A Busy April 10: Apple Watch Preorders, Samsung Galaxy S6 Sales Begin

by Todd R. Weiss

Preorders for Apple Watches begin at 3:01 a.m. EDT on April 10 for the long-awaited digital smartwatches that will enable users to receive messages right on their wrist as well as allow them to receive telephone calls. The watch faces are very customizable by users.

The least-expensive Apple Watch, the Sport, is available with a silver or space-gray aluminum body and with wristbands in many colors. All Apple Watches include a feature called “glances,” which brings information that users want to check often and quickly right to the watch face.

Starting at $549, standard Apple Watches come in a 38mm-wide version, while a larger 42mm model is $599. Prices for the 38mm version can rise to $1,049, while prices for the 42mm model can rise to $1,099, depending on watchbands. Fluoroelastomer or leather bands are also offered.

Starting at a cool $10,000 for a watch in 18-karat gold, there is the Apple Watch Edition luxury version, which tops out at $17,000. The luxury models include more refined materials and extra cache for the most demanding owners.

The latest Galaxy S6 is a big step up from the Galaxy S5 that preceded it, with a new 64- bit Exynos 7 eight-core processor, higher performance, a chassis made of aircraft-grade aluminum, a higher resolution 5.1-inch, quad HD Super AMOLED (Super active-matrix organic LED) display and a raft of other improvements.

The flashier and more sculptured Galaxy S6 Edge features a bright display that wraps around both front side edges of the handset and gives users the ability to configure the edge display area to deliver incoming messages or other information.

The all-metal HTC One M9 features a 5-inch, full HD 1080p display, an eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of built-in storage, a 20GB rear-facing camera and a 2,840mAh battery. It runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Being launched by AT&T on April 10, the new Asus MeMO Pad 7 LTE tablet is an Android machine with a 7-inch HD IPS+ display, a 1.3GHz quad-core Intel Atom processor, 16GB of built-in storage and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with advanced shooting modes.