Thursday, October 23, 2014

Sony Smartwatch 3 (with GPS and Android Wear) on sale now at Verizon

Preorders ship by Oct. 30, watch costs $249

It's been more than a month since we got our first look at the Sony Smartwatch 3 — the company's first try at Android Wear — and today the wearable is available for preorder, but perhaps not from the place you'd expect. Verizon's got first dibs on this smartwatch, which will cost you $249 up front (plus tax and shipping and stuff). It'll ship by Oct. 30, Verizon says.

The big deal about this watch, in addition to being the Android Wear device from Sony, is that it's the first to support offline music and full-on GPS — the idea being that you can use it without having to have a phone attached, which is a plus when you're exercising. So you'll be able to listen to music with the watch serving up tunes to a Bluetooth headset directly, and be able to track your runs without lugging around an ever-bigger smartphone.

Google says the Smartwatch 3 also will be available from Google Play at some point.