Pebble has been around for quite a while now. The darling of Kickstarter, it went above and beyond its funding goal to become an almost overnight success, by numbers at least.
The Pebble is now finally on sale in the UK proper and we figured, given the sheer number of smartwatches on offer right now, a review was in order.
The Good
The Bad
Review Index
Design and Hardware
Battery
User experience and apps
Verdict
The Pebble is nowhere near as nice to look at as, say, the Moto 360, which puts design at the forefront of everything it does.
What to Read Next
Read: Moto 360 review
It is, however, a much simpler device to use than a lot of the competition. We didn't initially spot it, but Apple has clearly opted for the same 'try not to touch the screen' approach as the Pebble.
The difference is, the Pebble has no touch sensitivity at all in its display, whereas the Apple Watch does. This is no bad thing, as it strips back and simplifies down to exactly what you need.
Instead, the Pebble is a simple 1.26-inch e-paper display wrapped up in a 52mm L × 36mm W × 11.5mm case. It's light and comfy to wear at just 38 grams.
The backlight on the screen makes it easily viewable in any condition and keeps information clear and easy to read.
In terms of internal specifications, the Pebble uses Bluetooth to pair up with either your iPhone or Android handset. It has a built-in ambient light sensor, e-compass and accelerometer.
The only real issue we have with the hardware is that it isn't that inspiring. The Pebble Steel, a more expensive alternative made from metal, isn't hugely exciting either. Compared to other Android Wear watches, it isn't going to turn heads.
But design doesn't really matter when the Pebble fixes the one thing that properly ruins almost every other wearable... battery life.
You see, the decision to move away from powerful processors and LCD screens means a big saving can be made on power consumption.
The 130 mAh battery managed to get five days between charges during our time reviewing the Pebble. This is how it should be.
The Pebble is a very simple thing, that is until you start to load apps onto it. Out of the box, it's little more than a watch face, but download the rather excellent Pebble app and you are away.
The application itself has its own app store built within it, letting you download and load new watch faces and apps to the Pebble itself.
The process is as simple as searching for what you are after, or alternatively using the Pebble recommended lists to get things onto your device.
It can only manage eight different applications or watch faces at a time, which isn't that many. We also found that certain apps would cause the device to lag up and crash.
Getting rid of one or two applications fixed most of the issues, but we did still find that some notifications and information would cause the Pebble to glitch out.
Like Android Wear, Pebble leverages the information being sent to your smartphone to make it useful. As well as the standard things like notifications, Pebble can also draw on information from compatible apps.
RunKeeper, for example, will send information straight to the watch face when you open it on your iPhone. Philips Hue Wi-Fi lamps also have a Pebble app called Huebble that means you can control them from your wrist.
The potential the device has, provided you search through the app store, is very impressive indeed. It far exceeds anything the competition is doing right now.
Pebble really is what you make of it. We've managed to get the watch pretty much running out flat, while sending us notifications straight from our iPhone.
Sure, it isn't as slick as the Moto 360 or LG G Watch, but that becomes largely irrelevant when you can get so much more usage out of the Pebble.
We also like how diverse the included app store is, which continues to grow as we speak. There is a lot more capable of running on the Pebble than you would expect.
Simple, slick and genuinely useful, it's the smartwatch you want.
Thanks to Firebox.com for providing us with a Pebble review sample. It is available for £99 now.
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