Smartwatches might have failed to catch on as planned, but company’s like Apple and Samsung are still committed to the idea.
Granted, the flow of smartwatch releases has slowed in 2016/17 but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some excellent options about.
The Samsung Gear S2 is one of Samsung’s best smartwatches, and today we’re going to be taking a detailed look at what makes it tick (pun intended).
The main things I want to look at here is value for money, specs, features, usability and look and feel.
Apple’s Apple Watch is the biggest name in the smartwatch space, but Samsung’s Gear S2 has plenty of tricks up its sleeve. If you use a Samsung phone, is this the smartwatch to go for?
Let’s find out.
Samsung Gear S2 Review: Design
The star of the show here is the rotating bezel; it lets you seamlessly switch through functions. This is a highly intuitive way of interacting with the Gear S2; certainly preferable to constantly tapping on the display.
The overall look and feel of the Samsung Gear S2 is, ummm, nice. It looks like a smartwatch, sure, but it is styled subtly so it doesn’t look jarring when worn with a smart shirt or a suit.
It’s also water and dust resistant. The chassis is made from stainless steel as well and this gives the Gear S2 a robust, solid feeling on your wrist. Excellent stuff all round, Samsung.
One thing that really grinds my gears about smartwatches in general is that you HAVE to use the touchscreen to do anything. By removing the need to touch the display of the Gear S2 with the rotating bezel, Samsung has effectively made me a huge fan of this watch.
This is how ALL smartwatches should function; it’s a bloody revelation!
You’ll find back and home buttons on the side of the display as well; tapping either will wake the device from slumber, while a tap of the back key will take you to the apps menu. It also acts as the power on/off key too. Again, these keys are intuitive as hell. Way more so than Android Wear’s way of doing things.
Android Wear 0 – Tizen OS 1.
The display used on the Gear S2 is an AMOLED panel; it’s 1.2in across and has a pixel density of 302 ppi. I hadn’t used a smartwatch in a while ahead of testing the Gear S2 and the brightness, contrast and overall quality of the display really took me by surprise.
Samsung’s AMOLED panels really are the best in the business, even when you’re talking about little diddy one’s like this smartwatch setup.
Samsung Gear S2 Review: Specs
Unlike phones, smartwatches do not need a lot of grunt in the engine room. The Samsung Gear S2 features Samsung’s very own Exynos 3250 chipset paired with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage.
Performance is snappy, as you’d expect. During my time with the Gear S2 I did not experience any lag, freezing-issues or problems with functions. It worked seamlessly and flawlessly for the two weeks that I had the unit.
Beyond this the Samsung Gear S2 also runs an entire gamut of sensors, including a barometer, optical heart sensor and an accelerometer. You can use these to better track your activity.
Samsung Gear S2 Review: Features
TizenOS is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it is great for core features, optimisation and power management. But because it isn’t made by Google it means you miss all that lovely Google stuff – stuff like Google Maps, most notably.
The Samsung Gear S2 runs HERE Maps instead, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but if you’re a Google Maps addict and Google knows where you work, rest and play then switching to something else is a bit of a kick in the nuts.
TizenOS’ notifications system isn’t quite as sophisticated as Android Wear’s either. It’s not quite as polished, it lacks some of the niceties and, on occasion, it misses the odd email or text, despite it coming through on your phone.
TizenOS needs work, clearly, but Samsung is great with updates, so expect many of these issues – most of which are cosmetic – to be remedied in due course.
I do really hate not having Google Maps, though.
Samsung Gear S2 Review: Battery Life
TizenOS might be a little patchy with respect to performance. But one area where Samsung seriously takes it to the next level is battery – the Gear S2’s is off the hook!
Whether this is down to Tizen, the Exynos chipset or a combination of both remains to be seen. But the net result is brilliant; like, two solid days of usage-brilliant. That’s better than Apple Watch and pretty much anything else in the smartwatch space (excluding Pebble).
No complaints in this department. Kudos, Samsung.
Samsung Gear S2 Review: Conclusion
I really, really like the Samsung Gear S2. I like it because it looks and feels like a proper watch and you don’t have to fanny around poking the screen to do stuff on it.
I mainly use smartwatches to see who’s messaging or emailing me and for tracking my activity. The rest of the time it’s just there to tell me the time, and this is what I like about the Samsung Gear S2: it gets out of the way and acts like a proper watch most of the time.
It also has a ton of great features for tracking activity and monitoring your exercise routines. TizenOS is a little rough around the edges and Google Maps is sorely missed, but for a smartwatch the Gear S2 is easily one of the best I have ever tested.
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