The exosuits from ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ aren’t fictional anymore

The term “exoskeleton” conjures up sci-fi scenes – think Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, or Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt battling aliens on repeat in Edge of Tomorrow. Soldiers will surely man these mechanical machines someday, but many of the first exosuits will be developed for civilian use, from first responders pulling through rubble to laborers who could use a little extra support for their heavy lifting.

By 2020, robotics company Sarcos hopes to see workers climb into its line of fully-powered exoskeletons, designed to give people superhuman strength and endurance, while allowing them to repetitively lift large objects and minimize risk of injury. The company demoed some of its machines at its headquarters in Salt Lake City last week.

“We’re focused developing robots to augment human safety and productivity,” Ben Wolff, CEO of Sarcos, told Digital Trends. “This idea that we’ve got the ability to have a human either wearing or remotely operating a machine so that there’s always a human mind engaged in the decision-making process that is then instructing a robot that is stronger, with more stamina and greater precision, doing the real work.”

Sarcos plans to offer three exoskeletons over the next few years, each giving wearers a different degree of strength and endurance support. The Guardian XO will let wearers lift 80 pounds, the Guardian XO Max will max out at 200 pounds, and the Guardian GT — a monster of a machine with seven-foot arms — will handle upwards of 1,000 pounds. Both the GT and XO Max can be controlled by an operator who is either remote or riding in the machine.

To keep wearers safe, the Salt Lake City company has developed a patented system it calls “get out of the way control,” which will make sure the suit doesn’t accidentally squish a person inside.

“The suit and your body interact like two opposing magnets.”

“Imagine the suit and your body interacting with one another in the way that two opposing magnets would,” Wolff explained. “Through its sensor system, the suit is programmed to maintain a very small but very specific amount of distance from contact with your body. As a result, as you begin to move, swing your leg forward, it immediately moves to keep the front of the machine leg away from the front of your leg.”

Automation is bound to impact every worker in every industry. But rather than going fully automated, many tasks — particularly those that are performed in unstructured environments — may instead be performed by human workers augmented by machines. The goal here is to maintain a human’s cognitive flexibility with a machine’s strength and resilience.

“As soon as you move into a more unstructured environment where … you’re on a construction site and have to lift heavy items from one floor to the next in a one-off activity, not a lot of high repetition, that’s where it becomes far more challenging to find how automation to take control,” Wolff said. “The number of algorithms, sensors, awareness that a machine has to have to deal with the thousands of different variables…is simply far too advanced to rely on a computer and algorithm to help a robot decide what it needs to do.”

“For now,” he added, “let’s take the best of what a human being can offer, such as wisdom, judgement, intelligence, and instincts, and combine that with the best of what a robot can offer, in terms of strength, endurance, and precision.”

Like all companies that specialize in building the future, Sarcos is looking to stand out from competitors and thinks its full-body, fully-powered, and untethered machines will be a game changer. Hyundai, for example, is developing a full-body suit that needs to be tethered for full power, while companies like Panasonic and SuitX are developing smaller and untethered suits, which help give a wearer physical support and added strength, but don’t restrict the wearer’s freedom to roam.

Sarcos hasn’t offered an exact price for its exoskeletons yet, but Wolff says, “The cost to the user would be roughly equivalent to the cost of a fully-loaded salary employee in the $50,000 per year range … The one human operator plus our robot would cost roughly that of two human employees, but will allow for far fewer injuries and enhanced productivity.”

The company hopes to have the XO suits ready for commercial sale in 2019 and is currently taking preorders for custom-built GTs.

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• Walmart expands fleet of robots to new stores, but promises it won’t cut jobs
• Smart sensors will make sure you lift with your knees bent and back straight

Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes Apple apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers put paid apps on sale for free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest iOS app deals available from the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

Airport + flight tracker

This app takes you to airports to see restaurants, shops, and Wi-Fi capabilities. Airport lets you know if your flight has been delayed or cancelled and gives you the tools needed to quickly find an alternate flight and rebook, all in one place.

Available on:

iOS

Storyline

Create, narrate and share beautiful slideshows from your device in seconds. Add up to 20 photos, record your story, and share by text, email, or on your social networks.

Available on:

iOS

Picfx

Picfx is a powerful suite of filters and image adjustment tools for photo and video. Start editing your photo/video with your favorite filter, then use image adjustments such as exposure, contrast, and vignette to refine the edit.

