Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The LG Watch Style has some bad reviews online, so I thought I'd write a review in its defence, because I really like it. The first thing to realise is that the technology is just not there for smartwatches yet. Every smartwatch on the market right now has shortcomings, you just have to choose which shortcomings you can live with. Or you can hold off buying anything and wait. I still think they are a useful gadget, but they are a few years away from being essential. The big pro of the LG Watch Style is the form factor. This thing is just about the first smartwatch that looks like a normal watch and fits all size wrists. It is relatively small, light and thin. This is normal for a regular watch but a big deal for a smartwatch. This is the smartwatch to wear if you don't want people to notice you are wearing a smartwatch. Another pro is Android Wear 2.0. It is a really nice interface, smooth navigation, very configurable and quite powerful. This is one of only two Android watches so far that uses a rotating crown, which works really well and makes it easy to navigate. If you are invested in the Android ecosystem, the Google Assistant and native Google apps are really useful. The screen is really nice. It's a 360x360 pixel AMOLED, which given the size of this watch must make it close to the best DPI of any smartwatch out there. It is really beautiful, especially upgrading from a Sony SW2 which I loved dearly but was blocky as hell. The cons of this watch are pretty clear. Firstly, it hasn't got many of the features of many new smartwatches (such as the LG Watch Sport). No GPS, no heart monitor, no NFC. The technology to pack these in a slim watch just isn't there yet. Personally, I would prefer a thin watch to those features. I generally keep my phone in my pocket, so I don't need GPS on my watch too. My bank doesn't offer NFC payment and I always have my wallet or my phone with me when I go to the shops anyway. The watch can still monitor steps and my main exercise is walking so that works for me. Secondly, the battery is small. Again, that's part of the deal with the size of the watch. It isn't as bad as some reviewers make out - I'm getting about 16-18 hours out of a full charge at the moment under normal use, which is enough for a full day. I'm sure I could get more if I turned wifi off and turned off notifications for the apps I don't care about. Hopefully software upgrades might squeeze a bit more out, but it'll always be a daily charge situation. This sucks but there are not many smartwatches that offer longer battery life right now. Again I'm sure that will change in a few years. At least the charger is magnetic and wireless, so there's no problem aligning pins etc. The kicker is the price. The watch launched at $249 but six weeks on, it is $179 and that is a much more suitable price point. This is by far the best budget smartwatch available. At that price, the competition is two year old models with flat tyre displays and off-brand knock-offs, both of which have all the cons of this watch and more. So with all those caveats, I think this is a really good smartwatch for right now, if you are happy to trade off features and battery life for size and style.