Gadgetory

if you believe the forecasts coming out of the tech sector wearable computing is a market poised on the brink of blast-off and that explosion has already begun with the popularization of the SmartWatch on Pocket now's comparison table today are the two principal reasons for the new categories relative popularity the Kickstarter facilitated pebble smartwatch and the new Samsung Galaxy gear which of these is a better fit for your wrist let's find out I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is Samsung Galaxy gear versus pebble smartwatch it doesn't take a long look to see that these are devices built for completely different purposes and maybe completely different people the hardware bears this out with the polycarbonate pebble making up the minimalist half of this duo it's backlit ePaper display is black and white it's got a fairly low resolution and refresh rate but it's also on all the time meaning you don't need to press a button to wake it up despite that it just barely sips power from the watch's lipo battery the pebble only needs to be charged every four to seven days depending on your usage and it comes bundled with a proprietary magnetic connector for that purpose it's also waterproof and are almost daily usage over the past six months has shown it to be a simple but durable device on the flip side sits Samsung which has predictably packed every possible feature into its first modern SmartWatch the Galaxy gear is nearly twice as heavy as the pebble but the added bulk works to its advantage combining with its steel and sapphire construction to give it the perception of a higher quality device it offers a Super AMOLED touchscreen that's bigger and much more colorful than the pebbles but that's just the start it also comes packin a spec sheet that wouldn't be out of place on a low-end smartphone from a year ago in addition to a 720p camera in the wristband and a speaker microphone combination for taking voice calls on your wrist the Galaxy gears ad campaign is built upon nostalgia for the futuristic watches of yesteryear and the gear packs everything Samsung thinks it needs to achieve that that means the gears software experience is much much more elaborate than the pebbles where the pebble is essentially a second screen for your smartphone showing you notifications as they come in and that's about it the gear is better characterized as a fully fleshed-out accessory with the beginnings of an entire ecosystem of apps and mini apps of course pebbles got an SDK of its own and developers have already created a bevy of custom watch faces and apps but the gears added capabilities like voice input mean you can do more with it a good example besides the obvious phone calling is the ability to record voice memos or to reply to a text message via voice dictation and the camera can be used for some really compelling and useful features like on-the-fly language transcription just don't plan on using those added features with anything other than a Samsung device one of the gears biggest handicaps is that you need a Galaxy Note or a galaxy s4 to use it and even then you need to be running the latest Android version by contrast the pebble will work with just about any Android smartphone or iPhone but ironically because of samsung's customized software it doesn't exactly play nice with Galaxy devices the pebble comes out on top and areas other than compatibility while less impressive on paper the smaller device actually delivers a better experience in terms of the core feature any SmartWatch needs to succeed notifications pebble has no trouble displaying pretty much any notification you throw at it from vanilla options like SMS and email to Facebook Instagram and hangout alerts and you can even preview most of those messages right on the watch not so with the Galaxy gear sure messages that come in via either the stock SMS or email apps can be previewed but alerts coming from third-party apps and we're talking major titles like Facebook or Gmail offer just a disappointing icon and an invitation to read the message on your phone considering the whole reason behind wearing a SmartWatch is to avoid taking the phone out of your pocket in the first place that's a pretty major oversight and it makes using the gear less enjoyable then sense than using the pebble that's compounded by pebble superiority in little details like better Bluetooth range reliable backlight illumination and changeable watch band and in more major areas like the gears lack of water resistance where the pebble is a watch you can knock around and wash dishes and shower with and generally not worry about banging up the gear is much more a fancy watch something you treat with kid gloves that's a pretty good summation of the relationship between these products actually since you'll need to be charging it in its special cradle nearly every night you're constantly reminded that the galaxy gear is more of a high-maintenance accessory rather than the rough-and-tumble pebble watch the gear wins a lot of points for its elaborate feature set and its superior build but the pebble for now it actually fulfills the fundamental role of a SmartWatch better that plus it's wider compatibility and the fact that it retails for half the price of the gear make the pebble the smarter watch to buy if you own anything except a high-end Galaxy smartphone if you'd like to learn more about the pebble check out our video life on the pebble smartwatch which we published several months ago and we took delivery on our pebble and if you want to learn more about the Galaxy gear stay tuned this week we have a lot more coverage on that device coming up in the meantime please toss us a like if you enjoyed the video thank you for watching in the meantime leave us a comment down below if you have a question or some feedback and visit us at pocketnow.com for a lot more coverage on all things mobile until next time this has been michael fisher with PocketNow thank you again for watching and we'll see you soon you