has not been upgraded, meaning that text is just plain not very sharp, although this was done to preserve that backwards app compatibility that I praised like a minute and a half ago. So I guess I could live with that if they could at least fix the viewing angle issues. There are more improvements though. The Pebble Time features a super easy to use band swapping system that will even allow custom add-on bands to enhance functionality in the future, with ideas like extended battery packs that could last for like a month and additional sensors like GPS being available for upgrading the Pebble Time after the fact. The next big one for me is the microphone. Unlike Android Wear, you can't just gesture and start talking at your watch to start a navigation to wherever I want to go. And you definitely can't hold a conversation just through your watch like the Apple Watch thanks to its surprisingly good mic and speaker. But honestly, what I mostly use the mic on my watch for is for quickly responding to texts or emails, something that the Pebble Time handles really, really well. I find that for the most efficiency, it does require the use of both of my hands since it waits quite a while to stop listening if you don't press the button again to indicate that you're finished talking. But voice detection was quick and accurate compared to other devices that I've used. Which leads us to some general analysis of my experience with the Pebble Time versus its competitors. Being platform agnostic is great. I had no difficulty controlling my Google Play Music connected to Sonos speakers right out of the box, something I couldn't do with the Apple Watch. Facebook Authenticator was flawless out of the box. It popped up a notification, gave me the context appropriate option of opening on my phone and popped the number right after the lock screen. And all of my Google junk worked flawlessly with even fairly deep options for actions that I could perform on things like my Gmail messages. I also absolutely love tactile buttons. I mean, I cannot say this enough. This is a huge thing that's missing with other smartwatches for me, which require you to be looking at them to do something as simple as change a song. Something I do with my watch a lot. If you can memorize a couple of button presses, then you can actually perform certain controls without ever even looking at it, which you might argue doesn't matter. I mean, Linus, how much time are you really saving by not looking at your watch to press next track? To which I would respond, this thing is made for people who bought it to save the four seconds it takes to get their phone out of their pocket. Of course it matters. The Pebble time isn't perfect, though. The animations between menus are actually kind of annoying. Remember, Pebble, this is a product for impatient people, and some of them are so long, it just feels like they're kind of stalling. So as you scroll through your timeline, it's quick. But as you move between days, it's like this little sun pops up or something. It's like they're stalling to get more time. Also, I really don't like the way that the time gets really tiny or even disappears outright when you're looking at different screens, the calendar being one of them. That did irritate me. Although the good news is that Pebble has been updating it actively. I got an update even while I was reviewing it that significantly improved it, so maybe they'll see this video and maybe change that. But the last thing, though, is that this might just be my unit or it might be a power saving measure to allow for that fancy color screen, but I really need to flick my wrist to illuminate the backlight for viewing in the dark, something that I didn't really have to do on my original Pebble. So the bottom line, then. Am I switching to the Pebble time? No. It was so close. It was so close, but I just can't get over the screen. I could live with the kind of washed out colors and the hard to activate backlight. I could even live with the low resolution. But I will take the trade off of extra bulk and charging every night with the G-Watch R in exchange for being able to read it from any angle, I think. If Pebble could figure out how to get their panel closer to the front plastic, this issue would go away for me, and I think they could convert me back. But for now, I'm an Android Wear user. Really, for now. Although if I was on the iPhone, I'd probably go for the Pebble time, to be perfectly honest. Poor Apple Watch. And it's kind of a shame that I won't be switching to the Pebble time permanently, because it means I won't get to wear this super sick dbrand skinned orange Pebble time anymore. The guys over there did me up an orange one because they knew I loved my original orange Pebble so much, and the Pebble time is not available in that particular color. But of course, that's what dbrand exists to deal with. Although it's good for other stuff too, because having a skin means that even careless people like me are less likely to scratch their sensitive electronics. I whacked my watch so hard at one point that I got a bunch of paint and drywall bits embedded in the orange skin, but I guess the fact that I was able to clean it off is a testament to the durability of dbrand skins and to the functionality. Thanks to the vinyl wrap, the watch housing wasn't damaged at all. So check out dbrand.com slash... Oh crap, what is it, Pebble? Linus Pebble. Linus Pebble, thank you for that, Nick. To check out all the different devices they support and to see the colors they have that aren't orange. I know not everyone is into that. Don't mind the man behind the curtain. Thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do, but if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon, which you can find instructions for in the little i, buying a cool t-shirt like this one, or with a direct monthly contribution through the community forum. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next, so click that little button in the top right to check out our moving vlog, which actually ended up being surprisingly entertaining. Thanks guys, and I'll see you again next time.