Deal: original Asus ZenWatch gets priced at $129 on Google Play, down from $199

Amazon currently sells the same smartwatch for $149, meaning that Google currently beats the best price in the US by $20. It's not much, but smart shoppers will recognize the value.

The original ZenWatch, launched by Asus last November, comes with a 1.63-inch AMOLED display running a resolution of 320 by 320 pixels, a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 chip paired with 512MB of RAM, and a 360 mAh Li-polymer battery. At the moment, the first-gen Asus ZenWatch runs Android Wear 5.1.1.

One of the more interesting details about the Asus ZenWatch is that the wearable's heart rate sensor is integrated on the sides and not on the back. This means that users have to monitor their heart rate by holding the side of the watch, which is a bit unusual.

Back last fall when we reviewed the Asus ZenWatch, we were especially impressed with the design of the wrist piece, an elegant blend of "premium quality materials and a solid foundation". Check out the full Asus ZenWatch review for a more detailed analysis.

This series of price cuts in which the Asus ZenWatch has been involved in recently clearly indicates that the company is looking to clear stock before launching the ZenWatch 2, the second-gen Asus smartwatch that the manufacturer unveiled back in early June at Computex 2015 in its home country of Taiwan. The exact pricing and availability of the ZenWatch 2 has yet to be announced.