Both watches have Gorilla Glass 3 covering their 1.2-inch AMOLED displays. © ANDROIDPITīoth the Classic and standard Gear S2 are made of metal, but the regular S2 has a two-tone matte finish whereas the Classic is polished. The Gear S2 has a physical home and back button. It's a really intuitive way to use a smartwatch. You can still swipe between screens and menus, but the rotating bezel makes it easier to navigate quickly. The Gear S2 3G looks the same as the standard Gear S2. On the inside, all three devices are basically identical, except that the Gear S2 3G has an e-SIM and speaker for making calls, GPS, and a 20 percent larger battery than the others (300 mAh vs 250 mAh).Īll variants of the Gear S2 are round, and have two physical buttons – one to go back and one to go to the home screen or launch the app drawer – and a rotating bezel that can be used to navigate the Tizen interface. Our Gear S2 review focuses on the regular, sporty-looking Gear S2, and the more traditional-looking Gear S2 Classic.
I think we’re still a year or two away from chips and batteries that will allow for smart, useful wearable computers that last all day.The Samsung Gear S2 actually comes in three different versions: the standard Gear S2, the Gear S2 Classic and the Gear S2 3G. Throw in some actual work, though - like maintaining a 3G radio connection, or calculating turn-by-turn navigation - and you’re back down to just a few hours. If you just want your smartwatch to show you the time and your notifications, then yes, current battery tech can get you two or three days of use. Samsung says the Gear S’s battery is good for two days of use - but with a 300 mAh battery, you probably won’t get more than a few hours if you use the smartwatch like an actual smart device. The problem with the standalone smartwatch idea, though, is battery life.
Pair the Gear S with a Bluetooth headset, and you actually have a pretty awesome setup for business and on-the-go types - as long as you don’t need to do too much reading, of course (surfing the web on a smartwatch isn’t very fun). Rather than being forced to have a smartphone in your pocket, the Gear S could be your only smart device. The big play here, then, is the idea of a standalone smartwatch.
There are a ton of sensors that allow the Gear S to act as a fitness band, as well as something that vaguely resembles a very small smartphone. With Google wading into the wearables arena with Android Wear, I have a feeling that Tizen smartwatches won’t be around for long. The smartwatch will come preloaded with S Health, Nike+ Running, and Nokia’s Here maps for navigation. The Gear S, like the Gear 2 and Gear Neo, runs the Tizen operating system. The Samsung Gear S is the company’s first standalone smartwatch, using a built-in 3G connection to make/receive calls and texts, and to pull down notifications, emails, and so on from the internet. Is the world ready for a standalone smartwatch? Do we even have the battery technology to allow a 3G smartwatch to run for more than a few hours? And on top of all that, it seems Apple will unveil an iWatch alongside the iPhone 6 at its September 9 event.
This morning, following LG’s tease of the round-faced (but awfully named) G Watch R, Samsung has unveiled the curved Gear S - the first major smartwatch with its own 3G connection, allowing it to send/receive calls and generally act as an internet-connected smart device without being paired to a nearby smartphone. Whether you like it or not, it seems this fall will be all about the smartwatch.