[rwp-review id=”0″]
Samsung has entered the wearables war early on with the release of its first Gear. Less than a year and a half later and with brands rushing to release their own versions of smartwatches; Samsung has amassed a range of 5 smartwatches: The Gear, Gear 2, Gear Fit, Gear 2 Neo and now Gear S.
The Gear S is Samsung’s most ambitious attempt at the wearables realm. It’s a smartwatch that literally does it all, almost.
Design
The smartwatch is somewhat on the larger side. It covers up the wrist entirely, naturally curving up around it. Despite its large size it feels quite comfortable on the wrist, and thanks to its side curves it doesn’t press up on the hand when tilted upwards. That said, its presence is always felt due to its size and typing while wearing it is rather annoying.
The large size looks bulky and doesn’t suit all types of outfits. That’s important because being a smartwatch that costs AED 1,299 ($352) and has and does it all, it’s expected to always be worn. It was good to see that the strap is changeable, which at least ensures you can buy some straps that suit your style.
The curved 2 inch AMOLED display is surrounded with a very large black bezel compared to its overall size, especially on the top and lower parts, and that is surrounded with a metal rim. The lower part can be excused on the count of having the ambient light sensor and the home button. The top part is considerably large and ends up increasing the overall smarwatch’s size, contributing to its bulkiness. We’re not sure if this was an aesthetic or technical choice by Samsung. Either way, perhaps it’s something they need to minimize in the next iteration.
The back of the Gear S has the charger pins, heart rate monitor and the SIM card hatch. Yes, the Gear S can have its own SIM card. More on that later.
The strap is rubbery and comfortable to wear. It does feel a little cheap though. The clamp is stainless steel and is sturdy and reliable.
Software
Like the rest of the Gear family, the Gear S uses Samsung’s own Tizen software.
This is a smartwatch that’s more like a smartphone! You can make and answer calls directly from the watch without even needing a phone (if you’ve installed the SIM card on it). You can respond to emails and messages, if you can handle the tiny keyboard keys (alternatively, you can use S Voice to dictate). You can even browse the internet using a dedicated Gear S Opera browser which can be found and installed from Samsung’s Galaxy App store. And like its predecessors and not so distantly released siblings, the Gear 2 and Gear Fit, it’s water resistant and can measure your heartbeat through the sensor.
Pressing the home button takes you to the home screen, which is changeable to many built in and downloadable templates. Swiping upwards from the home screen takes you to the app drawer. Apps need the phone to be downloaded and installed on the watch. Swiping downwards from the home screen shows a status screen with volume and brightness toggles (brightness can be set on Auto). Swiping right from the home screen takes you to the widgets and swiping left takes you to your notifications. You can at any point press the home button to return to the home screen. Pressing it again turns the screen off. And finally, swiping down from the top on any screen takes you back to the previous screen.
This all sounds a bit confusing, and in reality we found it needs a little getting used to. But it’s one of those things that one can get accustomed to over a short period of time.
The Gear S has a built in 3G modem, GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi. It’s really geared to ensure you’re never disconnected and never out of touch. Of course you’d need to issue a secondary SIM card on your original one if you want to use the same phone number or a completely new SIM card with a new number. Either way, you’d still need to subscribe to some version of data packages if you want your Gear S to be connected through 3G.
The Gear S comes out of the box with built in Phone, Contacts, Messages, Email, Schedule, Navigator, S Health, Nike+, Music Player, News Briefing, Weather, S Voice, Alarm, Gallery and Find My Device apps. You can also choose from an increasing number of apps present on Samsung’s Galaxy App store to compliment what is already there.
For more details on the S Health and notifications functionality, you can read through our Gear 2 and Gear Fit review.
Making calls using the Gear S can be very simple or a little complicated. If you’re making a call from the call log or contacts, it’s very simple. All you have to do is tap on the contact you need to call. However, if you need to actually type the phone number in, you’ll have to deal with the tiny on screen keypad. This will prove very challenging if you have fat fingers. Typing on the on screen keyboard is a whole different challenge.
But this is where it gets confusing. The Gear S can do almost anything a smartphone can do, yet it is completely reliant on a compatible specifically Samsung smartphone to a) download apps, and b) work at all! That’s right, you can’t set up the watch without pairing it with a compatible Samsung phone first using the Gear Manager app on that phone. We found this to be counter intuitive and defeating the purpose of having such a smartwatch that’s so independent with its hardware and feature set.
Performance
The Gear S performed quite well overall and considering how bloated with features it is. We experienced slight lagging when navigating between different screens, especially when widgets are involved, but we found the overall experience quite smooth and satisfying.
The built in microphone performs very well, we were told from the people we called, however, you might find it a little difficult hearing the other side using the built in speaker if you’re in a crowded/noisy place; even at maximum volume. This shouldn’t be a problem at all if you’re in a closed, not so noisy, space. You could also pair up the watch with a bluetooth headset for a better call experience. Of course, there’s little point in that since you can pair the bluetooth headset directly with your smartphone.
Thankfully and unlike its predecessors, the Gear S has an ambient light sensor, automatically adjusting the brightness of the display depending on the ambient light around you. This is very practical for a smartwatch.
The battery lasted for about 2 days, which is on par with the competition’s offering and decent enough to not cause any discomfort.
Verdict
The Gear S is a smartwatch with a beautiful 2 inch AMOLED curved display that pretty much does everything a smartphone does, yet is still dependent on a smartphone to set up and function. It’s got everything, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, apps, heart rate monitor, etc. It’s really very hard to think of something you’d need in a smartwatch that the Gear S doesn’t have.
Where it does fall short though is with its bulky size, steep price and dependance on a particular set of Samsung’s smartphones. A smartwatch this diverse and this powerful should work with any smartphone.
