India's Intex Technologies has unveiled its first wearable device in the
form of the iRist, a smartwatch that runs Android 4.4 KitKat - not
Android Wear - and can operate independently of your smartphone.
Launched at the sidelines of Mobile World Congress (MWC) Shanghai, the
iRist is priced at Rs. 11,999 and will be available in India starting
August in Black, Pink, and Orange colour variants. The smartwatch will
be exclusive to eBay India "for a few days" before it is available via
Intex's retail partners across the country.
(Also see: Intex to Unveil First Smartphone With Sailfish OS 2.0 at MWC Shanghai)
The
iRist comes with a 3G Micro-SIM slot, which means you can make and
receive calls with the device by simply pairing it with a Bluetooth
headset (included in the retail box). Other connectivity options include
built-in Wi-Fi (with Hotspot support), GPS, and Micro-USB. The iRist
comes with a dock that is needed to charge the device. Intex has packed
in a 600mAh battery with the iRist, which, the company claims, can
delivery up to 4 hours of talk time or up to 200 hours of standby time.
The
Intex iRist comes with a 1.56-inch display 240x240 display that can
display up to 16 million colours and features sapphire glass protection
on top. It is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6572 chipset
alongside 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage, 1.3GB of which is
accessible for user applications and data. It also supports microSD
cards up to 32GB.
Interestingly, Intex has packed in a 5-megapixel
720p shooter on the right edge of the watch (pointing outwards if you
wear it on your left hand). It also includes an ambient light sensor,
which means the display's brightness can be automatically adjusted
depending upon the lighting conditions. The Intex iRist also packs in a
pedometer, accelerometer, compass, and a gyroscope. According to Intex,
the iRist is water and dust resistant, which means it can survive minor
splashes, but not prolonged exposures.
In terms of software, as
mentioned before, the iRist comes with Android 4.4 KitKat, and not
Android Wear, Google's de facto operating system for wearables. The
decision was of course made to facilitate the operation of the watch in
standalone mode, since Android Wear devices are tethered to an Android
device. You can double tap the watch to wake up its display, and Intex
has developed a custom voice assistant that can be used to interact with
the iRist. The watch also supports on-screen keyboard input.
The
iRist comes with access to Google Play store, and Intex claims many
popular apps like WhatsApp and Twitter are already optimised for the
watch's display. We will test this claim when we get to spend some time
with the device, but app compatibility will be a concern since most
Android apps are not optimised for a square, low-resolution display.
To
at least partially address this, the iRist comes with built-in dialler
and apps for common functions like listening to music, watching videos,
and sending/ receiving messages, tracking steps, and more. The iRist
includes 11 watch-in faces that users can choose from, and more can be
added only via an over-the-air (OTA) firmware update.
The iRist
can also be paired with a smartwatch with the help of the iConnect app,
which syncs the smartphone's contacts, photos, bookmarks, and messages
to the watch. Stay tuned for our first impressions of the Intex iRist.
Disclosure: The correspondent has travelled to MWC Shanghai at Intex's expense.
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Further reading:
Android,
Android smartwatch,
Intex iRist,
Intex iRist Smartwatch,
Intex iRist Specifications,
Intex iRist price,
MWC Shanghai,
Mobile World Congress,
Smartwatch,
Wearables,
iRist Price,
iRist Smartwatch,
iRist Specifications
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