Samsung Gear S2 hands-on

Round smartwatches are not too common but with the Gear S2, Samsung is aiming to reinvent the wheel and take us back to a time when round was the norm. Its latest smartwatch is the company’s first attempt at making a round wearable, but has it been successful or has it succumbed to the same challenges that other OEMs have faced?

It’s time to find out in our first look and hands-on with Samsung’s new Gear S2.

Samsung has always tried to make its wearables different but with the Gear S2, the company is trying to really make an impact in the wearables arena by changing the way we interact and use a smartwatch. The Gear S2 is a round wearable but where others have struggled, predominantly thanks to the use of the square-focused Android Wear OS, Samsung has opted to create an entire experience built around the round device.

The Gear S2 comes in two versions to appeal to different markets; the regular Gear S2 is designed for active use and comes with a silicon band that’s actually quite nice and soft, while the Gear S2 Classic aims to appeal to the traditional quartz-watch lover with a leather strap that’s quite luxurious. To some degree, Samsung is taking inspiration from Apple by including two different band sizes (small and large) so the watch can be worn by people with both, big and small wrists.

The Gear S2 also comes with two buttons on the right of the watch; the top button lets you go back a step while the bottom button brings you straight back to the homescreen and from the homescreen, can be used to enter the apps drawer. On the back, you’ll find a heart rate monitor and while the watch itself is IP68 rated, this only applies to the watch face itself so if you get the classic version, don’t expect the leather to hold up well under water.

The real unique thing about the Gear S2’s design is Samsung’s innovative rotating bezel, which is no doubt the best part of this smartwatch. The bezel is used for navigation through the various parts of the interface – such as the watch faces, widgets, notifications, apps – and whenever you turn it, there’s an extremely satisfying click. This makes it not only very useful but also fun to use, and you’ll find yourself fiddling with it when you feel like procrastinating. With Samsung deploying the bezel to great effect, it does make you question why no one has thought of it until now.

On the front, the Gear S2 sports a round 1.2-inch Super AMOLED display with 360×360 pixels resolution that definitely stands out and looks impressive. The resolution is slightly higher than that used by rival devices and combined with the Super AMOLED technology, it certainly provides vibrant colors, deep blacks and great viewing angles.

Under the hood, the Gear S2 is powered by a dual-core 1GHz processor with 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage, which should be more than enough for a smooth and seamless experience. It also comes with all of the usual connectivity you’d expect including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and NFC, with the latter being used for Samsung Pay. The company is also looking to expand the use of NFC in a variety of ways including smart car keys, residential room keys or remotely controlling your home.

The Gear S2 is powered by a 250mAh battery, which Samsung says will deliver 2 to 3 days worth of battery life and this sounds more than reasonable for a smartwatch, especially considering some rival devices can barely last a day. Unlike past Gear devices, the Gear S2 is charged using a magnetic wireless charger that looks eerily similar to the Moto 360 charger and the watch snaps into place, making it quick and easy to dock it when you need to give it some juice.

Samsung has stuck to its own Tizen OS for the Gear S2 and to good effect; while other round wearables running Android Wear are square displays masquerading in a round body, Samsung has developed an entire interface specifically for its round wearable and it’s certainly impressive.

To the left of the watchface are all your notifications like messages and emails, while to the right side are all of your widgets and the Tizen OS lets you add a widget for almost anything. Some of the widget options include health and fitness, news, weather, social media and even music controls. The watch faces are also customizable using the Stylize option on the watch itself and not only can you change the watch face, you can change the way they look and the information displayed on the face itself.

Just like any typical OS, Tizen lets you receive notifications (such as emails and text messages) and reply to them from the watch but a key difference is in the reply methods available; like other smartwatches, you can send a predetermined response, enter text through voice input or send an emoji response but Samsung has also added a T9 keyboard to let you send a normal text response. The T9 keyboard uses the company’s predictive texting and for the most part, seems to work rather well (although we’ll test this in the full review).

The Gear S2 also comes with a really handy feature that lets you sync notifications through WiFi even if your watch isn’t directly connected to your phone via Bluetooth. The feature works similarly to Android Wear and as long as your watch is connected to a Wi-Fi network, your notifications will still sync through Samsung’s cloud servers.

A key part of any smartwatch experience is the ability to install apps to further enhance the feature set and this is something that has hurt the Tizen effort in the past. In order to make the Tizen platform as robust as possible, Samsung has partnered with a range of different companies like Ebay and Groupon for commerce, Twitter and Line for social, and CNN and Bloomberg for news. The list of partners is vast and Samsung says there are going to be around 1000 apps when the Gear S2 launches. If you’re big on fitness, Samsung has their own S Health app and has also partnered with companies like Nike and Lifesum to help you keep track of your goals.