Available on:

iOS

Baby Mozart

This app promises to make your life easier, help your baby sleep better, and help develop their brain with the most popular classical music for babies. Don’t waste your time using multiple apps for white noise and playing music, this app combines all those essential functionalities into one.

Available on:

iOS

Boba

A browser and mobile safari extension that lets you speed read your favorite web content, including NYTimes, HuffPo, ESPN, blogs, or any other news site.

Available on:

iOS

Fotograf

Besides having 36 amazingly versatile, high-quality filters and a buttery-smooth interface, Fotograf does many useful things your other photo apps don’t, like making your own preset filters.

Available on:

iOS

Editor’s Recommendations

• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

After a seven-year wait, PCI Express 4.0 will turbocharge your next PC

Why it matters to you

Improved PCIE bandwidth offers the most immediate benefits to hefty, multi-GPU systems, but should trickle down to aide other components over time.

A new iteration of the humble PCI Express (PCIE) port could open up the floodgates for even more powerful graphics cards in the future, by increasing the available bandwidth by 100 percent. The new PCI Express 4.0 standard allows for the transfer of up to 64GBps in a duplex x16 port.

PCI Express technology has improved by leaps and bounds over the past decade and a half. It’s gone through several iterations, each one of them doubling available bandwidth. That has helped improve the capabilities of single and multiple graphics card configurations, and has also enabled the use of high-speed solid state drives (SSD) in form factors like M.2.

The debut of the latest generation of PCIE was announced by chairman and president of PCI-SIG, Al Yanes. He said in his blog post that PCIE 4.0 would bring about not only improved scalability for added lanes and bandwidth but a reduction in system latency, better lane margining, and “improved I/O virtualization.”

Although this sort of development will mostly benefit those running higher-end systems, especially those with multiple graphics cards in a single PC, there are potential benefits to those in lower-end systems, too. As ExtremeTech highlights, increased bandwidth for PCIE ports means that few lanes are required for devices. That means it should be possible for M.2 SSDs, or high-speed network cards to operate in x1 or similar PCIE ports.

PCIE 4.0 also opens up the possibility of achieving greater power from external graphics cards, helping to leverage their full potential without needing to have them plugged directly into the motherboard.

As usual though, this sort of technology is going to take some time to proliferate. Typically it can take months and even up to a year to see a new standard become commonplace. It will likely be made available in high-end motherboards first, before making the transition to lower-tier systems as time goes on.

As for the future, the PCI-SIG organization is already hard at work on PCI Express 5.0 and that one is slated to show up much sooner. Although PCIE 4.0 took seven years to finalize, there are rumblings that 5.0 could take just two years to be standardized in the same fashion. That’s quite an ambitious goal, but if adhered to, could generate some big leaps in internal hardware capabilities over the next few years.

Editor’s Recommendations

• Corsair Neutron NX500 SSD burns with speed, but doesn’t scorch your PC
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• AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X and 1950X Review
• Why build a $7,000, 2TB graphics card? AMD explains its monster Radeon Pro SSG
• How to build a computer from scratch: A beginner’s guide

Samsung and Xiaomi now account for 45% of India’s smartphone market

Xiaomi is closing in on Samsung as India becomes the second-largest smartphone market.

Xiaomi is having an outstanding year in terms of sales, and as a result the Chinese manufacturer is moving up the ranks in India. The company sold 23.16 million phones in Q2 2017, an uptick of 70% from last year, and hit the 25 million sales milestone in just over three years of operations in India.

According to Counterpoint Research, the boost in sales has allowed Xiaomi to cement its position as the second-largest smartphone brand in the country.

Samsung is still leading the charts, with the South Korean manufacturer’s market share unchanged from last year at 23%. Xiaomi is now just one point away with market share of 22%, a dramatic rise of 16% from the same period a year ago.

Counterpoint also noted an increase in the market share of local manufacturers Micromax and Lava, particularly in the feature phone segment:

Samsung and Xiaomi together contributed to almost 45% of the smartphone market. This is the first time since 2012, that the top two brands have reached this level of combined share, signaling that key brands are ramping up their presence in India.

Additionally, the quarter was marked with return to growth for local handset players such as Micromax and Lava in the smartphone segment.

Meanwhile, a survey from market research firm Canalys revealed that Samsung shipped 9.4 million units in Q3 2017, with Xiaomi pushing out 9.2 million units in the same quarter. That’s a 290% increase from Q3 2016.

