New Delhi: When the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch made its debut in Berlin early this month, I was not tempted but was definitely curious to get my hands on the device. One, I had a strong urge to check its calling feature and the 1.9 megapixel camera embedded in the strap of the watch. Second, I wanted to check how better it is than the Sony Smartwatch that I had reviewed quite some time ago. Sony has meanwhile announced the successor to its SmartWatch named SmartWatch 2, which becomes a direct competitor to the Galaxy Gear.
Alongside the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 launch in India on Tuesday, Samsung also introduced the Galaxy Gear smartwatch and that is when I got a chance to get my hands on the device. While I have already posted my experience with the Galaxy Note 3, here is how well the Galaxy Gear smartwatch got along with me in the brief time I spent with it.
As I got my eyes on the device, my excitement dropped a little. I found it be a clunky device and heavy in weight. The watch has a buckle and a flexible band, which can be adjusted according to the size of your wrist, but wearing it was not comfortable. I felt some load on my wrist, something I was not expecting. A smartwatch should not make you feel handcuffed, it instead should give you an immediate access to time and other content at ease. Compared to the Galaxy Gear, strapping the previous version of the Sony Android smatwatch was a comfortable wear.
The Samsung Galaxy Gear has a gesture-based UI, and I easily learned its gestures as I started playing with it. The user interface is not complex. For instance, swiping from the top acts a backspace key, and swiping from the bottom takes you to the dialler. But the catch here is that gestures depend on where you are on the device. For instance, When you are controlling media, swiping from the bottom activates volume controls - which otherwise takes you to the dialler. But I think it is just getting in the habit of something you have not experienced before.
The biggest downside is that this expensive smartwatch does not work as a standalone device and to make it functional, it has to be paired with a select Galaxy device. The catch is that currently the watch is compatible with the Galaxy Note 3 and the 2014 edition Galaxy Note 10.1. Samsung says that the company will soon release software upgrades to make the watch compatible with the Galaxy S4, S III and Galaxy Note II. This is where Sony has an edge over Samsung. The Sony Android-based Smartwatch 2 is to said be compatible with any smartphone or tablet running Android 4.0 or later.
The Galaxy Gear has a camera embedded in its strap. I got to test its camera in low-light conditions and found the results to be unpleasant. I am yet to test its performance in outdoor conditions. In the video mode, the camera can capture recordings in two resolutions - 640 x 640 and 1280 x 720. It supports both 720p video playback and recording. What surprised me was that the Galaxy Gear allows video recordings of only up to 10 seconds in one go.
The Galaxy Gear comes with calling capabilities, which lets you make and answer calls. The company has included a speaker and two microphones to facilitate the calling feature. These are the two major features in the Galaxy Gear which you will find missing on the Sony SmartWatch 2.
The Gear also notifies users of incoming messages, such as calls, texts, emails and alerts, and also delivers a preview of those messages.
The watch has a 1.63-inch Super AMOLED (320 x 320) screen and you can customise the appearance of the screen. It offers you four different watch faces and three different font sizes to let you set the way you want to see the face of the watch.
While the phone has a speaker but it does not play music, it instead lets you control media which is played on the device paired with the watch.
The watch has a 315mAh Li-ion battery, which the company claims can last for around 25 hours. On the other hand, the Sony SmartWatch 2 is claimed to last for around 3-4 days on a single charge. But no conclusion can be drawn from this as the Galaxy Gears offers more functionalities than the Smartwatch 2. Also, we have not tested the performance of both devices.
The Galaxy Gear currently support over 70 apps but we can only tell how good they are after an extended use of the device.
The Galaxy Gear seems to include more features than the Sony SmartWatch 2, but these extra features come at a hefty price. Priced at Rs 22,990, the Galaxy Gear costs Rs 8,000 more than the Sony SmartWatch 2, which is available for Rs 14,990.
I am reserving my comments till the time I get to do a detailed review. But would you like to spend Rs 23K on a watch that is dependent on another device and offers limited usage even when paired?
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