The smartwatch market is one which is seeing fairly substantial levels of investment at the manufacturer level in spite of fairly tepid levels of adoption at the consumer level. One of the companies who did bring to market a new smartwatch in 2015 is Fossil with the release of their Q Founder smartwatch. In addition to that release, back in March of this year Fossil confirmed that two new models will be coming to market in 2016, the Q Wander and the Q Marshal.
Now Fossil has confirmed that those two models are ready to buy. Well, they are almost ready to buy as Fossil today announced that both the Q Wander and the Q Marshal will officially be open for pre-ordering from Friday August 12. With the announcement detailing that both devices will go on general sale from August 29. In terms of price, specifics have not been provided as of yet by Fossil, besides the statement that the smartwatches will “start at $295”.
Both watches come running on Android Wear and both are compatible with Android and iOS smartphones. Likewise, both smartwatches make use of a 45 mm case size and both come equipped with a touchscreen which makes use of an always-on display. In fact, there seems to be few differences between the two smartwatches in the grand scheme of things, with the exception that the “Q Wander has a beautiful soft curving, multi-finish case with artfully sculpted wire lugs” and the Q Marshal comes boasting a “striking rugged case”. Therefore, the assumption being that if you want the more durable smartwatch of the two, then you might be better off opting for the Q Marshal over the Q Wander. Although, it is worth pointing out that Fossil has also confirmed that both devices will be able to make use of various degrees of customization, with interchangeable leather, silicone and stainless steel straps available to buy. At the moment, there has been no details provided on the third-party retailer availability of either of the new Fossil Q smartwatches, and so those who do plan to pick one up early will need to be heading to a Fossil store from August 29 or the Fossil website from August 12 for pre-ordering.