By Samsung Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo hands-on | Samsung Gear Fit hands-on
The Samsung Galaxy S5 was made available around the globe in 125 countries today, so you had to expect Samsung’s latest line of smartwatches would be coming along for the ride, as well. The Samsung Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit have all launched today, giving Galaxy owners a compelling new option in the smartwatch arena.
The new devices are all based on Tizen, not Android, but they work mostly the same as the Android-based Galaxy Gear did yesteryear. Base specs for the Gear 2 are pretty nice for a smartwatch’s standard:
- 1.63-inch 320 x 320 AMOLED display
- 1GHz dual-core processor
- 512MB of RAM
- 4GB of internal storage
- 2 megapixel camera
- Pedometer, heart rate sensor, sleep cycle monitor and more
- Bluetooth 4.0 LE
- irLED
- Accelerometer and gyroscope
- 300mAh battery good for about 2-3 days of “typical” usage
You can chop off the camera on the Gear 2 Neo and get the same spec sheet, really. The Gear Fit, meanwhile, shakes things up just a tad. It’s primarily meant for fitness tracking, and employs a wide-angle aspect ratio compared to the other two.
The Gear Fit and Gear 2 Neo will run you $200 right now if you want one, with the more capable Gear 2 being $300 for those couple of extra bells and whistles. You can find them for order on Amazon in the links above if you’re interested. Let us know if you’ll be looking to grab one of these by dropping a comment below!
I honestly thought the Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit were borderline exciting, minus the fact that you need a Galaxy device to use them. Then, Android Wear was announced and I was all like
Lol don’t know what’s the surprise here, Microsoft doesn’t make accessories for the Playstation, why would they?
There is a difference. XBox and Playstation aren’t running the same operating system! I think it is dumb of Samsung to do this because these watches aren’t that exciting and it looks like the watches made by other phone manufacturers will run on competitor devices.
Well if the watches weren’t that exciting there wouldn’t be so many people complaining that they are only Samsung compatible. Plus if you notice the Gear 2 runs Tizen not android so they don’t run the same OS. My point is that I agree that it sucks that Samsung makes the watches just to be used with their phones but I just can’t see how it would ever be different than that from a business stand point. Maybe samsung could in the future make a nexus watch and that’d change, but we’ll have to wait on that for now.
The phones are running the same operating system. That was my point.
The watches are not that exciting when compare to the upcoming Android Wear watches coming out soon. I think people are complaining more about Samsung acting like Apple by making the watches exclusive to their own phones than not being able to get one. Android is about open devices not proprietary ones.
But, Samsung’s ecosystem with Tizen is new and nearly non-existent when it comes to supported apps. Android Wear literally supports every app on the Play Store thanks to the notification listener API.
From what I read the Gear 2 is compatible with android apps so I don’t see much of a deal breaker here. So far, Tizen or not, the Gear 2 is the best smart watch available and I’m glad that if I ever decide to buy it I have a Note 3 to go along with it. =P
The Tizen based Gear SDK allows developers to create both Android and web apps. Having the capability to use millions of existing apps right off the bat (Android Wear) isn’t the same thing as creating or modifying existing apps for compatibility.
Moto 360 looks sweet!
I honestly don’t know why so many people like to rag on these Samsung watches. OK, so they’re not compatible outside of Samsung’s phones but that’s not reason enough to practically denounce them as these horrible pieces of crap that everyone on the internet seems to be saying they are.
I for one think they’re very stylish and I like how they look and function. I plan on getting the Gear 2 Neo and I know I’ll be happy with it.
My bday is next week yall. Just saying!!
Im definitely getting the Note 4 with the Gear it come with.