The Watch Urbane 2, or second edition, has just been announced by LG, bringing the very latest features to its line-up of smartwatches and expanding the offering of Android Wear.

Its namesake the LG Watch Urbane was introduced at Mobile World Congress 2015 some 6-months ago.

So what has changed, what is new and is it worth the upgrade? In short, what's the difference between LG's first Watch Urbane and the second edition? 

LG Watch Urbane 2 design improves

The LG Watch was launched with the premise of bringing sophisticated design to smartwatches. The metal finish and leather strap is designed to make it urbane in name, and urbane in nature. 

Although the LG Watch Urbane looks good, it is let down with a plastic back and wide flat lugs that means it doesn't sit naturally on the wrist, and is far too big for smaller wrists. It measures 45.5 x 52.2 x 10.9mm and weighs 66.5g.

The new LG Watch Urbane 2 (or second edition as LG calls it) has a design that looks better. It's still chunky, measuring 44.5 x 14.2mm, so the new watch is thicker. (LG hasn't revealed all the measurements at the time of writing.) 

But the integration of the lugs, and the addition of those buttons makes for better looks. It looks very much like the LG Watch Urbane LTE, which was higher quality than the regular first-gen Urbane. Both models are IP67 rated. 

LG Watch Urbane 2 display enhanced

The LG Watch Urbane uses a round P-OLED (plastic OLED) display, as does the first iteration of the Urbane. The new display is larger and a higher resolution for sharper details, with more pixels per inch. 

The LG Watch Urbane second edition has a 1.38-inch display with 480 x 480 pixel resolution, for 348ppi. The original Watch Urbane is 1.3-inch with a 320 x 320 pixels resolution, 245ppi. The new LG Watch Urbane second edition display will look better. 

LG Watch Urbane 2 is better connected

One of the biggest changes in the second-gen Watch Urbane is a cellular connection. You can use it independently of your smartphone, including taking and making calls. This is something you can't do on the original Watch Urbane. 

The Watch Urbane 2 offers Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi, LTE and 3G connectivity. 

Both are powered by the 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset and both have 4GB of storage. The newer watch gets a RAM boost, however, to 768MB, from 512MB of the original. 

LG Watch Urbane 2 battery boost

The LG Watch Urbane second gen has a 570mAh battery, which LG promises will make it through the day, although we can't be sure what the cellular drain on that will be. 

The original Watch Urbane has a 410mAh battery. We suspect the increase in battery is behind the increased thickness of the new Watch Urbane. We also suspect both will need charging at the end of each day.

LG Watch Urbane 2 gets GPS

The addition of GPS to the second edition Watch Urbane means it's going be able to gather more data about your movements, so might be better suited to active types. 

Both watch models offer a heart rate scanner, and a full range of motion sensors. The downside of adding GPS is that it can be a drain on power. You can expect that boosted battery to empty pretty quickly when tracking your exercise. 

LG Watch Urbane 2 doesn't have changeable straps

The original Watch Urbane has changeable straps, meaning you can dress the watch up for any occasion. 

However, as we understand it, the Watch Urbane 2 can't swap straps because the antenna for the cellular connection lives inside the strap (if we learn different, we'll update). It will be available with black, blue, white or traditional brown leather colours.

Conclusions

There's a spec boost for the new LG Watch Urbane second gen over the original, with the increase in the display resolution, the addition of untethered wireless connectivity and GPS the biggest changes. 

Those changes might negate the benefits of the increase in battery capacity, so you might find these watches offer the same endurance. 

We think the design of the newer Watch Urbane is better. We liked the LG Watch Urbane LTE when we saw it, and this new model seems to be closely related to that model. 

There's no word on pricing, however. With such a boost, we're expecting the LG Watch Urbane second gen to be expensive. As it stands, the £259 asking price for the original Watch Urbane makes it one of the most expensive Android Wear devices.