Xiaomi’s YoY sales increased by a staggering 290% in India.

Vivo and OPPO also saw sizeable gains, and are in third and fourth places respectively. The Indian smartphone market overall saw a 23% uptick from Q2 2016, with shipments crossing 40 million units for the first time in a quarter. As a result, the country is now the second-largest smartphone market in the world, after China.

With Xiaomi set to unveil a new selfie-focused phone later this week in the country, the brand will likely surge past Samsung in the coming months.

Xiaomi’s focus on the budget segment means it works on thin margins — effectively limiting revenue — but with the launch of the Mi Mix 2 in the country, the company is laying the groundwork to target the mid-range segment. From Canalys’ Rushabh Doshi:

Xiaomi’s growth is a clear example of how a successful online brand can effectively enter the offline market while maintaining low overheads.

But Xiaomi focuses on the low end. It struggles in the mid-range (devices priced between INR15,000 and INR20,000 [US$230 and US$310]), where Samsung, Oppo and Vivo are particularly strong. Nevertheless, we predict Xiaomi’s continued go-to-market innovations will allow it to overtake Samsung within a couple of quarters.

There’s an app in India that lets you win prizes for taking selfies with cows

Take selfies with (Indian) cows and win prizes.

Cows have always been viewed with reverence in India, but the rhetoric has reached record highs over the last two years. Cow slaughter has been banned in a few states, and so-called cow protection mobs (called “gou rakshaks”) have incited a range of attacks against cattle farmers — in a country that’s the world’s largest exporter of beef.

And now there’s an app now that lets you take selfies with cows, and win prizes for doing so. Called Goseva Parivar, the app bills itself as a platform for “people who want to build a better world by saving the life of Gomata (mother cow).”

The app is built by an NGO that aims to “educate people on the economic and medicinal benefits the cow” and prevent cow slaughter. Apparently, that now involves taking selfies with cows:

With the launch of our app, we are starting an intuitive contest, which “Selfie with Gomata”. Starting from 16-10-2017 until 31st December, Goseva Parivar is holding a selfie contest that gives you the chance to win some awesome rewards. We have categorized the competition in three parameters (Selfie, a selfie with family, a selfie with friends) and you can participate each one of them!

After uploading the pictures, we will review it through various parameters and if your picture moves through the quality inspection, then for your effort we will grant you the Grand Prize. We will grant prizes for the best photograph in each category.

Five winners with highest Goseva points as well as 5 contestants with highest likes will bag in amazing rewards. We will disclose the name of winners on 21st January 2018 at a Mega event of Goseva Parivar in Swabhumi.

There are a few rules to consider. First off, only Indian cows are eligible, so if you’re outside the country, you’re out of luck. You’ll have to provide the app with your mobile number, and you can invite your friends and win “Goseva Points:”

• Download and Install our App.
• Register yourself with your mobile number.
• Snap a creative selfie with Mother Cow. Take a selfie with only Desi Cow or Indian breed cows.
• Upload the image to the respective category.
• Seat back and relax! You have successfully entered in the contest. Don’t forget to share the app with your friends so you can have a chance to win Goseva Points.

The app already has over a hundred downloads, so there’s clearly some interest in taking selfies with cows. If you’re feeling adventurous, download the app from the Play Store.

Amazon drops the Echo Dot down to just $40 today

Alexa, let’s buy a discounted Echo Dot!

Is this deal for me?

There’s no denying that Amazon’s Echo Dot is one of the most popular smart home gadgets, and there are a ton of great reasons for that. On an average day it is extremely affordable at just $49.99, but today you can pick one up for even less. Amazon is currently selling them for just $39.99, which is a savings of $10.

Amazon has been working to make Alexa smarter each week by adding new features, skills, and functionality to it. From being able to control smart home accessories to being able to answer your questions, complete your searches, set reminders, and even make calls for you, these things do a whole lot for how little they cost.

If you’ve been on the fence about picking one up or wanted to add an Echo Dot to another room in your home, today is the day. Odds are Amazon will once again offer exclusive Alexa Voice discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so be prepared for those and save some money on one of these now.

B&H Photo, Best Buy and Staples have joined in on this discount as well.

TL;DR

• What makes this deal worth considering? – This is a great price for one of these, and only lasts for one day. Be sure to pick one up before the discount is gone.
• Things to know before you buy! – Odds are, Amazon will offer exclusive Alexa Voice discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so be sure to be prepared to take advantage of those.

