LG Watch Urbane Smartwatch Announced; Price to be Revealed at MWC

LG has announced a new Android Wear-based smartwatch, the LG Watch Urbane. The new smartwatch will be showcased at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next month. The company said that the price of the LG Watch Urbane and availability details will be announced locally at the time of launch.

The LG Watch Urbane is inspired by the company's first circular smartwatch, the G Watch R. Sporting an "all metal" design, the new Android Wear-running smartwatch is being touted as a "luxury timepiece". Given this, we can expect it to be more expensive than the LG G Watch R unveiled in October last year at $299 (Rs. 18,500 approximately).

The LG Watch Urbane features a 1.3-inch circular Plastic OLED (P-OLED) display with a resolution of 320x320 pixels and a pixel density of 245ppi. Other specifications include a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 clocked at 1.2GHz coupled with 512MB of RAM. It comes with 4GB (eMMC) of inbuilt storage.

(Also see: Over 720,000 Android Wear Smartwatches Shipped in 2014: Canalys)

LG G Watch Urbane measures 45.5x52.2x10.9mm and will be available in Gold and Silver colours. It is backed by a 410mAh battery.

LG Watch Urbane smartwatch features Photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensor to track heartbeat, a 9-axis (gyro/ accelerometer/ compass), and a barometer. It comes with IP67 certification that makes it dust and water resistant.

The LG Watch Urbane sports a stainless steel body and features a stitched natural leather strap, that can be swapped with any standard 22mm band. The smartwatch also features an always-on ambient mode that shows the time on the display at all times in dimmed mode, resulting in potential battery savings.

Commenting on the launch, Juno Cho, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company said, "The LG Watch Urbane's classic design and smart features make it the perfect smartwatch to complement our G Watch and G Watch R, which were designed as more casual and active devices. LG Watch Urbane is an important part of our strategy to develop wearable devices that are worn and viewed as everyday accessories, not electronic gadgets."