HTC Grip officially announced: first look

HTC has just announced a new fitness tracking wearable designed for the truly athletic folks out there. It’s called the HTCGrip, and it’s built in conjunction with Under Armour, the American sports-centric company. HTCsays the wearable is focused around the motto “athletic performance first, phone companion second”, and judging by the aesthetics of the wearable, we couldn’t agree more.

The Grip doesn’t have any buttons and is the same width all around the device. It has built-in GPS capabilities and connects to your Android phone via Bluetooth. If you don’t want to carry your smartphone with you while on a run, the built-in GPS will track your statistics while you’re out, allowing you to sync your performance metrics with your smartphone when you reconnect. Although the Grip comes without a heart rate monitor, you can use a Bluetooth-powered heart rate monitor in addition to the wearable, if you so choose.

While HTCis marketing this wearable towards Under Armour’s 130 million users, the Grip does provide basic phone companion functions. The Grip will let you view and respond to messages, it will give you call notifications, and you can even control your music with the device. HTCis quoting the battery life at around 2.5 days when the GPS is turned off, or about five hours when the GPS is left on.

Gallery

Here are the official specs for the HTC Grip:

Specs

• Curved PMOLED display
• Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
• Sizes: Small/Medium/Large
• Color: “Hero” Lime Green
• IP57 water resistance
• $199 suggested retail price

While this may not be the HTC-made Android Wear device many were hoping for, are you interested in this HTC/Under Armour fitness tracking wearable?