Riding on the Cyber Monday fever, Qualcomm has now made available its own spin on the nascent smartwatch device category. Unfortunately, unless you have pre-ordered this glorified smartphone accessory, you’ll have to wait in line as the Qualcomm Toq has quickly gone out of stock.
Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Gear, whose success is debatable depending on who you ask, or other smartwatch attempts like the Neptune Pine, the Qualcomm Toq isn’t conflicted about its identity. It is a watch, first and foremost, that happens to connect with a smartphone running Android 4.0.3 or later for additional features. Connecting via Bluetooth, the Toq becomes your Android smartphone’s extension for notifications. On its own, it does display information such weather and stock market numbers as well as tell the time. The 1.55-inch screen and 3.2-ounce weight makes it somewhat more comfortable to wear. Qualcomm also boasts of its Mirasol display technology that makes the screen readable even in direct sunlight.
Last week, the chip manufacturer started accepting pre-orders for the device, with a note that shipping will begin in 1 to 3 weeks. But as reported last month, Qualcomm has today opened the flood gates and has made the Toq available from its web store. However, probably due to existing pre-orders, Qualcomm says that it has run out of stock of the device. They are still accepting reservations though and anticipate that new orders will ship in the coming weeks.
The Qualcomm Toq is priced at $349.99, making it a tad more expensive than the Galaxy Gear. Qualcomm has originally announced black and white color variants but, at the time of writing, only the black color option is available.
Without actually numbers it is very hard to evaluate this. It seems odd that they sell out so quickly given the generally low demand of smartwatches
I have to agree. Walk around any mall and look for people with a smart watch on their wrist. you won’t see many,if any.
They planned to sell “tens of thousands” of these things. For whatever reason, they decided to make a lot less than that available on launch. I think it was planned though. Even on at the pre-order stage, they said it would take 1-2 weeks to deliver. Now after launch, it’s still 1-2 weeks. Looking at how many people installed the actual qualcomm toq app so far, it’s only 100 – 500. I think it’s simple to gauge interest/sales just by seeing how popular it is on news and social feeds.