The Montblanc Summit 2 is the first device to arrive packing the new Snapdragon Wear 3100 SoC is now on sale for a wallet smashing $995 (around $756).
It arrives with a 42mm casing with a 1.2-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 390 x 390. The heart rate sensor has an improved algorithm, according to the Swiss company, while there’s GPS, NFC for Google Pay and 5ATM water resistance. There’s also a rotating crown helping with the UI, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage onboard with Summit 2.
That’s not too different to other Wear OS smartwatches on the market, but Montblanc brings some of that swish Swiss watchmaking expertise.
The key advantage over its predecessor is the battery life boost offered by the Wear 3100. When used in “Time Only Mode” it’ll offer an extra 4-5 days of battery life, on top of the full day of usage you’ll get in smartwatch mode. That’s largely thanks to the addition of a new co-processor that looks after the display and sensors.
Naturally, the timepiece features the Wear OS 2.1 update, which completely rejigs the way the operating system’s interface. The UI has been simplified with up, down, left, right swipes from the main screen to access the respective watchfaces and quick settings.
Thankfully, there’s a few more watches in the pipeline offering both Wear 3100 processors and the Wear OS 2.1 operating system, that aren’t the price of a mortgage payment. We’re expecting entries from both LG and Google in this department in the near future.
The new OS-SoC combo is vital if Wear OS has a chance of reeling in the Apple Watch, considering the advancements offered by the Apple Watch Series 4, announced last month.
