LG has announced a new variant of its premium all-metal smartwatch, the Watch Urbane LTE. The smartwatch – which will make its debut at Mobile World Congress next week – features a similar design as the Watch Urbane, but comes with beefier hardware thanks to the addition of an LTE radio that allows you to make calls over VoLTE.
The Watch Urbane LTE features the same 1.3-inch plastic OLED display and 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 CPU as its non-LTE variant, with the RAM doubled to 1GB. Internal storage is the same at 4GB. The 9-axis sensors (gyro / acceleration / compass) as well as the barometric pressure sensor, heart rate sensor and GPS are retained, with the watch scoring the aforementioned LTE and NFC connectivity. A noticeable difference between the two variants is that the LTE model features three buttons on the side whereas the standard Watch Urbane features a single button, with LG stating that the extra buttons are for navigation and easy access to quick settings.
To account for the increased battery drain that comes with LTE, the battery has been boosted to 700mAh on the Watch Urbane LTE, which is almost double that of the 410mAh sported by the Watch Urbane. LG says that the watch will be offered in silver trim with no mention on whether it'll also be offered in gold.
The watch comes with the ability to conduct walkie-talkie style voice chats, and the inclusion of NFC means that the Watch Urbane LTE is one of the first smartwatches to facilitate mobile payments. LG says that you'll be able to tap your wrist to pay for services without having to use your phone, although at this stage details are sparse as to how the functionality would work.
Seeing as how Android Wear currently does not support NFC, integrated cellular connectivity or the three-button configuration LG is offering, it is likely the Watch Urbane LTE is running webOS. Audi displayed a webOS-based smartwatch – made in collaboration with LG – at CES earlier this year, and the Watch Urbane LTE shares a few similarities with that device, including a three-button configuration, NFC and standalone cellular connectivity. While there's no official mention of the software the Watch Urbane LTE is running, we'll know more once we get a closer look at the watch at MWC.
Source: LG (translated)