See at Amazon

Happy thrifting!

Should you upgrade to the Pixel 2 XL from the Nexus 6P?

Is it time to upgrade to the newest big phone from Google?

It’s been two full years since Google released the Nexus 6P, the final entry in the celebrated Nexus brand. Despite releasing a very solid debut with its new Pixel brand last year, many diehard Nexus fans have stuck by their trusty 6P well into 2017.

But with the Pixel 2 XL officially on sale, there may never be a better time to upgrade to your next phone. If you’ve been considering it, you’re not alone — there are a number of Nexus 6P users in the forums who’ve said they’re set on upgrading to the latest Google phone for various reasons, but most frequently because they see the writing on the wall.

Should you be considering the upgrade to the Pixel 2 XL, too? Let’s compare.

Hardware and specs

It’s easy to fall in love with the design of the Nexus 6P, which is likely why Google borrowed from it so heavily with the first Pixel XL. Both were built out of aluminum with familiar port placements and comparable specs on the inside.

With the Pixel 2 XL, Google has reintroduced great features found in the Nexus 6P like the front-facing speakers while refining the design direction started with the Pixel XL. You’re also going to get more RAM, the latest Gorilla Glass 5, and a bigger and faster-charging battery.

This year saw phone manufacturers doing their best to minimize the bezel around the screens. Google accomplished this goal by curving the corners of the Pixel 2 XL’s 18:9 pOLED display, but first reviews have revealed less-than-spectacular results compared to the rivaling Samsung Galaxy S8+. You may have read about issues with the Pixel 2 XL’s display — the blueish tint and the screen burn-in. Well, Google is attempting to address the issues with a software fix and has also expanded the warranty period to two years which is a nice move for consumers.

It’s also worth noting that Google has done away with the headphone jack on the newest Pixel phones. In its place is a single USB-C port and a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle included with every phone.

The core camera hardware specs haven’t changed too much since 2015, but with the Pixel 2 XL Google has a wider aperture (ƒ/1.8) and OIS. Coming from the Nexus 6P, you’re going to notice a marked improvement in your photo and video quality. You’re also sure to notice a significant improvement overall camera speed and performance thanks to the Pixel XL 2’s increased processing power.

Here’s a full specs comparison between the two devices.

How’s your battery life?

The two-year upgrade cycle for phones has been hammered into our collective minds by carriers and phone manufacturers even for devices we’ve taken good care of that are still working fine. But one place where you’re going to see the biggest improvement is in battery life.

The estimated life of a typical lithium-ion battery is around two to three years, which means that if you haven’t already noticed your Nexus 6P battery performance slipping it’s only a matter of time. Google and Huawei were even taken to court back in April over the Nexus 6P’s performance issues and the jump to Android 8.0 has led to mixed results at best.

Not only does the Pixel 2 XL have a slightly larger battery capacity, its Snapdragon 835 chipset is significantly more efficient than the 810 found in the Nexus 6P, meaning you should be able to get more use out of your phone on a single charge. And when it’s time to plug in, you’ll be able to rapid-charge up even faster with the included 18W power brick.

Google has also been offering customers a Pixel XL for out-of-warranty issue claims since September. If you bought your Nexus 6P through Google and are experiencing performance issues it may be worth reaching out to support to see what they can do.

On the topic of trading in phone, if you’ve managed to keep your phone in immaculate condition you may also be interested in Google’s trade-in program which lets you exchange your Nexus 6P for up to $165 towards a new Pixel 2 XL (or $400 if you happen to have recently had your Nexus 6P warranty replaced with a brand new Pixel XL).

Camera improvements galore

The Pixel 2 XL may have the same number of megapixels on the box, but its camera is all new — and it’s powered by Google’s improved HDR+ algorithms. Not only is HDR+ itself much faster to process on the Pixel — the Nexus 6P was notorious for forcing users to wait a few seconds between HDR shots — but it is much better in low light.

There are also features unique to the Pixel, including Portrait Mode, Motion Photo and more.

Be set for future software updates

Hardware specs only count for so much — it doesn’t matter how much RAM or processing power your phone as if its no longer being supported with software and security updates.

The Pixel 2 XL will be supported through until Android R.

Google has confirmed that the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL will receive three years of software updates and security patches, meaning you’ll be able to rock the latest version of on the phone you buy today well into the year 2020. If your the type who commits to a phone for multiple years, that’s great news.

