LG Watch Urbane review

The LG Watch Urbane is a timepiece that has all the normal specs you'd expect from an Android Wear device.

The 320 x 320p P-OLED 1.3-inch screen sits on top of a Snapdragon 400 chipset, clocked at 1.2GHz and 1GB of RAM. There's 4GB of onboard storage and the ability to install your own music on there as well for tunes without a phone.

The Urbane infuriatingly still doesn't come with GPS - LG's reasoning for this is that it will kill battery life. But given you'll get about 30 hours of use out of this watch between charges anyway, it seems like daily re-powering is the only way forward here. So, a little extra functionality couldn't hurt.

The heart rate monitor on the back, combined with the barometer and accelerometer inside, make it a good watch to use when walking out and about in the wild. Then again, there are many other devices that are equally as stylish and better suited to the task.

This watch is also only IP67 rated, meaning the Urbane is resistant to dust and water. In regards to the latter, the Urbane should remain operational even if gently submerged in a tank of still tap water at room temperature for about 30 minutes, up to a depth of 1 meter.

And, if you hadn't guessed already, the Urbane is only compatible with Android devices running Android 4.3 and later.

Performance and battery life

Interestingly, while switching between the various watch faces, the Urbane crashed and needed to reboot. I was pretty surprised that this little task could completely stop the watch, but it happened again later on when I was trying different apps.

It's quite possible the software has a few kinks to iron out - which is still disconcerting. But hopefully all the bugs will be squashed before the update hits the other smartwatches. For the time being, the Urbane seems stuck with a couple of crashes here and there.

The Urbane's 410mAh battery is the exact same power pack found inside the LG G Watch R. Both can last far longer than the pitiful Moto 360, but unsurprisingly can't make it as long as the Pebble Steel.

With emails, notifications, downloading apps and the usual testing, my Urbane lasted two days on a single charge - much like the G Watch R. This is slightly longer than the day and a half that my Apple Watch offers.

You'll also find the Urbane requires a familiar magnetic charging cradle. It's basically the same one the G Watch R uses. In fact, you'd think they could be interchangeable, but of course, they're not.