Pebble Time vs Samsung Gear Live Specs, Price Review: Features Comparison - Rectangular Smartwatches With Different Designs

Virginia D'Cruz Sunday, March 01, 2015

The Samsung Gear Live, left, versus the Pebble Time | SAMSUNG/PEBBLE

With the Pebble Time becoming the latest rectangular smartwatch to hit the market, it's time to check how other devices, like the Samsung Gear Live, will challenge the new device from Pebble once it starts to ship in May this year.

Design

The Samsung Gear Live has a rectangular watch face and its body is made from solid stainless steel that comes in two colors: wine red and black. As for its watch strap, it can be swapped out with any standard 22mm strap. The Pebble Time, on the other hand, has a rectangular plastic watch face that is rimmed with a steel bezel. It comes with plastic watch straps that can be swapped out with any standard 22mm strap. As for color options, the Pebble Time has three: red, black and white. In terms of dust and water resistance, the Pebble Time is expected to have a 5 atmosphere rating, which means it will be waterproof underwater up to a depth of 50 meters. As for the Gear Live, it has an IP 67 rating, which means it can only be safely submerged in one meter of water for just 30 minutes.

Display

The display on the Pebble Time has been upgraded to a color e-paper screen, but it could be the same size as the version on the Pebble Steel and have a density of around 176 pixels per inch. As for the Gear Live, it has a Super AMOLED screen measuring 1.63 inches with a resolution of 320X320 and a density of 278 pixels per inch.

Specs

Inside the Gear Live is a dual core processor clocked at 1GHz, 4 GB internal storage and 512MB RAM. As for the Pebble Time, it will feature a new Cortex M4 processor. It will be able to handle up to 60 apps as its operating system is now capable of skipping apps.

Sensor

The Pebble Time has a six-axis gyroscope but still lacks a heart rate monitor, which is present on the Gear Live.

Price

On Kickstarter, Pebble Time is currently priced at $159, but its full retail price is expected to go up to around $199. As for the Gear Live, its current retail price is $199.