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Samsung Unveils Galaxy Gear Smartwatch
MojoKid writes "The smartwatch race heated up today, as Samsung showed its Galaxy Gear smartwatch at the Samsung Unpacked event in Berlin. Samsung's take on such a device has been eagerly anticipated. Samsung announced the Galaxy Gear as a companion to the new Galaxy Note 3 (or any Galaxy device). The Gear lets users make and receive calls hands-free with the built-in speaker, and it notifies you of any incoming texts, emails, and alerts and gives you a preview of whatever is coming through. A Smart Relay feature will display the full content on your Galaxy device. The Galaxy Gear sports an 800MHz processor and 1.63-inch display (320x320) AMOLED display with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, a speaker, and two microphones with noise cancellation. There's a 1.9MP camera with a BSI sensor and autofocus, and it connects via Bluetooth 4.0 + BLE. Sensors include an accelerometer and a gyroscope. Samsung plans to launch the smartwatch in October for $300."
Smart or not 300$ is expensive. Considering that Google is selling Nexus 4 phone for 200$ I'm not gonna buy this thing. Yeah, the battery life is like 10hrs or so. Bluetooth drains the battery fairly quickly so you'll end up charging this thing fairly often. No thanks.
really don't see why anyone would get this.
Expensive for needing a main device as a companion - making hands free calls is not a good enough reason for a $300 device, and the other items "alerts you of incoming texts/emails/etc" is a bit so what - if you have to pair this to a phone, having it near enough will mean that you'd get notified of this anyway.
I think it needed either a cool factor (flexible/wearable), or to be very useful (standalone device that could replace a phone).
Samsung should have contemplated this longer before shoving it out the door. Deliver useful things a smartphone can't and nothing more then you'll have better battery life and something stylish instead of that bulky thing.
just imagine scrolling through a long email on a 1.9" screen
or talking into your hand in public
Hell yeah, Escape from New York all the way! While a bit pricey I would not mind 1. Where I work we have to keep our phones in our desk or in our pockets, and it would be a great boon to me to see messages and who had called with a look at my wrist. Plus, I dont have to fish my phone out my pocket to see who calls. Or leave it on the bar in front of me. But the best use for me is that when I am in South America and my cell rings, I can see who it is, without alerting local crooks I have a smartphone.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Cant wait until this thing tanks and I can pick one up for cheap. This thing was made as a hedge in case anyone else came out with a watch, at least Samsung would be poised to compete. I believe wearable computers are in our future, just not in this very obvious form. Give me something that looks like a real watch, with DAYS of battery, and useful functions that dont require a larger device to run it all the time.
Good-bye
Its quite ugly not to mention far too bulky.
I'm not sure what benefit having this could provide anyway.
Can anyone provide a credible use-case?
Not as cool as the 1977 HP-01 calculator watch. Red LED display! Stylus to press the buttons! Ultimate nerd cool, and gorgeous. Still drawing multi-$k prices on ebay. Somehow I doubt you'll be able to give Samsung's device away 36 years from now.
A Dick Tracy / Michael Knight comm-watch, or a Star Trek comm-badge, plays well on screen. In real life speakerphones in public means zero privacy, sound quality and loudness are such that you can't hear it well in public unless it's right up to your ear, or it's so loud and clear it disturbs everyone within arm's length.
And of course, a lot of people text more than they talk now--also something this watch can't do.
Sure you could whip out the parent device in public to work around this, but that undercuts a big reason for having this watch in the first place.
Nowhere near as cool as the 15 Swatches I wore on both arms every day!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
This is just round one. Samsung also has a flexible display technology, and a patent application for a phone with a flexible display that wraps around the wearer's wrist. That has a lot more promise.
A wristband phone can offer much more vertical space. than a watch-like clunker. Wristbands can be wide or narrow, and can be made to look like jewelry. Twisting your wrist can control scrolling. Much more convenient than carrying a brick in your hand, and doesn't look so dweebish.
This could be the beginning of the end for round-cornered brick smartphones.
So what's the actual point of this? I guess I just don't get it. Do people really want these?
(320x320) AMOLED
Heck yes! That's perfect for a C64 emulator! *8^)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I doubt it's as water resistant as people have come to expect even from jewellery-type watches. Same goes for impact and scratch resistance. Watches get abused a bit more than a phone as they are out in the open all the time. If you spend $300 on a watch you usually get a sapphire crystal so you don't ever get any scratches. All of this will add up to people complaining about quality and durability.
You can have my Casio when you pull it from my cold, dead wrist, possibly from a pile of rubble.
Or from the bowl an the TSA station while I'm busy getting my extra through pat down at the airport.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I almost got a pebble, but I wanted an android based watch, and then I saw the Omate, but decided to wait and see what a big company like Samsung could do. I was actually really excited to get the Samsung watch, but now having seen it, at that price, I'd rather just get the Omate for $100 cheaper by backing their kickstarter. I know, kickstarters hardly ever live up to their promises, but the demo videos of the Omate look like exactly what I'm looking for.
I've been waiting for this because I wanted a phone that was easy to carry (like a watch, duh). I have been following the Omate TrueSmart on Kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/omate/omate-truesmart-water-resistant-standalone-smartwa
Now that Samsung has released more information, I'm very disappointed. It's not a stand alone phone, it requires the latest Samsung phone to be paired all of the time. It's crippled Android. (Not very attractive, either, compared to the Omate). The Omate is waterproof and is a fully functioning phone with better specs... and it's only $200.
I guess Samsung was just looking to create a fancy "accessory" for their phone without much functionality.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
which makes you look like a bigger tool: holding your over-sized phone up to your ear, or holding your watch up to your ear?
(I'll stick with my 3.3"-screen smartphone, thank you.)
www.gaiageek.com
Nowhere near as cool as the 15 Swatches I wore on both arms every day!
before you were mugged?
No, after he mugged 15 people wearing swatches.
Seriously? Talking into your hand in public? Christ, after Bluetooth headsets there is NOTHING to be ashamed of. Those stupid headsets make people look like they are talking to all sorts of shit only crazy people talk to. Trees, bus benches, themselves, urinals (or a penis), Bluetooth headsets were the end of civilization if you ask me.
Look, I'm as much of a tech nerd as anyone else, but the summary is written by someone who just doesn't "get it". Whether this product is successful will have almost nothing directly to do with the type of screen, amount of ram, or mHz of the processor. Users Care about what they can do with the watch and how it will improve their lives. Apple doesn't usually push the tech specs of their phone because nobody cares. People Care about the speed of losing their web page, the user friendliness on the email application, the quality of Photos taken with the camera, etc. The amount of ram is just an implementation detail. In fact, this is all doubly true in the case of specialized devices like this because: 1. They can tune the os and software to adjust the specs needed for decent performance. 2. They don't have to deal with running all sorts of legacy 3rd party apps. Now, what can this watch actually do? It can make calls, great, that means it's a fancy Bluetooth headset. It can take Photos? Ok, but so can the phone itself - what else?
...the days when you used to make things useful, that can do many things in a simple machine...not to make machines for every single scheize you want to sell.
What sort of watch only runs for 10 hours and when you glance at it doesn't show the time till you activate it?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.