Over the years and with its evolution, Samsung’s Gear S smartwatch has gained great respect in the wearable space. At first, there was a lot of speculation about why the watch wasn’t based on Google’s Android Wear. One wondered if it meant Samsung was trying to break with Google and go its own way, replacing Android altogether.
But times change and let’s just say Samsung did a good job with its smartwatch, now called the Gear S2 and based on Samsung’s Tizen operating system. It’s stable, solid, and in many ways a better experience than Android Wear which many feel is so unfinished.
Being a Moto 360 2nd generation watch user, I can’t help comparing the two. The S2 version I used was the sporty one, not the Classic with its leather strap. The regular round Gear S2 has a tough silicon strap and I’m pleasantly surprised at how it feels. While my beautiful beige leather strap on the Moto 360 has blackened and weakened leaving me wondering where I’m going to get a replacement, the Gear S2’s strap can be given a quick wet wipe if it gets dirty. It also is so solid I don’t see it cracking or fraying. The strap latches into the stainless steel body of the watch.
The Gear S2 isn’t huge, in this version, so it’ll do for both men and women. It’s also not heavy, thankfully. I think it’s just smartly sporty.
But what people love most about the Gear S2 is a fantastic rotating bezel all around that moves with a subtle but very solid softclicking. That’s what takes you around the watch, along with a home and back button unobtrusively placed on one side. The rotating circumference though is the part that is totally unique to this watch and what people love most about it.
On the back of the watch is the heart rate sensor — some watches don’t come with one, so it’s a big plus. The device also does your basic activity measurement and ties in with the Samsung S Health app. Unlike Android Wear devices, this isn’t a Google watch and doesn’t have all the usual Google functionality which is at the heart of other watches and makes them useful. Being based on an operating system used by just a few Samsung devices, the watch doesn’t have the usual full ecosystem of apps available to it, but Samsung has just released a group of them including sleep tracker, note taker, Uber, and even an app to browse YouTube.
Samsung has tried to make the Gear S2 more functional by putting in everything they can at the moment. You can’t make calls, as there’s no speaker on most of these watches, but you can do some basic messaging and use a tiny (though somewhat painful to use) keyboard, voice input and canned messages. A 3G version does have a speaker. The 250mAh battery lasts the day. Since there is no GPS, that’s not draining the battery fast either.
Overall, the Gear S2 is a great piece of hardware with software that needs to be taken forward. Samsung has just launched a rose gold version, making the number of variants available, five, going up to Rs 34,000 in price.
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
