Samsung has been tipped to be working on a third Gear 2 that lets users place phone calls

Mar 19, 2014 08:29 GMT  ·  By

New information reported by the Korean media brings word that Samsung is apparently working on a third model of the recently introduced Gear 2 smartwatch.

Smartwatches are stealing the spotlight in the tech consumer business and those familiar with the recent developments in the industry should know that Samsung has launched the successors of the Galaxy Gear, the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo at MWC 2014 in Barcelona.

With the two new smartwatch models, there are a few key differences. First of all, the “Galaxy” branding has been shaved off to highlight that Samsung has dropped the Android operating system in favor of its own Tizen platform.

With Google unveiling its own Android Wear operating system, an OS especially designed to go into wearables, we doubt that there’s going to be a shortage of Android-powered smartwatches around.

As a matter of fact, both LG and Motorola have announced that they will roll out smartwatched bundled with the mobile OS.

Anyway, going back to the Galaxy Gear, a new report coming to us from the Asian media (via KoreaHerald) claims that Samsung is planning to bring about a radical change to its line of next-gen smartwatches.

According to them, Samsung is gearing up to release a third version of the Samsung Gear 2 equipped with a special kind of technology called Universal Subscriber Identity (USIM).

So what does that mean? Well, the presence of an USIM module inside a device means that the wearers of the smartwatch will be able to place phone calls from the wearable itself, without needing to connect it to a smartphone.

At this point, information seems to indicate that the model will be available only in South Korea, courtesy of SK Telecom. But an unnamed source inside the carrier has claimed that there’s a big possibility that the third Gear 2 model will be rolled out into several other markets as well.

A Gear 2 model with an ability to place phone calls wouldn't be a far-fetched scenario, but Samsung will somehow manage to by-pass battery drainage issues to be able to offer such a product.

Even if the Gear 2 is expected to be able to last up to two/three days of use, the USIM module will certainly put a lot more pressure on the battery. Bear in mind that there’s also a video camera on the Samsung smartwatch, so users will most likely be able to place video phone calls, while connected to the Internet.

Anyway, the idea of a smartwatch with phone calling capabilities isn't exactly the latest news. Back in 2009, LG Electronic launched the Watch Phone, a device compatible with 3G networks that was marketed as a standalone watch phone, but the effort didn't take off.

What do you think? Would a Samsung smartwatch with phone capabilities be something you’d take an interest in?