Pebble Time Mini review

The third time's the charm for Pebble. The company's latest Kickstarter-backed smartwatch, the Pebble Time, is easily its most accomplished effort to date. Like its siblings, the original Pebble and the Pebble Steel ($129.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , the Time lasts for several days on a single charge, whereas most smartwatches, including the Apple Watch ($300.00 at eBay)(Opens in a new window) , are really only good for about 24 hours. The Time also adds a cool color display and voice-to-text replies, so you can speak right into the timepiece to respond to text messages. Instantaneous notifications, a big app store, and all the pluses from previous Pebbles return as well. For $199, a color upgrade and Dick Tracy-style communication may not be enough if you already own a previous Pebble. But if you don't, and you're looking to jump into the world of smart wrist wear, the Pebble Time is a solid place to start. That makes it our new Editors' Choice for smartwatches.

Pebble time mini review

Download File: https://venemena.blogspot.com/?download=2tRZWk

From a design perspective, Pebble opts for a casual rubber strap that's soft, smooth to the touch, and very comfortable to wear. I've kept my review unit on for days without it chafing or becoming irritating. It looks great, too, despite the rubber construction, and quick-release pins allow the strap to be swapped out for a standard 22mm band. I kept the red strap my review unit came with on the whole time while testing. The only other color options are black or white. Depending on your proclivity for metal, you can opt for the Pebble Time Steel, which retains the business class design of the original Pebble Steel. It comes with a silver, black, or gold finish, and promises longer battery life (up to ten days), but it costs $299 and won't be available until later in the summer.

Pressing the buttons on either side of the watch activates a number of cheerful, colorfully animated screen transitions that give the Time a lot of personality. Screens quickly warp, wipe, and transform into star-shaped happy faces (the Nintendo parallel continues) as you press your way from the weather forecast to Google Calendar appointments and back to the time of day. A fun and charming presentation goes a long way in my book, and the Time has that covered in spades.

Apps Pebble's app store looks basically the same as it did when the Pebble Steel came around, which is a good thing. The store is easy to navigate and search, and once you download an app, it's simple to add it to the Time. Thankfully, you aren't limited to just eight apps at a time here, as you are on Pebble's other watches.

Browsing through the app store, there are lots of watch faces (one based on Mondrian was a favorite), along with productivity, health, and fitness apps, and Tamagotchi-like mini-games to download and play on your wrist. I was particularly fond of FitCat, a digital pet app that features a cat (in color) lazing, sleeping, and puttering about in a brick home that also displays the time of day, the amount of steps you've taken, and conveniently, the amount of battery power left on the Time.

In addition to steps, you can also track activity and sleep patterns with a variety of fitness and health apps including Jawbone, LetsMuv, Misfit, and Runkeeper. Even FitCat does a decent job of counting and tracking step goals. The Time won't replace a dedicated fitness tracker, since it only has an accelerometer and lacks GPS and heartrate monitoring, but it does a solid job if you want a device that tracks basic fitness stats and keeps you up-to-date on notifications at the same time.

The built-in music player that controls tunes on your smart device and the alarm clock function also work very well. The alarm's vibrations have stirred me awake successfully each time, and you can set alarms right on the watch and have them repeat automatically.

Conclusions The Pebble Time is the Game Boy Color to the Pebble's original Game Boy, and that's great. It displays charming visuals in color, adds voice-to-text communication, and has all the things you expect a Pebble watch to have: instantaneous notifications, fun and useful apps, a comfortable strap, and a battery that lasts for days as opposed to hours. Yes, the Apple Watch has a sharper, more colorful display and even bigger-name apps, but it costs nearly twice as much as the Pebble Time, and its battery doesn't last even half as long. Android Wear watches have mostly failed to impress me, so it's easy to recommend the Pebble Time over options like the Motorola Moto 360 ($179.97 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . That makes the Time hard to beat for first-time smartwatch buyers, and an Editors' Choice. Just keep in mind that you don't need to drop $199 if you want a smartwatch; you can spend half that amount on the original Pebble (also an Editors' Choice), and still have access to most of the same apps.

Timothy Torres is a Junior Analyst on PCMag's consumer electronics team. He covers wearables, digital home, and various cool gadgets including the occasional video game. He has written all manner of copy for Computer Shopper, The Jersey Journal, Radio One, Random House, and 2D-X. Before entering the tech world, he attended New York University and worked in education as an art instructor. In his spare time he dabbles in theater, sketches comics, eats a lot of sushi and watches too many movies. Twitter: @pleasedtomeetya

According to Classic Fountain Pens, the width of the Pelikan F nib is 0.5mm. I compared this nib to the Jowo #6 and #5 nibs, both in steel and Medium widths, which is meant to be the same width as the Pelikan F. I also had some Faber Castell and Graf von Faber Castell pens inked up, both also steel mediums. For this mini-review, I only compared European nibs to the Pelikan, not Japanese nibs which are usually finer by comparison.

I love the look, the feel and the size of this bag. Perfect crossbody bag. Have received lots of complimentary comments on it. Only suggestion for next version: There is an open pocket on the inside of the bag right beside the zipped pocket. Make them both zipped. Every time I put my wallet back in the purse it gets caught on the open pocket. Otherwise love this bag!

Small Beach pebble aggregate, naturally tumbled by the sea, is used to create our Mini pebble tile line. The pebble for these mosaic pebble tiles are hand sorted and adhered to a mesh backing