Puma's first smartwatch has Wear OS and decent specs, but the market is crowded - Android Authority

Among the many, many smartwatches debuting at IFA this year, Puma is throwing its hat into the ring for the very first time.

The Puma smartwatch takes a few cues from Fossil’s recent smartwatch lineup. It’s powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 3100 SoC, and has a built-in GPS, heart rate sensor, and NFC for Google Pay.

Unfortunately it might not have the power to handle Google’s Wear OS to the same extent as the Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch, though — the Puma smartwatch only has 512MB of RAM, as well as 4GB of storage for music and apps. Previously, we’ve found that Wear OS watches tend to underperform if there’s anything less than 1GB of RAM. However, we’ll reserve judgement until we get a chance to check out the device in-person this week.

Elsewhere, the Puma watch has a 1.19-inch AMOLED display, a nylon and aluminum 44mm case, a 3ATM water resistance rating, and a battery that takes roughly 50 minutes to reach an 80% charge. Puma has also created a handful of customized watch faces, which will all come pre-installed on the Puma watch.

The Puma smartwatch will be available in November in black, yellow, and white color options for $275/£269 from puma.com and other retailers.

The Puma smartwatch will no doubt appeal to Puma fans — but how will it fare against the flood of other smartwatches hitting the market? Fossil’s own Gen 5 Smartwatch is more highly powered than the Puma smartwatch, and Fitbit and Garmin have new smartwatches headed our way soon.

What are your thoughts? Is this a must-buy? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to check out our other IFA 2019 coverage below: