Gadgetory

LG and Samsung have come to the androidwear party with a pair of deceptively dissimilar smartwatches at first glance they look much the same but a deeper look reveals a wide gulf between them in fashion fastening and fit and finish i'm michael fisher with pocket now and this is our Android wear comparison LG G watch vs. Samsung gear live strap both of these on the same wrist and you'll get more than funny looks on the street you'll get an up-close glimpse at how different the hardware here really is each one is rated to ip67 for dust and water resistance but they're the physical similarity ends the G watch is little more than a squared off flat plastic slab a little heavier than it looks but otherwise almost totally unremarkable right down to its conventional rubber wristband the gear live is just slightly lighter but it feels more substantial thanks to its cosmetic concessions from the swooping curve of that metal bezel to the understated logo on the pin type fastening clasp by the way if you don't like either of these bands you can change them both watches use a standard 22 millimeter mounting the live also has a heart rate sensor like its fitness oriented gear cousins and a side mounted button to manually toggle the screen and when you do power those screens on the gear live blows its competitor out of the water they're both one point six inch square panels but the IPS display and the G watch is lower in both resolution and color saturation than the Super AMOLED screen on the Samsung device daylight performance slightly favors the G watch though neither is exactly easy to read and direct sunlight and the G watch can also go slightly dimmer on command but these advantages are narrow at best in every way that matters the gear alive has the superior display now if these were smartphones we'd kick off the software section talking about skins but because these are Android wear products the software is thankfully almost identical it's the same vertical and horizontal strip of cards on each device with Google now intelligently displaying notifications only when appropriate and relevant at least in theory third party apps run well on the 4 gigs of storage and 512 Meg's of RAM on each watch and the gestures baked into Android wear work about as well on each - there are quirks and inconsistencies of course but the only performance difference that we noticed was a tendency for the Samsung watch to hiccup between cards slightly more often and for longer periods of time otherwise each seems to understand speech equally well the touch response is uniformly excellent and the gyro triggered screen on gesture is just as inconsistent on each there doesn't seem to be a big difference in Bluetooth reception with both watches pretty sluggish to reconnect after a signal loss the biggest spec difference outside of the display is in power packs the gear lives battery is just 75% the size of the G watches so we're expecting endurance to suffer on the Samsung product relative to LG's we'll have more on that in our full reviews coming later on a bigger issue comes in the accessory Department the G watch comes with a sturdy magnetic cradle for charging while the gear live sticks with a snap-on attachment that might be more fragile we're seeing reports that the gear lives charger breaks pretty easily which might help to explain part of how Samsung was able to get its watch's price down to 30 dollars cheaper than LG's winners and losers aren't really the point of PocketNow comparisons but well it's tough to see how the gear live isn't the runaway winner of this one with the Samsung watch you get a more stylish and high-end design a heart rate monitor and a manual button that triggers a much more beautiful display yes the gear live has a significantly smaller battery but all indications so far are that you'll want to charge your Android wear wristwatch every night anyway regardless of which one you choose so for us it's the Samsung product we're more likely to recommend for now but before you pull the trigger stick around for pocket now's full review of each device and the Android wear platform as a whole coming shortly to make sure you don't miss it subscribe here on YouTube and follow us on social media where we talk text and tweet until next time this has been michael fisher with PocketNow thanks for watching and we'll be on your wrist again very soon