According to Google’s support documents, the Nexus 6P will stop receiving crucial security updates after November 2018. So while you can still safely rock your Nexus 6P for another year, there’s no better time to upgrade then right now.

Should you upgrade?

Upgrading to a Pixel from a Nexus 6P last year was a toss-up call — the Pixel was a great phone, but not leaps and bounds better than the Nexus 6P.

But a full year of heavy usage and a freshly updated operating system finds a way of making issues bubble up to the surface. If your Nexus 6P is still running smoothly you’re probably best to count your blessings and capitalize on the existing trade-in value of your phone towards a new phone.

The Nexus brand catered toward hardcore Android enthusiasts, and you’ll still run into folks proudly rocking the Nexus 6P or 5X because they’re still good phones. But if the battery or performance issues haven’t already started popping up two years on the clock is ticking — and the timing is right to upgrade to the Pixel 2 XL.

See at Google

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to know!
• Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL review: The new standard
• Google Pixel 2 specs
• Google Pixel 2 vs. Pixel 2 XL: What’s the difference?
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

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The argument against Google’s Pixel lineup

Google’s Pixel devices are great, but this is why you might want to pass on them.

In the tech community, devices with Pixel (and previously Nexus) branding are seen as the ultimate smartphones for fans of Android. These are gadgets with pure, unadulterated Android experiences showcasing the way Google wants the OS to look and feel, and while plenty of our readers are fans of this, an argument was recently made against it.

Android Central forum user billykac created a thread outlining their experience using the Galaxy Note 5 and Note 8 compared to the Pixel XL and Pixel 2 XL. You can check out the full post here, but essentially what it boiled down to was billykac’s preference of Samsung’s design, display technology, and refined software.

Here’s how some of our forum users responded.

tatootie67
10-28-2017 09:20 AM

“

You echoed my exact thoughts. Same as you, I was a die hard Google fan. But it Google wants the reputation its trying to achieve, being the king of android, it has to give us the best hardware too. Or price its phones way less than 1k. I’m actually glad the display gate issues popped up because i wouldn’t have gone in to even look at the phone in person before buying it. And thankfully the n8…

Reply

Trees
10-28-2017 10:08 AM

“

Thanks billykac, helps to hear from someone who has used Note 5 and Pixel OG (I remember seeing you around both AC forums). My wife has the Note 8, and is super happy with it. She went through the Note 7 ordeal after moving from the Note 5.

I have the Pixel 2 XL on order, but may cancel. I do miss the S Pen (I used Note 2-5 as Note 1 was not available on Verizon at the time), and the screen…

Reply

toenail_flicker
10-28-2017 12:21 PM

“

there are enough workarounds for the baked-in bloat that I think you will be happy. ecstatic even. I’m hard to please after the Note 7, and I love it. not out of the box, except for the screen, but now I full-on love it.

Reply

tatootie67
10-28-2017 12:28 PM

“

Gotta add one thing about the edge apps. I didn’t think I’d use it or like it but I really do. Especially how you can set up the edge lighting to glow when notifications come in. There’s just a lot of really cool features. I run nova with any phone I get, same as this n8. And I’ve debloated. Its as close to pure android as I can get and I get all the additional features that just make this a…

Reply

There’s still plenty more that could be said on this topic, so we’d like to know – do you think Google’s Pixel devices and pure Android experience are over-hyped?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Latest OnePlus 5T render shows slim bezels, rounded corners

Getting up close and personal with the OnePlus 5T’s display.

Following in its footsteps from last year, we’re expecting OnePlus to soon announce the 5T – a slightly upgraded version of the OnePlus 5 that we saw earlier this summer. There have already been a handful of renders for the OnePlus 5T that give us a fairly good idea of what to expect from the phone, but the latest one from Evan Blass gives us our clearest look at it yet.

Evan Blass’s OnePlus 5T render

Blass’s render only reveals the top half of the 5T’s body, but this allows us to get a better idea of how the front of the phone will look. At the very top, you’ll see the front-facing camera, a couple of sensors, and flush speaker grill for phone calls. However, below this top bezel is where the real party is.

The OnePlus 5T is rumored to come equipped with a 6-inch display, and similar to many other phones that we’ve seen so far in 2017, OnePlus will be slimming the bezels considerably compared to the 5. The screen-to-body ratio isn’t quite as impressive as devices like the Galaxy S8 or LG V30, but this is still an improvement nonetheless.

Another render of the 5T showing the front and back of the phone

Also visible with this latest render is the OnePlus 5T’s rounded corners on the display. The appearance isn’t quite as drastic as what’s available on other devices, and depending on your preference for this trend, that’ll come as either a plus or minus against the device.

We’re anticipating the OnePlus 5T to be announced on November 16, and in addition to the radical changes with the screen, you can also expect a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, all-new camera package, and Android Oreo out of the box.

OnePlus 5T: Specs, Release Date, Rumors, and Latest News!

Samsung Gear Sport review: The company’s best smartwatch yet

Smartwatches aren’t exactly selling well right now, but coming at the market from the fitness side seems to offer some respite.

The quick take

The new Gear Sport is not only a great successor to 2015’s Gear S2, but also Samsung’s best ever all-around smartwatch. It manages to be notably smaller and lighter than the Gear S3, while keeping nearly all of its capabilities. Samsung’s wearables still attempt to do too much with overbearing software on a tiny screen. But that’s worthwhile in order to get the great fitness tracking, which doesn’t tie you into a specific ecosystem, and an overall great interface.

The Good

• Awesome display and two-day battery
• Great fitness tracking
• Interoperability with multiple tracking ecosystems
• Rotating bezel is a treat
• Notably thinner and lighter than Gear S3

The Bad

• Software attempts to do too much
• No neutral or women’s design option
• Setup process can be clunky on non-Samsung phones
• No LTE or MST Samsung Pay payments

See at Amazon
See at Best Buy
See at Samsung

The internals

Samsung Gear Sport Tech Specs

Hitting the sweet spot

Samsung Gear Sport Things you’ll love

As the Android Wear market continues to struggle, Samsung is keeping on a steady pace of releasing wearables running its own Tizen OS. Focusing more and more on fitness, realizing that that’s really the only place smartwatches are growing today, Samsung has the new Gear Sport. It’s ostensibly a smartwatch, one that draws upon the Gear S3’s design, but with all of the same robustness and fitness tracking capabilities of the Gear Fit 2 Pro. For a lot of people, that’s exactly what they want — the best of both worlds, in effect.

Samsung has really refined its wearable hardware, and the Gear Sport is a great piece of tech.

Samsung has its smartwatch hardware quality down, and the Gear Sport is a great example of the heights the company has reached after years of trying different approaches. The Gear Sport’s body is a sleek and handsome two-tone metal that feels rock solid, and the buttons and rotating bezel are top-notch to match. The back, which has to be plastic for radio penetration, feels just fine — but is the one place that reminds you you’re wearing a smartwatch and not a good ol’ mechanical watch.

With a case size footprint of 43 x 44 mm and a 11.6 mm thickness the Gear Sport isn’t super small, but next to the Gear S3 it feels like a breath of fresh air. The Gear Sport feels totally natural on my wrist, like a mechanical watch size I’d actually wear every day, and unlike the Gear S3 doesn’t ever feel like a burden or a compromise of size for technology. You don’t accidentally bang it on anything throughout the day, and you can easily slip a jacket sleeve over it.

Style is always subjective, especially when we talk about watches or other jewelry, but I’m quite a fan of the Gear Sport. It’s stylish, if a bit masculine, and does a good job of communicating that it’s both a watch that’s tuned for daily wear but also hardened to take the punishment of running or hitting the gym. The standard watch band attachments give you options to swap to an insane number of bands — from Samsung or any third party — as well, letting your personalize or change it throughout the week for a different look.

The core interface is great, and everything speeds along for two days on a charge.

Beyond the looks, let’s talk about the business end of this thing: actually using the watch. Samsung’s core smartwatch interface is great, and does a fantastic job of maximizing the use of the circular screen with interface elements that go all the way to the edges and play off of its rotating bezel as a primary input method. The “set of home screens” idea makes perfect sense, and can be as complex or simplistic as you want. You can fill up a set of five or 10 home screens just with the offerings pre-loaded on the watch, and have something that fits your needs — whether that’s fitness, or something more specific.

The 1.2-inch fully circular display is a typically great Samsung AMOLED panel, being both colorful and plenty bright enough to see outside or at awkward angles. The way Samsung’s watch faces drop into a low-power “always on” state is graceful, and really shows off the great black levels of the screen. That mode’s turned off by default (like much of the Gear Sport’s capabilities) in order to save battery, but even with everything turned on I still managed two full days without worry. If you want to turn everything off and be more judicious, you can get three full days out of it.