One of the biggest changes with the Gear S2 is one that will impact on the device’s appeal; previous Tizen based Gear watches were only compatible with Samsung Galaxy devices but with the Gear S2, it will now work with any Android smartphone running Android 4.4 KitKat or higher with at least 1.5GB RAM, which covers most current smartphones. This is a big change as it now means Samsung’s Tizen platform finally has the potential to succeed.

Samsung is yet to announce any pricing details for the Gear S2 but we have learned it will be heading our way starting in October. What do you think of Samsung’s Gear S2, which aims to put the art into smartwatch? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Samsung Sleepsense tracker coming to Korea

The Gear S2 isn’t the only Samsung device to go around at IFA 2015. Samsung’s new Sleepsense tracker is a disk-like device for tracking your sleep.

The device should be placed under your mattress and will record your activity during the night. The device will automatically sync the data to your connected Samsung smartphone using a new application in the Play Store. It will track details like your heart rate, breathing, movement, total sleep time, the number of times you woke up and the percentage of REM sleep. Samsung has proven the results to be 97% accurate therefore making it great product that you can trust with your data.

In addition, the device can give users tips on how to sleep better and how to maintain a better diet. It also acts as a home automation tool by allowing users to turn the TV off at night, adjust the AC, turn off the lights and more.

Samsung Sleepsense will be launching in Korea shortly, with hopefully more countries to come. The company hasn’t announced pricing  for the device yet, but we should find out more in the coming weeks. Is this something you would buy?

Source: Samsung Tomorrow

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Samsung reveals pricing details for its new Gear S2 smartwatches

Samsung recently unveiled the Gear S2 smartwatch aimed at bringing functionality in a beautiful style right at your wrist. The company is currently showcasing the new device at IFA 2015 in Berlin. Today, we received information regarding the device’s pricing and availability.

Samsung has officially confirmed the pricing for the Gear S2 and Gear S2 classic in Finland and Denmark. In Finland it will cost 349 euros for the Gear S2 and 399 euros for the Gear S2 classic. In Denmark the Gear S2 is priced at 2,599kr and the Gear S2 classic is listed at 2,999kr. Both variants of the smartwatch will arrive in early October all over the world.

The Gear S2 includes an all-new rotating bezel for easy navigating, a refreshed Tizen interface, a full round display, a metal design and many options for different bands. It will support Samsung Pay and include an IP67 rating for water and dust resistance. Samsung promises the smartwatch will last a near 3 days on a single charge. It will include a bunch of Samsung’s apps pre-installed such as S Health, Nike+ Running, Music player, Maps and Weather. Here are some pictures of the company’s all-new Gear S2 smartwatch.

Source: Sammyhub

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The latest Nook is based on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S2

Barnes & Noble’s partnership with Samsung continues with the Galaxy Tab S2 Nook. And, as you’ve probably guessed, it’s simply Samsung’s recently announced Galaxy Tab S2 jam-packed with Nook apps. The 8-inch tablet hits Barnes & Noble stores today for $400, though if you’ve got a B&N membership you can also knock another 10 percent off that price. It’s still sad to see the book seller move away from its own tablet hardware, but you could do a lot worse than the Tab S2. It’s an incredibly thin and light tablet with a bright quad HD screen (our full review is coming soon). The Tab S2 Nook fills a premium slot for Barnes & Noble, whereas last year’s Tab 4 Nooks are more budget-friendly at $150 and $250. You won’t really gain much with the Tab S2 Nook variant — you get three free books from a selection of 20 titles, along with three free magazines and $5 worth of credit. But really, it’s a tablet meant for people who are more used to strolling around B&N stores than comparing Android tablets online. Slideshow-317039

Filed under:
Tablets, Mobile, Samsung

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Source:
Barnes & Noble

Tags: mobilepostcross, samsung

Samsung’s SleepSense tracker shuts off the TV when you snooze

Samsung has just revealed its take on the sleep tracking concept with a new device called SleepSense. Rather than making you wear something on your wrist at night (which is a non-starter for a lot of folks), Samsung proposes that you slip the flat, disk-like device under your mattress, like similar devices from Withings and Misfit. It will then monitor your heart rate, breathing and movement during sleep with a claimed 97 percent accuracy. That information is transmitted to a smartphone app, which gives you an “individual sleep score” based on seven factors, including total sleep time, the number of times you awoke and the percentage of REM sleep.

If you already have trouble sleeping, then you may not need the pressure of getting rated. However, the app will provide “expert advice” from a Harvard sleep expert on how to improve it by changing nutrition, exercise and other factors. SleepSense also works with Samsung’s SmartThings IoT home automation system. When it detects that you’ve fallen asleep, it can turn of lights or the TV and lower the air conditioning, for instance. It sounds pretty good, but while it’s launching in Korea later this year, there’s no word on a US or European arrival, and we still don’t have the all-important price.

Filed under:
Wearables, Samsung

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Source:
Samsung

Tags: IoT, samsung, SleepSense, SleepTracker