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IN PHOTO: A Google employee wears an LG G Android Wear smart watch while using his phone at the Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco June 26, 2014. The LG G watch was announced along with the Samsung Gear Live during the conference keynote. [Representational Image] REUTERS

AT&T has announced that the latest LG G Watch R will be offered by the carrier in the U.S. Adding cherry on top, this wearable smartwatch will be compatible with all the smartphones by the carrier, running on Android v4.3 OS and higher.

The LG G Watch R gear will hit the store shelves during the upcoming Christmas holiday season. Even though the price pertaining to the U.S. is unknown at this point, the G Watch R is priced at GBP 224.99 in the U.K. that roughly translates to and AU reports GSM Arena.

The predecessor LG G Watch was a plain looking square smartwatch, whereas the latest G Watch R is designed with fashion-conscious crowd in mind. The gadget comes with the much-loved round dial/clock in real leather, black metal and an array of different round faces to choose from. This smartwatch can easily be passed as a regular watch and hence it blends well with the routine. As CNet puts it, the fashionistas will definitely not have any complaints on the aesthetics of the device.

Moving on to the software, the G Watch R runs on the Android Wear OS. As mentioned earlier, the device can be paired with any Android phone running on v4.3 or higher via Bluetooth. It displays incoming notifications and alerts from Google Now.

As far as the key specification goes, this smartwatch features a 1.3-inch display bundled with 320 x 320 pixels resolution. The Moto 360, meanwhile, comes with a relatively bigger screen size of 1.56-inch but the resolution is same as the LG device. Comparatively, the LG smartwatch's display is sharper than the Moto 360. Also it is worth mentioning that, the Moto 360 is not entirely round because it houses a black chin-like contour at the tail-end of the screen but the LG G Watch R is 100 percent round.

The gear is powered by a dual-core (Qualcomm Snapdragon 400) processor, clocked at 1.2 GHz and backed by 512 MB of RAM. It comes with a 4 GB of in-built storage capacity but it does not feature its own GPS connection. Meaning, the G Watch R owners will certainly need their phones to map their run.

All the smartwatches released thus far have one problem in common i.e. poor battery life. The G Watch R is not spared either, however, with an average usage by utilising notifications and staying clear of voice commands can give up to two full days of charge. In case the device is used constantly by utilising the voice commands and dictation features the battery drain is substantial and getting through one whole day will be a herculean task.

In order to charge the LG G Watch R, the gadget should be placed in a small magnetic dock where the micro-USB cable is plugged. The reason being, there is no charging port on the smartwatch. Meaning, the G Watch R owners need to carry this dock every time the gear needs to be charged. On the other hand, housing a charging port within, will make the smartwatch look bulky, says CNet. Hence this is a small trade-in.

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