New LG G Watch R has round full face OLED

Smartwatches and other wearables seem to be the tech du jour still and LG is pushing its wrist gadgets forwards with the impending launch of their new LG G Watch R.

South Korean company LG has just revealed their latest masterpiece, which is known as the LG G Watch R, and it looks all set to make an appearance at IFA 2014 in Berlin, Germany, early next month.

The main difference between the G Watch and the G Watch R, along with all the other smartwatches out there at the moment, is that the LG G Watch R is the first watch-style wearable device in the world that sports a circular Plastic OLED (P-OLED) display. This means it will make full use of its watch face.

From what I can see, that is pretty much the main improvement over the original G Watch, but LG is saying that the R is not a replacement for the first iteration, but another choice.

The R comes with a 410mAh battery, a mere 10mAh improvement over its square G counterpart. That means you’ll still be looking at no more than a day or so on a single charge.

The G Watch R comes with interchangeable 22mm straps but under the hood you’ll find it very familiar. There’s a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset with 512MB of RAM and 4GB internal storage. It’s also rated IP67 for water resistance (up to one meter of water for thirty minutes), just like the last one was.

There are two notable new features though: It comes with a heart rate monitor underneath and what appears to be a power button on the side.

The LG G Watch R runs on Android Wear which means it will play nice alongside all of the other compatible apps that are available in the Google Play Store.

I do think that the design is a huge improvement and I can’t wait to see this and the Moto 360 in the flesh for a comparison at IFA.