The Samsung Gear S is a curved, standalone smartwatch. It is mainly focused on style and design, when compared to the regular Samsung Gear smartwatches, such as the Gear 2 and the Gear 2 Neo. The design, which is curved, makes it more of a pleasure to wear as it better fits on your arm. It has a screen size of 2 inches and it’s a Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 360×480 pixels (300PPI). It also features a UV sensor and a small physical home button, just like Samsung mobile phones.
To start of with the clock, it now features an analog watchface which makes it seem like a more classy watch such as the Rolex and Patek Philippe ones, enriched by notification signs and such. It is running on Tizen and requires a way to connect to mobile networks, such as a SIM card in most countries. It then connects to the mobile network as if it is a mobile device itself; hence it is a standalone device. It can, however, also be used as a companion device next to a cell phone when connected via Bluetooth.
The UX of the Tizen software running on the device has been improved as well; when the user swipes to the left, an overview screen featuring all notifications is shown. From here, a user can choose to either dismiss, delete or reply to a notification such as an email or text message. To do this, the user can type directly onto the screen of the watch that has a small keyboard, which is Samsung’s default keyboard scaled to the size of the screen. However, to allow decent user input on such a small screen, Samsung has put in AutoCorrect and Predictive Text. If you really don’t want to type on such a small screen, the device also lets you use Dictation (Speech-To-Text) to reply or send messages.
When the user swipes to the right, the user will get to a screen where the most used apps are (for example the Pedometer and S Health apps), which makes it feel like s home screen on the watch. Those apps have been significantly improved, since it now has way better graphical views of the data it aggregates, such as Heartbeat and other graphs. Samsung also added an extended range of apps to unleash the true power of the device itself, as it is partnering with Nokia HERE Maps, Facebook, PayPal and other vendors, but also with smaller companies such as Fleksy Keyboard.
The Gear S is a Tizen based smart watch and is equipped with a 2-inch Super AMOLED (360×480) display, Dual-core CPU with a clock speed of 1GHz, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. In terms of connectivity, the device sports cellular connectivity, WiFi 802.11n, GPS, GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.1 and USB 2.0. It's also IP67 certified, dust and water resistant. Samsung has packed the device with a ton of sensors as well — Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Heart Rate, Ambient Light, UV and Barometer. Dimension-wise, the Gear S comes in at 39.8 x 58.3 x 12.5 mm. To power all the tech, there is a 300mAh battery which can last up to 2 days on a single charge.
The advised price from Samsung Benelux for the Gear S is €399.
