14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung might have unveiled its next-gen smartwatch, the Gear S, last week but this week at IFA 2014 in Berlin we got the first chance to see what this peculiar wearable looks and feels like.
We say peculiar because this is actually the first smartwatch (if we are to omit the Omate TrueSmart) to come equipped with phone-calling capabilities. Basically, you’ll be able to place phone calls right from your wrist without having to take your smartphone on you.
Samsung introduced the Gear S to the masses during a major presentation event at IFA 2014, which also saw the advent of the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge smartphones.
Anyway, after being given an official preview by the producing company, we were invited at Samsung’s booth to try out and fiddle a little bit with the device.
To get things started with the Gear S, you will need to connect it via Bluetooth to a Galaxy Note smartphone or any other Galaxy phone for that matter, for the initial setup and to install apps.
After which it won’t be a tragedy if you happen to forget your smartphone at home, on the contrary you’ll still be able to do everything you wanted, from listening to music to taking advantage of all the fitness tracker features you like.
The Gear S is certainly prettier than other watches coming from the Sammy garden, coming with a curved display, but we can’t get over how big the timepiece actually is. Surely, for those of you with sturdy wrists this might not be a problem, but we’re not sure how well it will adjust to lady proportions.
Swiping on the smartwatch proves to be quite responsive and doing so will bring about a different menu, depending of the direction you go about it.
The 2-inch Super AMOLED display with 360 x 480 pixel resolution looks quite good and is pretty clear. The watch relies on a 1GHz dual-core processor fitted with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage.
What’s more, the Gear S takes advantage of a Flesky keyboard, so if you’re sick of using voice control, you can go ahead and type a little too, provided you have enough patience.
Samsung is also offering perspective customers the possibility of opting for a smartwatch strap with Swarovski crystals embedded into it (check it out in the gallery).
However, it’s still highly unlikely that smartwatches like the Gear S will end up to completely replace smartphones, at least for the time being. The app ecosystem for them is growing fast, but it’s not nearly as big as the smartphone one is.
To conclude, we will tell you that we are still waiting on the price for this interesting smartwatch, as Samsung hasn’t said anything about it. We do expect it to be quite chunky, though.
