Low Budget Smartwatch To Be Released This Summer
When the tech market is taken by surprise with a new tech category, technology aficionados are usually excited about the new products even if the mass market is not. However, smartwatches seem to differ in this respect, as not many industry people see them as being a very interesting product. And that’s the problem: when tech aficionados (that usually get excited for the most obscure new technologies) don’t even know if they want a smartwatch or not, then you know the future is not looking good for smartwatches. On that note, we recently learned that Apple faced a lot of issues during production of its upcoming smartwatch (the iWatch) and there is also the Samsung Galaxy Gear which was released to mostly negative reception as most critics felt it featured an ugly user interface design, it only offers a few apps, has abysmal battery life and is to dependent on Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
Yet, even though smartwatches did not manage to convince a lot of customers things could change – a low price could do the trick. Archos, a French consumer electronics company that has been around since 1988, intends to release a very simple smartwatch this Summer for only fifty dollars. The French company hopes that the low price could change people’s minds and make it easier for them to decide to buy one.
Of course, such a low price means that you shouldn’t hope the smartwatch to have high end specs. On the contrary, you should expect a low budget “smart” watch, which is exactly what it is. The only things that Archos’ smartwatch will be able to do will be relay notifications from your smartphone and let you control music playback. Well, it will also let you know what time it is, obviously. The display will also be low budget as the device will come with a 1.55 inch non capacitive e-ink display.
We can’t say the design is great either (on the contrary, we find it quite ugly… check the picture), however at such a cheap price it’s easy to try it just to see if a smartatch is something that you need. The French company intends to make a color variant, with a 1.8 inch capacitive display that will be sold for a hundred bucks and another variant with an aluminum case, that will be sold for $130. However these two variants won’t be available in the Summer, but later this year. What do you think about the low budget smartwatch from Archos? Would you buy one? Leave a comment in the dedicated section below.
