A while back, we took a look at Samsung’s new Gear S2 smartwatch, which is probably the best oneswe’ve seen released in 2015. Well, Samsung actually made two versions of this watch. Meet the Gear S2 Classic and damn, does this thing look good…
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Today we’re taking a closer look at Samsung’s Gear S2. This new smartwatch was announced just last month during IFA 2015 and has been the talk of the town lately. We took a first look at it not too long ago and compared it with one of the other top smartwatches on the market, but it’s finally available to purchase. Either way, the Gear S2 is shaping up to be one of the top dogs in smartwatches thanks to some of its unique features — which surprisingly have nothing to do with Android Wear. Yep… this little guy is running Tizen and for the first time, I absolutely love it…
Samsung has announced that its latest smartwatch, the Tizen-based Gear S2, will go on sale at a number of retail locations from this Friday, October 2nd. The regular S2 and the S2 Classic will cost $299 and $349 respectively and will be available from Samsung direct, Amazon, Best Buy and Macy’s. What’s more, customers will be able to get their hands on the devices exclusively at Best Buy and Macy’s Herald Square on October 2, and 50 Macy’s store’s across the States from October 16.
Samsung’s recently announced Gear S2 has stirred a lot of attention for itself over the past few weeks. The sleek, round design, attractive user interface, rotating bezel and non-discriminatory Android support all sets it up nicely to be one of this year’s most desired wearables. Samsung is yet to announce when the device will hit retail stores in the States, but if a leaked internal training video is anything to go by, it looks as though the company is prepping for an October 2 release…
Samsung’s recently revealed smartwatch, the Gear S2, has seemingly had its European pricing outed by German electronic retailer Saturn. The Tizen-based wearable will be available as a standard and more premium Classic model – with similar pricing to the entry-level Apple Watch …
Today we’re taking a look at Samsung’s new Gear S2 and S2 Classic. If you’ve been in the market for a new Android Wear smartwatch, you may want to hold out for one of these instead. The Gear S2 is standard model that looks a little sporty, but definitely feels great in the build department, while the S2 Classic will give you more of, well, a classic watch style…
With Samsung deciding to host its own event to launch the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge+ today, we assumed the company was ditching IFA altogether. Turns out that’s not the case. Right at the end of today’s presentation, the Korean tech giant teased its next smartwatch, the Gear S2. It will be unveiled in Berlin on September 3rd.
Earlier this year, it was reported that Samsung was working on a fully rounded smartwatch for launch sometime in 2015. At the time, details were sparse, but now SamMobile has shared another report with more details of the company’s device. According to SamMobile, Samsung’s rounded smartwatch will be called the Gear A and feature support for 3G data and calling.
Samsung today revealed its first Tizen-powered smartphone, dubbed the Z1. The phone was originally teased as the “Samsung Z” in June of last year, and was supposed to be available in Russia in Q3 2014, but faced delays that pushed the release back until the new year.
Rather than launching the Z1 in Russia, however, Samsung is instead opting to only make the device available in India for the time being. While the originally teased phone featured decent specs, the version that went to market today sports decidedly less advanced internals targeting the entry-level market.
The Times of India reports that the Delhi high court has banned Xiaomi from both importing and selling smartphones in India following a patent infringement claim by Ericsson.
Hearing a case filed by Ericsson India against Xiaomi, the court on Monday passed an ex parte order forbidding the popular Chinese manufacturer from importing and selling its smartphones in India […]
It is not clear if the order will impact all Xiaomi devices sold in India or specific devices that violate the patents.
However, as the patents concerned are Standard Essential Patents – patents which are so fundamental to a particular product category that the patent owner is obliged by law to license them on reasonable terms – it appears likely that the ruling applies to all Xiaomi handsets …
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Samsung recently announced a new addition to its Tizen-based smartwatch lineup. The Gear S is a standalone smartwatch that will work without the need of a smartphone. It packs a cellular radio, accepts a SIM card, and is bulky enough to fit all of that inside…
HERE, the competitor to Google Maps initially available only on Windows Phone, has arrived on Android for the first time. Initially, the beta version of the Android app will be limited to Samsung Galaxy smartphones.
The main claim to fame of the app is that it offers the ability to download entire regions or countries for offline use, in contrast to Google Maps which only allows you to cache areas you have viewed while online. HERE maps currently cover around 200 countries, though turn-by-turn directions are so far limited to about half of these …
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An infographic posted by Samsung claims there are more than a thousand apps for its Galaxy Gear smartwatches (actually, it claims “more than a thousand of Gear Apps,” but we’ll gloss over that).
The number is presumably aimed at people like me, who still look at smartwatches in a somewhat bemused fashion, viewing them as a solution in search of a problem. “Look at all the things they can do,” is the message here.
I don’t doubt the number, but quantity of apps doesn’t tell us much about their usefulness – and when Samsung chooses to lead its top five recommended apps with one that measures how much water we’re drinking, I have to say that does nothing to persuade me that the devices are so far little more than a novelty …
Samsung announced today that its official Developers Conference is returning again this year and will kick off November 11 at Moscone West in San Francisco. Last year, Samsung held its first developer conference in San Francisco in October and showed off a number of new features for developers across its product lineups. That includes its Mobile SDK for Android, Smart TV SDK 5.0 Multiscreen Gaming SDK, Multiscreen SDK, and its KNOX Enterprise SDK beta that’s arriving this year natively in Android. This year Samsung makes a venue change to the Moscone West Center used by both Apple and Google for their developer conferences that took place earlier this year.
