 As a surprising number of you have noticed, I've been wearing a new smartwatch for the last month or so without reviewing it. Sorry it's taken so long, but sometimes it does take a while to get to a particular device because it's really inconvenient to stop using it long enough for Brandon to get a chance to shoot some b-roll. I've actually had a couple of things like that recently, including the Oboto gaming cockpit, which is coming soon, and this guy right here. Welcome to my review of the LG G Watch R, my favorite smartwatch so far. Experience silent performance with the new Cooler Master Silencio 652S. Minimalist design, maximum compatibility. Click now to learn more. So after reviewing the Moto 360, I resolved to let Android Wear mature a little until sometime after the Apple Watch launch so I could compare its progress to Apple's implementation. But, after seeing how disappointed I was with the Moto 360's poor battery life with the screen in ambient, usually on mode with no option for always on at all, and the general bugginess of Android Wear 4.4, one of my colleagues Edzel, instead of getting scared off of Android Wear, ran out and bought an LG G Watch R, which he declared to be awesome and said that I should get one too. So I did, and it turns out he was right, but don't tell him that. The hardware specs are better than the 360, mostly, I mean like anything it's a trade-off, but it's a trade-off that I happen to like better. The G Watch R features a much newer, more efficient, and significantly faster processor, a 30% larger 410 mAh battery, a power sipping P OLED display that some folks are concerned about burning with, but careful selection of watch faces and the short realistic lifespan of a piece of tech like this thanks to software updates and limited battery charge cycles makes that a bit of a non-issue for me. But some drawbacks to LG's approach do show up when we look at the construction. The Moto 360 features a larger display with Gorilla Glass protecting it and a reasonably nice leather strap included in the box, while LG relies on the G Watch R's thick bezel to protect its smaller plastic face and includes one of the worst leather watch straps I've ever encountered in my life. Although, the fact that it can be easily changed out for any standard 22mm strap like this Kevlar fabric one that Edzel picked up for his without any special tools makes it less of an issue because that's a great way to enhance the comfort and style of the watch to appeal to folks who like Velcro bands, metal bands, or anything in between. And maybe that's the biggest reason that I like the G Watch R better. LG didn't blow me away with their like space-age industrial design and great, you know, durable material choices, but the watch just plain suits me better and at the end of the day, it's a watch and I have to wear it. The build quality is solid enough, I didn't get any chips or anything on it in the last month or so, and the round, sporty look appeals to my practical side, which I suspect will be the case for a lot of LG's target audience for this thing since the folks who are into super high-end formal dress watches were unlikely to buy something that doesn't have mechanical movement anyway. But if you're going to appeal to practical people, then you better provide some practical functionality, right? The G Watch R has a heart rate monitor visible on the bottom of the unit that I didn't use at all because as long as the old girl's still ticking in there, I'm not too fussed about how fast, but it also has some stuff that does matter to me, including an IP67 Ingress protection rating, which you can learn more about here, but in short means that you can't go scuba diving with it, but that would be stupid anyway because capacitive touchscreens don't work underwater and only has one physical button on the right side. But in your normal life, for normal people, it'll keep water and dust out of the casing for as long as I think a half an hour under a meter of water. It's also got a gyro accelerometer and compass for step tracking and motion control, with only a GPS sensor really missing for folks who want to go running or whatever and not bring their tethered phone with them. Now normally I would cover the software of the device at this point in the review, but Android Wear is, I mean, it's the same on every device that runs it, and it just doesn't really do that much. I mean, you can put apps on it, you can put custom watch faces on it, both of which I demo in the Moto 360 review, which you can watch here, but if you're buying this device so you can use a wrist-sized internet browser instead of a pocket-sized one, then you're definitely missing the point. Android Wear devices are for lightning fast notifications of reminders, upcoming events and messages, quick hands-free memo creation and replies to emails and text and hangout messages, turn-by-turn navigation for folks who don't have a card dock for their phone, telling the time, on-screen music control, and for me very importantly, letting you know when you leave your phone behind somewhere because it loses the connection. And that, aside from some frustrations like poor support from third-party applications like Twitter, which in some cases won't even let you read a notification properly, much less open it on the phone or heaven forbid interact with it through the watch, and Google Now's laughable predictions for cards that I'd like to see, and finally the weak media controls that bury, you know, your music control under other cards and totally needs to be revamped, is what the G Watch R does, so it's getting a glowing review from me. But Linus, the Moto 360 does that stuff too, and you were pretty harsh on it. How much is LG paying you? Great question. Nothing, by the way, but I actually noticed the difference in tone for this review too when I was rewatching my Moto 360 video and reading this one to prep for this, and I was pretty down on that device for some stuff that in retrospect seems pretty minor, doesn't it? For some reason, I accept one and a half days of battery now, actually once I got two, which was nice, I accept the proprietary charger dock that doesn't even have a handy-dandy bedside mode, and isn't even a cool wireless one this time, and I accept the general quirkiness of Android Wear. So it took me a while to nail this down, but at the end of the day, I think the reason the G Watch R gives me so many warm fuzzies and will remain on my wrist now that I'm done with this review is that I can use it as much as I want, have my screen always on so I can always see the time even without a goofy gesture, and still get that one and a half days of battery that I need. That's where the Moto 360 failed me, and that's where the Apple Watch has already failed me if the rumored internal battery life targets are anywhere close to true. A watch needs to be a functional watch first before it can get my attention for all the other little tricks it does, which is why I tolerated Pebble's, you know, truncated email notifications so willingly up until now, because it was a watch first, and it did all that other stuff. Well, now Android Wear has a watch that it runs on, too. One that still needs Google to get their crap together on a few things. Replying to email, for example, on the watch leaves it unread in my inbox for some reason, but it's still the best wearable experience I've had so far, and I heartily recommend it, assuming you've got as much as you'd spend on a decent smartphone to spend on a watch. So that's pretty much it, guys. Like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment if your feelings are more complicated than this. As always, we have a link in the video description where you can buy a cool t-shirt like this one. 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