Gadgetory

hey everyone Jimmy with Jim's review room as most of my followers know I reviewed tons and I mean tons of activity bands over the past two years today I'm pleased to announce a review on a brand new SmartWatch focusing more on how a SmartWatch can be an extension of your smartphone I'm pleased to show you guys the Samsung gear s2 that I personally paid for at the retail price of two hundred and ninety nine dollars you can click on the link in the video description below to see the most recent and updated pricing that's available so without further adieu I'm here to help you make a purchase decision welcome everyone to jim's review going over the physical features in comfort first finding the right fit will not be an issue Samsung provides two bands in the package one small and the other large the main part of the watch is stainless steel offering a very durable finish over the time of me testing no Santa wear or any kind of scuff marks were noticed on these sides of the metal now I know that looks at the watch are a bit subjective here so I'll leave that up to you guys to answer in the comment section below what do you guys think but wearing this has been very comfortable it's not intrusive it's not too large either it's a thin enough profile and not heavy on the wrist perfect for wearing with long sleeve shirts yet still fashionable for casual wear now before discussing the touchscreen the buttons on the right the bottom one can be used to manually turn on the screen and functions as the main menu button allowing access to all of your apps tapping twice will quickly open your assigned app instead of going through the menus once again here I have my messaging app to open up immediately now the top button here can be used to turn on the screen too but mainly used as the return or back action rotating quickly to the rear there is a built-in heart rate reader but I'll discuss more of that in the fitness section of the review also its accuracy to regarding the screen this is a one point two inch display using Samsung's Super AMOLED technology providing a resolution of 360 by 360 and a pixel density of 302 but what does this all mean to the average consumer here this all translates to a very sharp screen that's vibrant in colors and from my experience a very bright that works fine in sunny outdoor environments in general it's just a pleasure to look at now while wearing the Samsung conserves battery by turning off the display when the wrist is at a certain angle and turns on when you raise your arm up and attempt to look at it for the most part it does work but on several occasions not having the proper angle once again the screen doesn't turn on and it is slightly frustrating an example would be times when I'm bent over tying my shoe here and a quick look and a flick of the wrist here doesn't show anything or times when I'm in my car needing a quick glance I my wrist here while my hands are on the steering wheel again nothing shows up I know it sounds minor sounds petty but there are times plenty of times throughout the day where our arms are not necessarily parallel to our chest but back to the face here as you can see is perfectly round with no cut-offs on the screen it's surrounded by this very unique rotating bezel to quickly cycle through all of your apps and screens now at first I honestly thought it was a bit gimmicky I'll be honest about that since you can use the touchscreen for everything else but in real world use I actually found myself using it being realistic and honest there are some aspects that swiping or tapping feels much more efficient like selecting an app instead of turning the dial all the way over but moments I'm on the homescreen I naturally found myself using the side of the dial to quickly navigate for more subtle movements of scrolling through a list of text surprisingly I felt myself naturally using this to casually scroll through this information rather than swiping my finger across the screen and I think it's possibly due to the screen being so small the doubt did help alleviate me blocking my view nonetheless the dial is super smooth yet clicky and again surprisingly satisfying to rotate again I don't use it on everything but when I do it actually comes in handy now the last bit here the gear s2 is dust proof in water-resistant up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes so those caught in the rain or dropping their watch somehow on the tub you need not to worry since it is IP 68 rated but let's move into how this actually functions its features and both my good and not so good experiences first off the gear s2 I believe is the first watch from Samsung that actually works on non Samsung phones samsung claims they require phone with at least android 4.4 and more than 1.5 gigs Ram on board and sorry fo folks this is incompatible fewer devices now your main screen will always be the clock this is fully customizable by holding down the display here and selecting which style you want there's 19 that are available from the factory and some watch faces are actually customizable with some other templates that are provided of course you can always go into the Samsung App Store to purchase more watch faces and apps and find the other very limited and not as desired free dials to use as well now continue to show some the other faces during the review here for your assessment but let's go back to the main screen for now and quickly show here what apps are available from the factory the clock will be your main display again but scrolling rights a quick menu for accessing all of your apps buddy is basically quick contacts save whoever your most frequent people are and a tap will offer you to call them on your paired phone or you can actually text them right from your SmartWatch itself going back is settings and last is S voice which works quite well with voice recognition speaking naturally into the built-in microphone you can say commands to set up alarm or even initiate a text message to someone as well a Samsung can set up an alarm for tomorrow at 7 a.m. going back to the apps screen and showing what else this can do for you messages offers the ability to read text messages and again send them through your watch there's quick pre-made responses that you can choose from or you can create your own and then select it later there's a mini t9 keyboard that predicts what you're typing familiar to those who are texting before the days of touchscreens and the last and possibly the best way from my experience you can naturally speak and the built-in microphone will transcribe your words click send and let me basically you're on your way now the only issue that I really had with this it doesn't work with Google Hangouts which personally for me is my go-to messaging app but backing out here you can initiate a phone call through your SmartWatch but communication is only through your phone the mic and the watch will not pick up your voice nor is there a speakerphone to hear the other person on the other line again you have to speak through your phone itself s health which I'll demonstrate shortly here but the Nike run app comes standard settings calendar s voice and the weather app is all here all self-explanatory next page you can set up a vibrating alarm for the event to wake you up in the morning without disturbing your roommate or your significant other and I've tested again many other activity bans with the same or similar feature here and the gear s2 for comparison purposes is actually on the weaker side unfortunately offering a very subtle pulse although the vibration setting is set on high now if you're needing this to basically wake you up in the morning medium to deep sleepers I'll be honest with you I don't even think you'll feel it working moving on I know several