ASUS claims that their new, totally original (wink, wink) ZenWatch 2 “is designed to be a truly personal device that wearers can customize even further to express their unique sense of style.”
This godawful piece of crap comes in two sizes and offers three stainless-steel case colors, along with 18 different strap material and color combinations, and “instantly-changeable and customized watch faces.” It’s an “Android Wear” device.
ASUS claims that there is “truly a ZenWatch 2 for everyone.” Everyone with an IQ under 50, that is.
Everything about the watch, including its debut video is Apple-inspired. Besides the laughable aircraft carrier-sized bezel on this horrendous piece of junk, the best part about ASUS’ tone-deaf video is the slo-motion, Apple-esque treatment applied to absolutely ordinary, uninspired, run-of-the-mill watch bands. It’s hilarious! With a punchline ending tag, this could be a “commercial” from SNL as is:
Apple’s original Apple Watch debut video from September 9, 2014:
MacDailyNews Take: Here come the knockoff, uh… artists. (smirk)
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “TimJ” for the heads up.]
To be fair, I’m sure the creative brief to the video team was “make it look exactly like the Apple video”. My favorite shot is the extreme closeups of the traditional watch band. The MDN comment is right: this is straight out of SNL or The Onion.
What’s funny is they don’t show the watch doing anything but showing the same clock face, they don’t show the old, traditional pin-style band actually connecting with the watch, and nothing every really finishes. Wow.
That’s because they’d also have to show the frustrated user cussing at it–attempting to get the d@mned thing to attach and then dropping it multiple times in the process before finally giving up..wouldn’t make for good ad 🙂
The ASUS watch bands connect with the old spring needle pin that have plagued watches for the last 100 years. . . and resulted in lost watches and lost needle pins. LOL!
What’s next asked Christy…. we will all find out next week at WWDC.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Not if done by a cheap and sleezy company; it’s theft.
And theft
When caught red-handed, thieves they never fail to trot out the old flattery line which they also stole from someone else. And worst of all, some retarded people actually buy into it as a valid excuse.
Imitation is actually the most reliable way of positively identifying a thieving douchebag.
As is insincere flattery by thieving SOBs.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
In this case, it’s the sincerest form of flatulence.
Even the font type with the watch’s name at the end looks the same as Apples! Such blatant thievery knows no shame apparently. What a fugly watch. Only for the cheap & clueless.
Still lovin’ my Apple Watch!
I got something that looks like this, at the market. You know, the Aloha Stadium Flea Market. It is was $5 and lasted a day.
“In search of incredible”? Keep searching. Not with Asus.
you guys are sniffing too much koolaid. Unlike the iPhone where everything after really was a knockoff, apple’s design wasn’t that different, from a hardware basis, from a zillion traditional and a bunch of smart watches that preceded it.
Even a lot of the software functions are not that different (save the home/app screen) than what was offered by samsung. Sure, the samsung phone sucks in a lot more ways, but frankly, the apple watch sucks in its own ways.
You guys have way passed the non-objective point of no return here. And that they are offering different straps…yea, like that was an apple innovation? I think Swatch let you do that in the 80s and there is only an entire strap replacement industry out there before hand…
As for the apple-esque video presentation, I’ll give you that. I hate it. Everyone uses it now. Some half assed kickstarter on new toilet paper has some english jonny Ive dude pontificating the perforations feel on your ass… There is no creativity out there anymore….
Before Apple’s Watch, smart watches did not feature a digital crown and it was such a novelty that many people thought it was odd or amusing.
All of a sudden and obviously without copying Apple in any way at all, a digital crown has become a must-have feature of smart watches released since Apple’s Watch.
We all knew that it would happen that way and we also knew that there would be idiots trying to pretend that there was no copying of Apple.
You’re correct about the straps. Oh, and the video.
That’s about it.
This isn’t a traditional watch, so that doesn’t apply. There were approximately ZERO smart watches (unless you want to count a calculator built in) prior to the rumors starting about the Apple Watch. The only reason you can compare it to any “smart” watches that came before is because they wanted to jump ahead of the Apple Watch so it could be “supported” by clueless people like you.
