Google Glass is arriving soon, with lucky Explorer program members getting their devices soonish, with units rolling off the production line right now, but you can find out right now what kind of hardware specs the gadget has thanks to a Google Glass support doc. The display is said to be equivalent to viewing a 25-inch HD display from eight feet, the camera captures 5 megapixel stills and 720p video, there’s 16GB of flash memory, of which 12GB are usable, and it has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on board.
It’s kind of weird talking about what Google Glass has inside, since there’s nothing to compare it to in terms of a broader device category. Phones are easy to stack up; we know roughly what constitutes a high-end or a mid-market device at any given time, and you can check the specs of a new handset and say it’s either deficient, adequate or above average based on those standards. But with Glass, is 16GB of storage paltry or plenty? No 802.11n Wi-Fi? Do I care? So many questions.
Other key specs include confirmation that it’ll use a Bone Conduction Transducer to deliver audio, which eliminates the need for earbuds, and the built-in battery should last for around a full day of use, just like your average smartphone, though shooting video and participating in Google Hangouts might be extra taxing. It also ships with a Micro USB cable and charger, and Google advises that users stick with the included adapter, instead of just any USB wall wart, for improved long-term Glass battery life.
Apple sparked a trend in computing of focusing more on the experience than on the specs, and nowhere will that be more true than with Google Glass, which has precious little in the way of precedent. The software (including the MyGlass companion app for Android) will be key, but it’s still cool to see what kind of guts Google is packing into its grand Glass experiment.