The LG G Watch R

The G Watch R’s key feature is its display, a 1.3-inch Plastic OLED panel that takes up 100 percent of the watch’s round face. LG promises that it’s viewable in sunlight and clear from any angle, and the plastic also comes with some durability benefits — the G Watch R works in up to a meter of water for up to 30 minutes. The screen rests in a stainless steel frame, and comes with an interchangeable calf skin leather strap. This device looks perhaps more like a normal analog watch than any other we’ve seen before, including the Moto 360.

It’s powered by a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor and 512MB of RAM, plus 4GB of internal storage. It has a heart-rate monitor, unlike the G Watch, plus a handful of health and fitness apps that should make the G Watch R a little more useful as a fitness tracker. Still, from a functionality standpoint the devices don’t differ much. It’s all about the hardware — and the hardware makes all the difference.

Where the G Watch is bland and square — not badly designed so much as simply not designed at all, The G Watch R is coming in the fourth quarter of 2014. Count on this being a trend this year: smartwatch makers will churn these devices out as fast as they can, attempting to satisfy as many tastes as possible and to learn as quickly as possible what works for consumers.