The Neptune Pine Is A $335 Smart Watch With Its Own SIM Card

Over the past year or so, wearable computing has become an intense area of interest for many people. Some say that Apple is to thank for this, as the company released a new iPod Nano, which third-party accessory makes released wristband cases for. The Pebble has been getting an inordinate amount of attention lately because it has started shipping to people who backed the project on Kickstarter. But one company believes that the current smart watch idea is rather cumbersome and expensive. Neptune Pine says that the downfall of things like the Pebble  is that you have to own an expensive smartphone to use the expensive watch. That means you have two batteries to keep charged and two things to remember to get out of the house with.

The Neptune Pine is a new smart watch, but with a twist. The device has a micro-SIM card slot of its own. That means it has its own 3G data connection and can even make calls on its own. Also, in case you’re wondering why an Android site is covering this, the Neptune Pine runs Google’s operating system….sort of. It runs “Leaf OS,” which is an extremely customized version of Android.

The Neptune Pine features a 2.5-inch display, 5MP camera on top, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Now, while 2.5-inches may seem ultra-tiny in comparison to smartphones, it’s huge in comparison to other watches. The Pebble watch features a 1.26-inch display. The last-generation iPod Nano that people loved to use as a watch had a 1.5-inch display. The Pine looks like it would be incredible awkward to wear on your wrist all day. 2.5-inches is also too small to do anything of substance with. Sure you could reply to a text here or there, but web browsing? Is browsing the web via 3G on a 2.5-inch device really worth yet another monthly data fee?

While the Neptune Pine fixes the problem of having to pair your smart watch with a phone, it also creates a whole new problem. Do you really want to pay another $20 a month for data on a watch? I don’t. I’d much rather pair a Pebble watch with my phone.

The Neptune Pine is slated to ship sometime in Q3 of 2013 and costs $335 (CAD) for 8GB and $395 for 32GB. Are you at all interested in a smart watch? If so, which model has caught your eye? Let us know down in the comments!