Fossil has unveiled its new Fossil Sport smartwatch, becoming the second company to feature Qualcomm's battery-extending Snapdragon Wear 3100 technology.
The £249.99 Sport runs Wear OS and follows the Montblanc Summit 2, the only other smartwatch housing the latest chipset, which Fossil indicates will help to extend the Sport's battery life past 24 hours.
The company says the 350 mAh unit, with the help of Wear 3100, will be able to eke out a day of life based on the 'full smartwatch experience', which we're told includes full use of features like heart rate and location tracking. There's also a new battery saving mode, bringing an additional two days of telling the time in an 'ambient mode'.
Sitting alongside the bigger battery is the same crop of features and sensors we've seen flood the fourth generation of Fossil Group devices - a heart rate monitor sits on the underside, while NFC for contactless Google Pay payments and built-in GPS are also on board.
(Left, Fossil Sport 43mm; right, Fossil Sport 41mm)
In terms of design, the Sport will come in six different colors (silver, blue, red, gold, rose gold and grey) over two case sizes of 41mm and 43mm. It has a nylon and aluminium casing and silicon bands in 18mm and 22mm - there's 28 band and bracelet styles available for customisation too. Overall, it's a more preppy style than the Fossil Q Explorist HR and Fossil Q Venture HR, and the 1.2-inch AMOLED display (offering a pixel resolution of 390 x 390) is up there with the likes of Samsung's Galaxy Watch.
Fossil also says the Sport is its lightest smartwatch to date, with it sitting between the 36-40g mark. To put that in context, the 40mm aluminum Apple Watch Series 4 has a case weight of around 30g, which is added to be a band, and the Fitbit Ionic weighs 50g.
Naturally, the whole show will continue to run on Google's Wear OS platform, which was recently given a makeover in order to improve day-to-day usability. The recently announced Wear OS Spotify app will also, Fossil says, be pre-loaded onto the watch for use straight out of the box, as will personal safety app Noonlight.
The Fossil Sport will come priced at $255 and is available to buy now on Fossil's website, rolling out to Fossil retail stores on 12 November. Just where it ranks among the long list of Wear watches remains to be seen. At least on paper, this represents a feature-packed smartwatch with a bonus of extended battery life - all for a price that sensibly undercuts competitors like Apple and Samsung.
We'll be posting our in-depth review of the device over the coming weeks, so be sure to check back to see if the Sport lives up to the billing.