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According to a new report out of The Information, the already tense relationship between Samsung and Google has begun to worsen thanks to both of their own lines of wearables. The report claims that Google CEO Larry Page and Samsung Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee took part in an a “tense” private meeting at the Allen & Co. conference last week in Sun Valley. The meeting reportedly centered around Page being frustrated that Samsung was investing more in its smartwatches running Tizen than the ones running Android Wear.
I was debating which Android Wear watch to get at Google I/O between the Samsung Gear Live and the LG G Watch. Sadly what won out overall was probably the look of the Gear Live (which looks like a Tizen-powered Gear 2 minus the camera and a few other minor details). Samsung’s offering also has heartbeat monitor and a higher resolution OLED display but LG has a bigger battery and LCD display (which didn’t help much with outside viewing from my brief usage).
I’ll say what everyone else was saying: We’d all rather have the Moto 360. But those come later this summer – which ends in September. Both the industrial design and the almost round face put the Moto 360 in another league but will probably put it in another price league as well. Both LG and Samsung will come in around $200.
How was the experience with the Samsung Gear Live?
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About a year later than first expected, Samsung has finally announced its first smartphone running Tizen instead of Android, the Samsung Z.
While this particular handset is only launching in Russia initially (sometime in Q3), it’s notable in a couple of ways. First, the spec – while not cutting edge – is pretty decent. Powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core processor and 2GB RAM, it has a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display (though only in 1280×720 resolution) and the fingerprint sensor that has so far been exclusive to the S5. It’s not the low-end spec many had expected from Tizen …
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Samsung is dumping Android for Tizen. Well not completely, but the company is moving its Galaxy Gear smartwatch to its in-house operating system. An update for the first Galaxy Gear is now available through Samsung’s Kies software and in addition to a platform jump the download brings a trove of new features to this smart timepiece.
Samsung is working on a competitor for Google Glass that will be announced in September during IFA in Berlin, according to Business Korea. Aptly referred to as “Gear Glass,” the unannounced wearable is expected to be revealed alongside the Galaxy Note 4 and it’s rumored to run the Tizen operating system used by the Samsung Gear 2.
To paraphrase the old real-estate line, the three factors most likely to drive the success or failure of a new operating system are apps, apps and apps. If Samsung is going to get its new Tizen-powered Gear 2 and Gear 2 Nano smartwatches to take off, it needs apps, and lots of them.
To persuade developers to create apps for what is currently a tiny market, the company has announced the Samsung Gear App Challenge, offering a total of $1.25M in prize money for the best Tizen apps. Samsung made the announcement in conjunction with Hackathon and Developer Day events in six countries to date, with more to follow.
The competition is scheduled to begin on 8th May.
If you’re still wondering which of the Gear smartwatches might be best for you, check out our detailed comparison.
Via SamMobile
Out of the three smartwatches recently released by Samsung, the Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit seem to be questioned the most. Both of these device are priced at $199 and offer similar features, but which one should you buy? Take a look at our full comparison video between these two wearables to find out.
If you’re looking into the Gear 2, you may be surprised to find that the extra $100 will only get you a camera and a slightly different (metal) build quality on the face of the watch. When compared to the Gear 2 Neo, everything else is identical. With that being said, the best options you should consider are the Gear Fit and Gear 2 Neo.
While Samsung has confirmed plans to debut phones running Tizen instead of Android, senior vice president of Samsung’s product strategy team Yoon Han-kil says Android will remain Samsung’s “main business.” The executive also confirmed in the same interview with Reuters that two Tizen smartphones will debut in Q2 with Tizen being used on devices launching only in certain markets:
““We had tried to launch (Tizen) with DoCoMo and Orange … but couldn’t because of poor market conditions. We have changed our strategy and will release the phones in a few countries where we can do well,” he said, adding that he thought Tizen would have to account for up to 15 percent of Samsung’s total smartphone shipments to become a successful platform.
Samsung officially made the switch from an almost all Android ecosystem for its mobile devices to Tizen for its latest round of Gear smartwatches. However, Yoon also confirmed to Reuters that the company plans on releasing an Android smartwatch later in the year, which will presumably be based off Google’s recently unveiled Android Wear platform.
We’ve got our hands on another one of Samsung’s latest smartwatch offerings. After taking a closer look at the Gear Fit, we’re checking out Samsung’s mid-range smartwatch option. The Gear 2 Neo is a slightly scaled back version of the Gear 2, but overall there aren’t many differences between the two.
iFixit has done a tear-down of Samsung’s Galaxy Gear 2 smartwatch, giving it a score of 8/10 for repairability. The company praised the ease of replacement of the watch-strap, and says that it’s easy to open the case and replace the battery.
The only bad news is that the display assembly is a fused unit, meaning any failure in its components would require the entire assembly to be replaced.
The Gear 2 ditched Android in favor of Tizen, and better power management means that the battery now lasts 2-3 days. The watch goes on sale on Friday, but pre-orders are available on Amazon.
