The Gear Sport is at the SamMobile office, and while we're working on the full review, we felt like sharing a few thoughts about the watch in this short preview. For those unaware, Samsung announced the Gear Sport at the IFA as a small upgrade to the Gear S3. The Gear Sport is smaller (something a lot of consumers had asked for) and its highlight feature is its ability to withstand water at up to 50 meters of depth.
Samsung Gear Sport preview
Our Gear Sport arrived last Friday, and I was surprised to see that Samsung has sent us the blue version. We normally receive black review units, which can lead to monotony and also make it harder for us to take great pictures. The first thing I noticed after unboxing the watch was its size. The Gear Sport feels small compared to the Gear S3 Frontier I use everyday, and it also gave me mixed feelings in terms of design.
The Gear Sport has design elements from both Gear S3 variants. It has the buttons from the Frontier model and the bezel ring from the Classic Gear S3. However, the bezel ring doesn't have laser engravings, unlike the ring seen on the Gear S3. A nice little detail here is that the heart rate sensor juts out by around 1 mm from the rest of the body, which means the sensor is closer to your skin compared to the Gear S3; this will hopefully make for increased accuracy when detecting heart rate.
Something unexpected on the Gear Sport is the presence of a microUSB port, even though USB Type-C is close to becoming the new standard (I guess this isn't exactly a deal breaker, but it's still odd to see on a 2017 product). The Gear Sport has almost the same interface as the previous Gear smartwatches. The icons have been upgraded to match those on the Samsung Experience UX on the company's 2017 phones. I'm glad the see the interface hasn't changed much, and I have to say the new sporty watch faces that come preloaded look awesome.
I can't wait to share my final opinion on the Gear Sport, so stay tuned for our in-depth review! Have questions about the watch? Ask away in the comments and we'll do our best to answer them!