fitness trainers do ask me about a stopwatch feature there's one here for your needs also a timer to Bloomberg and CNN apps are self-explanatory but next and I think this is really neat the watch does come with four gigabytes of internal storage space you can transfer music from your phone to the watch and leave your phone completely behind very much ideal for runners / Samsung with those four gigabytes you can store up to 300 songs and yes you can customize a playlist too now you do have to pair this with some wireless earbuds or headphones via bluetooth but in the end I'll be honest with you I think it's really worth it backing out and finishing up here your photo gallery is available but it will only show you what photos you have saved on these SmartWatch itself not on your oan and because of the round display this does clip some of your images last page for apps you can check emails when you're connected to your phone find your phone is the next option which conveniently makes your phone ringer go off although your phone may be on silent voice memo is second to last and last but not least Samsung's own milk music is pre-installed here as well and for those who are unfamiliar with milk music it's a free music streaming service similar to Pandora and slacker radio the one unique feature i got'em it though you can turn off your phone and again leave your phone behind and as long as you have a Wi-Fi connection that the gear s2 recognizes you can have streaming music right to your watch again via Wi-Fi you don't even need your phone pretty cool now going all the way back to the main page if I swiped right from the main menu here as step counters offered today's events that you have saved on your calendar the local weather media controls for the stored music again a heart rate monitor and last is your overall activity for the day broken down by walking running and be inactive pressing the home button brings you back to the watch here and if I swiped left this time all of my notifications are present and this is generally where I found the most value out of any Smart Watch those who are into social media Instagram Twitter Facebook you name it all will show up here matter of fact you can manually set up which apps on your phone will send you a push notification to your watch and it looks to be practically any app even my nest cam security camera tells me when there is any movement I can write on the face of the watch so with all those apps and features mentioned it's a great foundation I believe for anyone who is getting into the SmartWatch collection I guess you can say however when you do compare to the likes of other brands on the market specifically those who are using Android wear and Apple iOS the Samsung operating system is lacking a good bit in third-party applications personally skimming through the Samsung gear apps store there weren't many apps that really stood out right away that I wanted to take advantage of Samsung's operating system is called Tizen and unfortunately it is considered as being very limited for the time being however I'll be honest with you the Tizen experience so far has been great though as you have seen most items are laid out well for easy navigation and the watchers general performance takes parents of the user interface has been very fast and very zippy though so the very last aspect here that I wanted to touch base on and this is huge it's the fitness and activity tracking first this will alert you when you have been to inactive moments I'm sitting in my desk for too long editing video this band will turn on and vibrates to tell me to get up and move a bit second this will record all your general activity including walking and running third their heart rate sensor on the back this is indeed accurate when compared to my finger ACCI meter perfect for those who are seeking what their resting heart rate is now throughout the day the band also randomly measures from time to time your pulse in stores into Samsung's own app the s health app for later viewing but if you're looking for something beyond just daily tracking that's to provide some workout options to but it's sadly and oddly buried in this page here I'll tap this swipe right several times and here this incognito green arrow tap that and finally do you get to a screen when you want to record your particular exercise now running cycling elliptical and even a stair climbers all here and I'm going to click on running since it's the most popular choice for most people the filing screen offers you to set a target either trying to hit a certain time you're working out for a target for distance or maybe calories burned or just no target at all just basically a free run now once you hit your numbers that you have set the band will again alert you at that time now once you actually start the workout as shown here there's plenty of information to be displayed there's time distance calories burned pace speed and real time heart rate sampling all on here not bad for a smart watch to be honest with you the only gripes I guess you can say compared to dedicated fitness trackers there's no built-in GPS even at the price of $300 now the gear s2 doesn't monitor sleep although the wearing this watch may be uncomfortable for some during bed time it would be nice to offer an option like that to truly see how many hours of sleep you're actually getting and how restful it is and last and this might throw some people off because this s2 SmartWatch is powered by Samsung's own operating system as mentioned earlier which isn't as popular as Android wear or Apple iOS there's compatibility with RunKeeper Strava endomondo and similar apps I might be wrong but I didn't see a pairing option and I'll be as I looked everywhere in Samsung support has been somewhat of a dud with my inquiries unfortunately even Google fit wasn't able to see my Samsung gear s2 as well as of this video so although this watch does work with other phones other than Samsung if those third-party fitness apps don't support Samsung Tizen you might not have data to compare and analyze over now if someone knows the answer please let me know down below so all this time wearing my s2 how well did the battery do now the gear has two features inductive charging Samson provides a small base that connects to the supplied wall charger it's magnetized allowing for effortless docking at night there's no need to fiddle with a microUSB cable and the watch itself now I couldn't find on Samsung website on how long the SmartWatch should last for however I have heard others mentioned one to three days now my test and the video has proved here I took this off the charger here at 8:03 a.m. in the morning and by night time before bed at 11:25 the battery had drained exactly 33 percent overnight in about 9 hours later they better drained 10 percent and last the watch had reached 3 percent remaining a total lifespan basically of exactly 2 days and 30 minutes not bad at all when compared to other smartwatches the time it takes to recharge from 2% to full battery status I timed it at 2 hours and 8 minutes using the charging cradle and no question from my experience if you're doing maybe an hour run because of the heart rate sensor it could be on all the time the SmartWatch does drain the battery much faster most likely requiring you to recharge that battery at night so I hope this review helped you in some way write in the comment section below what you think of the gear s2 is it hot or is it not if you do like my work please help support it by liking sharing and commenting below every little bit does help and don't forget to add me on to your Facebook Twitter or Instagram accounts and again I'm Jimmy with jims review room here to help you make your purchase decision you guys take care i'll see in the next one