LG Watch Style – Performance and Android Wear 2.0

Inside the LG Watch Style is Qualcomm’s wearable-friendly Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, as seen in the Huawei Watch 2. This is alongside 512MB of RAM, which is shy of the 768MB included in both the Huawei Watch 2 and LG Watch Sport. The standard 4GB of storage is included for your apps and music.

Most importantly, these are all used to power the Android Wear 2.0 operating system. They all combine to provide a slick and responsive experience devoid of judder and slowdown. Apps fired up with little hesitation and scrolling through menus using the crown felt satisfyingly smooth.

Android Wear 2.0 also makes use of a lot of swipe in gestures from the edge of the screen to navigate and bring up menus. It’s here that I appreciated the LG Watch Style’s casing that didn’t prove a hindrance like that of the Huawei Watch 2’s. The latter’s raised ceramic bezel meant your finger had to drop into the screen to swipe in from the edge.

Related: Best fitness trackers

All of the best features of Android Wear 2.0 are otherwise present, including Google’s handy digital assistant, which is accessible by holding the crown. This lets you use voice commands for anything from asking questions to sending messages and activating smart home devices remotely.

The Google Play Store is available directly from your wrist, which is a convenient if not groundbreaking addition. The new on-screen keyboard lets you jab away at responses or use swipes gestures to generate a message.

Notifications are much better handled in Android Wear 2.0, making much better use of screen real estate and feeling less cluttered. Annoyingly, however, the vibration of the LG Watch Style is rather muted, especially compared to a Garmin Vivosmart 3 I wore on my other wrist, so it’s very easy to miss a notification coming in.

Watch faces can also be customised with ‘complications’ to provide more dynamic information. Many of the default watch apps will show your step count, for example, but you can swap this out.

Without the benefits of GPS and a heart rate sensor, the LG Watch Style’s fitness credentials are obviously reduced. You still at least have access to basic step counting and you can use Google Fit to track your strength workouts, where I found the rep counting functionality relatively useful.

But if you want a Android Wear companion for your more serious workouts and runs, you’re better off looking elsewhere. For readers in the UK, LG has told me the Sport model isn’t getting released there, so that largely leaves you with the Huawei Watch 2 as your best bet.

Related: Best running watches

LG Watch Style – Battery life and charging

With the reduction in physical size and the loss of fitness-oriented sensors, it wasn’t too surprising that the battery capacity would take a hit.

At 240mAh, it’s quite the reduction from the LG Watch Sport’s 430mAh battery or the Huawei Watch 2’s 420mAh cell.

Even then, I would have hoped the loss of a battery-sapping heart rate monitor would offset the reduced battery, but the LG Watch Style still barely made it to 24 hours of battery life.

If I took the watch off charge at 8am I would go to bed around 11PM with about 25% battery life left. Failing to charge overnight guaranteed it would be dead by dawn.

Compare that to the Huawei Watch 2 that could just about scrape it to two days before needing a charge and it begins to feel a bit disappointing.

However, it’s a similar experience to the similarly-priced Asus ZenWatch 3. Admittedly, I would go to bed with more gas still left in the tank, but still not enough to not require a charge overnight so the difference is almost redundant.

You charge the LG Watch Style using a magnetic dock that attaches to the back. It’s a fuss-free charging experience at least, although the charge isn’t particularly quick, taking about an hour to get to full capacity.

Should I buy the LG Watch Style?

For the fashion-conscious the LG Watch Style is one of the more attractive Android Wear offerings on the market. If you don’t mind sacrificing the sports-centric sensors in favour of a smaller size, it’s a great choice.

It would almost be the perfect mid-range Android Wear watch if it weren’t for the decidedly average battery life and lack of NFC for Android Pay. However, up against the similarly-priced Asus ZenWatch 3 it gets my nod.

Available to buy for around £229/$249, it’s often also bundled together with the LG G6 on certain contracts to sweeten the deal. If you’re wanting to decide whether the bonus is worth it, the LG Watch Style makes for a fantastic companion to a great phone.

Verdict

A stylish Android Wear 2.0 smartwatch for anyone not needing something sporty

Trusted Score