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Moto 360 smartwatch makes an appearance at Google I/O

Samsung's Gear Live and LG's G Watch have already been manhandled today at Google I/O 2014, and now it's time to do the same to the third inaugural Android Wear device, the Moto 360. We've already heard much about the watch's unique circular design and have gotten some sneak peeks at the various watch faces that are coming to take advantage of it. Today, however, I finally got my mitts on one, and I can assure you it's as well put together in person as the press shots have shown previously.

The Moto 360 strikes a stunning pose on your wrist, particularly in its stainless steel (as opposed to black) garb. Fit and finish of the devices we saw was top notch. The chamfered edges of both the glass covering the screen and that metal housing lend it a luxurious look and feel, and the thick, split leather strap is premium, too. We thought it odd that the company chose to have the glass extend beyond the watch's metal housing, when the trend in mobile screens is for there to be zero gap between the surface of the glass and the pixels beneath them.

So, we asked Lior Ron, Motorola's wearable products lead, why his watch design went the other way. He informed us that it's a "nod to the premium watch aesthetic" he wanted to achieve with the 360, as many regular watches have chamfered glass, too. That bit of design flair has the added benefit of showing off the circular display to the fullest -- looking closely reveals that pixels are packed from edge to edge, no cutting corners.

For now, that's really all we can tell you about the 360 -- that it's a beautiful and sizable smartwatch. Like LG and Samsung, Motorola had the 360 running a demo mode of Android Wear, so we couldn't get a feel for how the watch actually will work. That said, Motorola's on its way to proving that sometimes, it's not hip to be a square.

Zach Honig contributed to this report.