I was just at Costco. The have a pallet of Moto 360 stupid watches on sale at $149.99. So much for droid watches. 😄
Really? Really!?! The dumb ass digital crown. That basically no one uses because it’s just easier to swipe. Only use is for zoom, and frankly, I’d probably prefer to pinch and zoom instead. And that new watch just has a button, not a digital crown. And the original samsung smart watch has a button on the side too. You guys sniff too much koolaid. There are plenty of places where apple gets ripped off. Notifications and smartwatches are not your strongest arguments. Makes you look weak and delusional. BRING ON THE NEGATIVE VOTES. I REVEL IN THE BLOODY GLORY AND PAIN IT CAUSES TO THE LUNATIC FAITHFUL! 🙂
Trolls get paid for votes? No one down vote trolls anymore. Don’t respond either.
I, for one, agree with you. Most of the fanboys on here are too delusional to realize that Apple is just rehashing old ideas with the Apple Watch.
Furthermore, that’s actually a good thing. I love my Apple Watch. But deciding it has to be innovative is every way to be worth anything is just fanboy talk.
In fact, I was taught a while ago that in product release, there are three Fs you product could fall in.
First (and it makes money, pebble in an example here)
Finest (and it makes the most money, we’re hoping Apple Watch here)
and
F*cked (Asus, moto, LG)
Now If you look, historically apple isn’t really First with most products. It’s Finest. I’d point to things like the fact that the first real full screen smartphone I saw was from Sony (the P800) and then the iPhone came years later, and was far better.
The fanboys don’t understand that Apple really should look at what works and do that. Why reinvent the wheel when you can improve upon it?
As usual, none of Apple’s competitors knew what a Smart Watch should look like until Apple showed them how it’s done. This knockoff even has a digital crown! If it functions the same way, I hope Apple sues them.
Strange that they watch bodies are different – the gold one at the beginning is smooth on the sides and the others have a strange band around the body.. Weird.
The only thing I see the watch in the ASUS video do is display time. How long before we see it in WalMart for $19.99?
It is sad that the court have said that it is okay to copy IP as long as the IP your are copying is making you less money then the owner of the IP.
Jony would never, ever, copy (aka become inspired) by the design language of another “iconic” brand. Oh hell no:
Note the roll wheel and side push button on this Braun watch from 2011. Coincidence I’m sure.
If you imagine that the wheel on that Braun is in any way comparable to a digital crown, then you don’t have the slightest understanding of ergonomics or user interfaces.
The digital crown was inspired by how conventional watches are adjusted – the official name for that little wheel is a crown. Ive was inspired by the design language of conventional watches – not by bizarre electronic watches.
It functions exactly like the “digital crown” and to me looks very ergonomic. Ive is known for copping Braun designs. He did it blatantly for the click wheel iPod and the the perforated aluminum Mac Pro.
I’m sorry I just can’t get by that the purpose of Andriod and all android devices is to feed you advertisements and to track your behavior to feed you “better” advertisements. Now with a watch, that tracking is going to be on your wrist.
I would never do that, even to “save” hundreds of dollars……
ASUS – taiwanese for ” no shame “
ASUS – taiwanese for ANUS.
From the Verge:
Like the Apple Watch, the ZenWatch 2 has a metal crown, which gives you “a new way to interact” with the Android Wear interface. ”
Update: The original article speculated that Asus’ metal crown will function like the digital crown in the Apple Watch, however we’ve now confirmed with Asus that it’s simply an external button and not a physical scroll wheel.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8696013/asus-zenwatch-2-android-wear-specs-features-announced
Wow, it even uses the aesthetically equalized display time of 10:09:30 just as Apple does in its marketing imagery. What a completely obvious ripoff.
The back of the Apple watch is like 100 times nicer than the face of that ASUS crap.
Holding a Zune in your hand while wearing a
Zen watch would be awesome.
Yes, there was a ZenWatch 1. It speaks for itself:
When the article said, “aircraft sized bezels” I thought it was hyperbole.
It’s actually a statement of fact!
Weak copy. No apparent sensors. Large frame around face. Mesh band uses a clasp instead of a magnet. Band attach points are retractable