Samsung Galaxy Gear quick thoughts: What it’s like to use today’s smartest smartwatch

Samsung Galaxy Gear quick thoughts: What it’s like to use today’s smartest smartwatch

The Galaxy Gear smartwatch’s release date is this week so, ahead of that point, I took the time to test it out. I did so alongside Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 smartphone and the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) tablet. The three are inextricably linked as the Galaxy Gear only works with the Galaxy Note 3 or the Note 10.1 (for now), and they share a common release window here in the US.



To get a good look at the Galaxy Gear in action, check out the gallery above. Once you have an idea of how it works, the video below will add some context and walk through the smartwatch’s interesting, but somewhat limited, feature set. After that I’ll chime in with some quick observations.




Setting up the Galaxy Gear with the Note 3 was easy enough. You pair the two and then after that you’ll never again have to think about the connection between the two. The watch will give you an alert when the phone is out of range. That shouldn’t be a problem though, as the range is excellent. The watch looks sharp, but it’s not comfortable. The length of the face means that it just doesn’t sit well on the wrist. The band isn’t that bad, but that’s not good enough, as it’s not replaceable. Speaking of the band, on the bottom of it is a big metal bulge that appears to be a speaker. It’s not a problem when you are wearing it, but try to use a laptop and your wrist will have to sit well above the palm rest. Plus you’ll have some uncomfortable metal-on-metal action.

The camera works surprisingly well. The placement take some getting used to, but after that it’s pretty convenient. That said, you essentially are carrying around a covert camera, which could get you in trouble now and then. After you create an image or video it’s super easy to transfer it over to your phone. Android even creates a dedicated Galaxy Gear folder. The Galaxy smartphone only has a single button. This is only used for activating it and getting back to the home screen, which means you’re using swipe controls for everything. If you take your time and don’t swipe too fast this works well enough. Even so, navigating the watch’s menus feels slow. Here are the things I found the watch useful for: Telling time, checking the temperature, recording voice memos, media controls, calculating steps with a pedometer, viewing notifications, using the stopwatch and timer, checking the weather. Here are the things I can’t really imagine using a smartwatch for: taking pictures, recording video, making calls, viewing an image gallery, checking my calendar, viewing call logs, reviewing archived notifications. The battery life doesn’t appear to be too bad. The reported battery life of 25 hours, or 5 hours of continuous use, seems both accurate and acceptable to me. Basically you’d want to just charge the watch alongside your phone every night or so. Sure, that’s a lot for a watch, but given how much our smartphones has trained us to this behavior it’s not bad. As for the 5 hours of usage time — I find it highly unlikely you’d hit that in a single day. Checking a notification or taking an image takes just seconds and any calls you take on this will likely be short.

Here is an image taken with the watch while it was on my wrist. I can’t complain about the quality given the small size of the sensor and the challenge of placing it on the band.


Finally, some brief closing thoughts: At $300 I think the Galaxy Gear is a cool toy, but unfortunately the sweet gadgety goodness of the smartwatch is defeated by the facts that this thing is clunky, uncomfortable, and orange (OK, not all the models are orange, but still… it’s neon orange). I really believe that Samsung did a respectable job here, they just were limited by what could be done with today’s tech and what is a feasible price. Given how expensive watches can be, I wonder if it would have made sense to increase the price and deliver a better experience, if that’s something Samsung could have pulled off.

Ultimately I think that the Galaxy Gear is an interesting, non-catastrophic product, but it’s not in line with my priorities. I’m not a watch guy, but if I was I’d need a replaceable band, for it to be comfortable enough that I’d forget I was wearing it, it would have to be somewhat inconspicuous, and I’d happily trade off a number features for size and battery life.

For those reasons I think an e-paper based product that’s slightly less slick, but ultimately more usable would be a better fit for me and many other people. That said, I respect Samsung’s ability to tackle a serious design challenge and offer up a passably good, everything-but-the-kitchen sink smartwatch for this price. Now they just need to get it to work with more phones (tablet’s don’t really matter here) so that it can be taken seriously.