The Pebble Time's battery lasts a lot longer.
Pebble claims the new Time smartwatch can last up to seven days on a single charge, while Apple claims the Apple Watch has an "all-day" battery life of 18 hours, so there's little contest there. It also realistically needs to be recharged every night.
Battery life might be the most important detail on a smartwatch as the battery plays a huge role in what the Watch can do and for how long.
In our tests, we found the Pebble Time lasts a little over four days on a charge. The Apple Watch lasts about a day and a half, so you'll still have to charge it every night.
The screen stays on all the time.
If a smartwatch is going to replace a nice "dumb" watch, or if it's going to act as a watch at all, it had better tell the time seamlessly whenever you look at it.
Unfortunately, the Apple Watch's limited battery life means the display is dark for most of the day, only waking when you make a time-checking wrist gesture. Sometimes it won't register your wrist movement well enough to wake the display, and you have to repeat the gesture in order to tell the time.
Meanwhile, the Pebble Time's color "e-paper" display is a battery sipper and stays on all day and night for days. Sure, it's not as sharp or colorful as the Apple Watch's display, but at least it tells the time all the time.
Anyone can make a watch face for the Pebble.
There are hundreds of watch faces for Pebble owners to chose from, but Apple Watch owners only have 10. That's because Pebble lets developers build customized watch faces. Apple doesn't.
Apple will surely release new faces over time, and it may even release a watch face developer's kit to let developers create third party Apple Watch faces.
The Pebble Time is waterproof up to 30 meters.
The Pebble Time is water resistant down to about 30 meters (almost 100 feet), while the Apple Watch is only rated for water resistance down to one meter (about three feet).
The Apple Watch is fine for showering or doing the dishes, and we've seen the it being used deeper under water, but you won't exactly want to test its limits by going swimming with it.
The Pebble Time works with Android devices and the iPhone.
The Apple Watch is compatible with the iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, 6, and 6 Plus. The Pebble Time, on the other hand, works with both iOS and Android devices via Bluetooth, and it can work with even more iPhones than the Apple Watch can, including the iPhone 4 and 4s.
The Pebble uses the international standard for wrist straps.
The Pebble's compatibility with 22mm watch straps means you can attach any of the millions of watch straps available. The Apple Watch's straps are beautiful, but you can only use Apple's own straps that can get extremely expensive. The Link Bracelet costs more than certain models of the Watch itself.
Apple will let third-parties make straps for the Apple Watch, but it'll likely be a few more months before those go on sale.
Speaking of straps, the Pebble Time will have "Smart Straps."
Smart straps will give the Pebble some additional functionality that you might feel is missing, like a heart rate monitor, for example.
Smart straps aren't available yet, but the developer's kit is available online for those with the know-how to work on.
The Pebble is cheaper.
The regular Pebble Time costs $199, while the Pebble Time Steel will set you back $299. It's expensive, but not as much as the least expensive 38mm Apple Watch Sport, which goes for $349.
You get some good bang for your buck with the Pebble Time, especially since it acts more like a watch than Apple's smartwatch. But the Pebble's comparatively utilitarian look and feel might not be for everyone.
