BURG 12 Smartwatch Smartphone Combo to Hit Walmart

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Take a call, send a text and capture photo and video on this new smartwatch with full cell phone features designed by Hermen van den Burg.

Some smartwatches only let you know if your smartphone received a call or text message. The new BURG 12 smartwatch goes one step further, doubling as your smartphone by letting you make and receive calls and texts, as well as letting you take photos, listen to music, record voice memos and more. Created by the designer Herman van den Burg, the BURG 12 smartwatch will be available at Walmart for the holiday season for $199.

The BURG 12 is one of many smartwatches available from the Dutch designer's company by the same name. This iteration has a 1.5-inch, 240 x 240-pixel resolution touchscreen display that's scratch-resistant and water-resistant. Both the black and purple models come with a 4GB microSD card for saving images and music, and the watch has 16GB of onboard storage. A camera sits on the front of the face for taking selfie videos and photos.

One of the best features of the BURG 12 is that its compatible with iOS and Android devices that support Bluetooth 3.0, so you won't be excluded depending on the type of smartphone you have. But pairing the watch to a smartphone isn't necessary: it includes a SIM card you can use to make and receive calls, and it comes with $25 of prepaid talk and text. BURG 12 is neither an iOS or Android Wear device so you won't be able to download apps to it from another operating system, but it comes with a slew of preinstalled apps, including a calendar, contact list, an MP3 player and a voice recorder.

For a $199 smartwatch, the BURG 12 is an avante-garde, albeit chunky, timepiece that shows off Dutch design elements that Herman van den Burg is known for. It's also packed with features -- almost too packed -- but we'll have to wait until we get our hands on one to see which of those features are the most useful to have in a smartwatch.

Valentina Palladino
Valentina Palladino

Valentina is Commerce Editor at Engadget and has covered consumer electronics for a number of publications including Tom's Guide, Wired, Laptop Mag and Ars Technica, with a particular focus on wearables, PCs and other mobile tech.