The smartwatch concept isn’t exactly new anymore, but it’s not every day that you see one out in the wild. This might be because a lot of people believe that watches need not be smart, while others see them as expensive toys that might be a lot of fun to have, but that no one really needs. Either way, we still get a lot of attention when people spot our fancy smartwatches, and it’s usually interesting looking at the curiosity on people’s faces.
The Gear S2 is available in three versions: the standard, more sporty model that I’m using, and a slightly classier one called the Gear S2 Classic; a 3G enabled smartwatch will arrive later.
I can’t comment on the pricier Classic (£299), but the standard model (£249) looks and feels superb. It isn’t in the same league as Huawei’s Watch, but it’s one of the better smartwatches on the market.
The circular display is surrounded by a metal bezel, with two clicky buttons. There’s one for jumping back a step and another for heading to the homescreen. Both buttons sit on either side of a microphone on one side of the smartwatch. The Gear 2 isn’t overly thick either, sitting only 11.3mm off my wrist.
The Gear S2 sports a 1.2-inch Super AMOLED display with 360×360 resolution that offers 302 pixels per inch density. It’s an excellent display, is vibrant and easy to read and even in direct sunlight, it still remains usable. A particularly nice feature is that while the display doesn’t support auto-brightness, you have the option to set a minimum brightness level and the display brightness will automatically increase to a higher level depending on the amount of ambient light.
Overall, the Gear S2 certainly isn’t perfect – there are plenty of people that will find the inability to connect to traditional watch straps quite frustrating – and the buttons do take a little getting used to, but the rotating bezel is a fantastic idea and truly sets the Gear S2 apart from other smartwatches.
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