Skagen's new smartwatch might be The One

It felt like I had found my match on smartwatch Tinder. I hadn't even seen the Skagen Falster 2 in person before today, but I was already enthralled by the pictures. The stunning watch teases with its clean, minimalist design, and then grabs you by your eyeballs with its metallic accents and magnetic mesh band. After meeting it at last here at IFA 2018, I think I'm in lust. Just look at this thing.

It has a thinner bezel than its predecessor, making its 1.19-inch face feel bigger but still classy, especially in the 40mm version I checked out. The whole thing felt light and snug on my wrist, thanks to the magnetic mesh loop. It makes adjusting adjust the strap's fit more convenient, much like the Apple Watch's Milanese Loop. But the Falster 2's clasp catches onto everything metallic a bit too easily and becomes unwieldy when it snaps back onto itself, preventing me from threading the strap through its loop.

The Falster 2 is also one of the first smartwatches to be announced after Google unveiled its recently redesigned Wear OS earlier this week. Though it was running a demo version of the software, the Skagen watch offered my first chance to play with the new OS outside of Google's offices. The interface felt breezy as I swiped through the new Fit, Assistant and notification pages, responding swiftly to my prods and pokes.

Our encounter was all too brief, and before long I had to give the Falster 2 back to Fossil's people -- although not before I was able to get an in-depth hands-on video covering both the new Wear OS and sumptuous hardware. I'm impressed by how petite the watch was in spite of new components like NFC and a heart rate sensor. That said, I am concerned that its Snapdragon Wear 2100 CPU might already be outdated by the time Skagen sells these watches come September 12th. The company indicated it was committed to offering the best available components in its products, so I wouldn't be surprised to see an updated version in no time. Meanwhile, I'll hold off spending $275 on the Falster 2, and keep lusting after it from afar, at least for a little while longer.

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Camera, Editor: Kyle Maack



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