The competition in the wearables category is beefing up with smartphone makers expanding their smartwatch portfolio with interesting launches. Recently, LG announced its luxurious Urbane smartwatch with high-end features and premium build, but the tech giant is not stopping at that.
In a Korean press release, LG announced an upgraded version of its Watch Urbane with LTE capability. The new watch is expected to be unveiled alongside the LG Watch Urbane at the MWC next week.
Ahead of the big release, LG has revealed a few striking details of the upcoming LTE smartwatch. Quite interestingly, the Urbane LTE will neither run on Google's Android Wear platform nor LG's webOS. The Urbane LTE smartwatch will be independent of smartphone's network as it will feature its own cellular connectivity. According to the company, LG Watch Urbane LTE is the first LTE-capable smartwatch in the world, The Verge reports.
The LG Watch Urbane LTE will feature the biggest battery in a smartwatch, measuring at 700mAh and equip a 1.3 inch plastic OLED display with 320 x 320 pixel resolution and 245ppi. The internal storage is measured at 4GB while the RAM is 1GB.
According to Engadget, the new watch will feature three buttons on the side, which are not found on the standard Urbane. These buttons will have dedicated functions, like the top key will take you to quick settings, centre button will switch watch modes and bottom one will work as a back key.
According to LG, the Urbane LTE will carry out VoLTE conversations independently and allow new walkie-talkie feature to support "multilateral simultaneous conversations in chat rooms." The watch's NFC integration will carry out wearers' payments as smart wallet. Like any other high-end smartwatch, the Urbane LTE will carry various sensors such as gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, atmospheric pressure, heartbeat, and GPS.
It is unclear what OS LG is using to run the Urbane LTE watch, but the details will unfold at the Mobile World Congress next week.
