Gadgetory

samsung's newest gear is its largest ever and most definitely its most ambitious I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow and we'll have a full review in the coming weeks but for now join us for our first impressions look at the Samsung gear s dainty wrists need not apply the gear s is more cuff or bracelet than SmartWatch thanks to its oversized casing and that's thanks to its large display the gear s brings a 360 by 480 curved Super AMOLED display measuring a full 2 inches on the diagonal with a single button below that functions as both home key and power standby toggle the speakerphone sits on the edge alongside the flexible rubber band which is changeable but just matte black on our sprint review device that speaker is counterbalanced by a microphone on the units opposite side which is flanked by charging points for the included charging cradle and the by now expected heart rate sensor the whole casing is ip67 dust and water resistant and it weighs in at 66 grams the software running the gear s is Samsung's Tizen OS which is quite a culture shock when you're coming from Google's Android wear platform that's not to say it's bad it's just different swiping in from the bezels gets you access to things like the application tray system controls and best of all a devoted notification area where all your alerts are aggregated the main screen is devoted to customizable widgets and of course the watch face that's also customizable but we really like the stock one which shows battery life notifications and step count as sub dials of a nicely designed analog clock while the gear s is fairly responsive on the whole animations have a lower frame rate than we're used to seeing from Android wear so the whole thing feels just a little bit sluggish if you're thinking this all sounds like a typical SmartWatch you're right but while the gear s does need to be tethered to a Samsung smart phone for initial setup it's also capable of functioning in standalone mode that means it's got its own 3G cellular connection to Sprint's Network and its own phone number even its own rate plant so you can use it out in the real world all by itself so far in our testing we've used it for several phone calls and many text messages and we've even read a news story or two sprints Network performance in rural Long Island has surprised us even on so-called 3G throughput is quick enough for light reading and callers say we sound quite clear even in areas with heavy background noise we'll be installing more apps and pushing the gear s to the limits in the following days as we prepare our full review and we'll be looking closely at areas of concern like battery life and the interface design we've already got quite a few qualms in each of those departments while it's true that the gear s is the most feature packed SmartWatch we've ever reviewed and a lot of fun to test drive it's also an almost $400 SmartWatch so we'll be testing it thoroughly in the days ahead thanks to Sprint for our review device and let us know what you're looking for from our full review and feature coverage on the gear s leave us a comment below and be sure to give us a thumbs up if you did enjoy this video until next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter heading off to take another call from Admiral Kirk Inspector Gadget Dick Tracy or one of my other wrist phone buddies thanks for watching we'll see you next time