With ‘Sport’ in the name you expect great fitness tracking, and you get it.

With “Sport” in the name, the Gear Sport is of course great at tracking all of your activity. It easily handles the “daily” metrics like sleep, steps, floors climbed, heart rate and general movement levels, combining it all into a “last 24 hours” interface that’s super easy to understand at a glance. Then you get to the next level of true activity tracking, with GPS-located running, walking, hiking and cycling, but also swimming, machine-based workouts and step-by-step coaching for free weight work … provided you’re okay taking prompts from a small screen on your wrist. Tracking all of this activity has been precise for me, just like Samsung’s previous wearables, and its automatic workout detection means I never miss recording any activity throughout the day.

Just as importantly as recording all of this data is how Samsung has really opened up its doors to let you put that data into the fitness ecosystem of your choice. You can of course use Samsung’s own Health platform, which is there by default, but you can also install the Under Armour suite of apps consisting of UA Record, Map My Run, MyFitnessPal and Endomondo. That set of apps doesn’t cover every possible platform out there, but there’s a much better chance that you’re using one of those than Samsung Health if the Gear Sport is your first Samsung wearable.

Too much software

Samsung Gear Sport Things you’ll hate

Though the general experience of using the Gear Sport is great, there are two key areas where it still comes up short — one in the hardware, and another in the software.

Samsung’s Tizen-based wearable OS is really good at all of the basics, and as you read above I’m a big fan of how well it integrates with the circular hardware to give you a robust set of features and interface paradigms. The problem is that Samsung continues to try and do way too much on its wearables, and that’s extremely unfortunate. Despite the Gear Sport being more focused on fitness than the Gear S3, it still has all of the crazy capabilities of that larger power user-focused watch.

Samsung still tries to do far too much with its wearable software — it needs to scale back.

There are just as many pages of settings on this watch as there are on a Galaxy S8. And just as many parameters to tweak. Samsung still insists on cramming two full pages of apps into an app launcher on the watch, and including gems like a month calendar widget, a news reader, a picture gallery (???) and a PowerPoint controller, among plenty of others. The Galaxy Apps store is basically an empty field littered with dead or dying watch faces and bad utilities. This is a perfect example of trying to be all things to all people, rather than focusing on the great core interface it has designed. If Samsung decided to make the Gear Sport do less, it’d actually be a better overall product.

On the hardware side of things, it all comes down to addressable market. For as sleek and stylish as the Gear Sport is, it definitely isn’t designed to appeal to women — both in its overall size and case styling. Yes it’s much smaller than the Gear S3, but the Gear Sport is still going to stand out or feel a bit clunky on a smaller wrist, there’s just no getting around that. And with the choice of a gunmetal black or deep blue, with sporty rubber bands to match, it doesn’t have any sort of aspirations of being matched up with women’s fashion. Samsung’s own Gear Fit 2 (or even the Gear S2, to a lesser extent) feels a whole lot more agnostic in this regard.

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Samsung Gear Sport Should you buy it?

The smartwatch market isn’t that large, and the number of compelling offerings can really be counted on a single hand. The best chance smartwatches have right now is to go after the fitness tracking market, appealing to those who want something that can handle all of their workouts but also look fine over the course of the day as a watch rather than a clunky rubber and plastic band on your wrist.

It’s hard to argue for a sport-style Android Wear watch when the Gear Sport exists.

The Gear Sport does a darn good job of approaching things from this angle, and it does it far better than the big, bulky and cumbersome Gear S3. Even though the Gear Sport misses a few niche features like LTE and full MST Samsung Pay support, it does everything else its larger sibling does — and goes a step further with swim tracking and better waterproofing. And because it’s smaller and easier to manage, you’ll end up wearing the Gear Sport far more — it’s comfortable to wear on a daily basis, and with a band swap it can be dressed up or down as your style changes.

Samsung’s software is still overbearing and bloated in many respects, but if you don’t go into it looking for the Gear Sport to be a replacement for your phone you’ll be extremely happy with the core interface, widgets and experiences. Everything is super quick and displayed on a great screen, and even with all of its features turned on the Gear Sport can last you two full days on a charge.

The smartwatch market may be small, but there are still people out there looking for a more advanced piece of technology to put on their wrist. At $299, the Gear Sport is a great one to consider — both as a watch, and as a fitness tracker.

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