Published in IoT

Elephone ELE MediaTek Android Wear smartwatch listed

by on10 October 2015


Round, all-metal, 400mAh battery

The Elephone ELE smartwatch has been listed, and as we suspected it is based on MediaTek’s MT2601 system-on-chip (SoC). 

The MT2601 is MediaTek’s first processor specifically designed for Android Wear. It’s a tiny dual-core Cortex-A7 chip with Mali 400 graphics, clocked at up to 1.2GHz.

The chip was announced a while ago, and the company demoed a few prototype watches earlier this year. However, it took a while for the processor to make it to actual products.

ele watch 1

Chinese smartphone maker Elephone is leading the way with its ELE smartwatch, a round watch with a 1.5-inch 320x320 TFT display. It’s worth noting that there’s no “flat tyre” cut-out at the bottom, and the bezels are relatively small. The ELE is somewhat reminiscent of the Huawei Watch, although it’s an original design (and a relatively clean and minimal design at that).

ele watch 2

The watch is water resistant (IP67), the strap is replaceable, and it weighs 60 grams. It packs a 400mAh battery and the manufacturer claims up to 80 hours of standby time. The watch also comes with a heart rate monitor and gyro. It’s a Bluetooth 4.0 device, but it also features 802.11/a/b/g/n connectivity.

The real kicker is the price. Gearbest, our primary source for Chinese smartphone review samples, is listing the watch at $114.6 with free shipping. This is substantially less than other round Android Wear watches, and it’s cheaper than the new Asus Zenwatch, which is probably the best buy in the Android Wear universe at the moment.

The bad news is that the watch is still not available and we are not sure when it will ship. We don’t have the full spec, either, since Elephone’s product page is little more than a teaser. In any case, we will try to find out more about the ELE watch, as well as upcoming MT2601 smartwatches from other vendors.

Android Wear hasn’t taken off yet, but if small brands can develop and market attractive devices at about $100, we could see this market segment commoditise in no time. 

Last modified on 19 January 2017
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