Pebble Time Round reviewed: You can judge this book by its cover

(credit: Valentina Palladino)

Keeping up with Pebble has been a challenge this year. First, the company released the Time and Time Steel smartwatches, featuring the new "Timeline" watch interface that breaks up your day into past, present, and future events. Then, it added support for third-party smart straps that allow developers to experiment and give the smartwatches extra features, and it added voice recognition to the devices as well. The final announcement came just a few months ago: Pebble's new Time Round would be the sleekest, most stylish device the company has ever made. It turns out that's no understatement.

Of course, this wasn't hard to do. Previous Pebble watches, aside from maybe the Steel and the Time Steel, were blocky and primitive, and their e-ink displays only made them feel more like toys. The toy-like qualities aren't totally stripped from the Time Round, but it has a lot going for it: it's only 7.4mm at its thickest point, it's incredibly light, and it's made for smaller wrists using 14mm and 20mm straps. However, chic design doesn't come free. There are some sacrifices, namely in battery life and app selection, that you'll have to make if you want the new, disk-like timepiece.

And then it was round

The Pebble Time Round is so small and weightless that I easily forgot I was wearing it. Measuring just 7.5mm thick and weighing about an ounce, the Time Round feels like one of those toy watches I wore as child that I could easily fling across my room. It's more elegant than a toy, though: my review unit has rose gold hardware accented with white along the bezel and with a white, genuine leather band. You can switch out the bands for any standard 14mm or 20mm strap you'd like, keeping it customizable even after you purchase the watch and band set from Pebble.

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