Gadgetory

last year's original Samsung gear s was a hulking brute of a bracelet for its sequel Samsung sticks to the basics of a Tizen powered watch but almost everything else has been rebuilt repackaged or repainted into one of the most attractive wearables of Aoife 2015 i'm michael fisher with pocket now join me for a quick look at the Samsung gear s2 Samsung actually announced two versions of its newest SmartWatch here at Aoife the gear s2 and the gear s2 classic each is a sleek round wristwatch rated to ip68 for water and dust resistance and topped with a 1.2 inch Super AMOLED display but the classic trades the sporty plastics of the stock s2 for ceramics and leather for a more well classic style each is built on a stainless steel frame with Gorilla Glass 3 screen protection and the screens themselves are plenty colourful and crisp at just over 300 PPI the Bluetooth 4.1 provides the wireless connection to the phone and this time around it's any Android phone not just Samsung devices as long as you've got 1.5 gigs or more of RAM and Android 4.4 or later you're good to go Wi-Fi is also here as is NFC for Samsung pay support and a separate connected edition of the standard s2 will offer a 4G radio that can support voice calls and data without the need for a connected handset the heart rate sensor is still here and s health packs new features like automatically logging when you're running or walking which is cool also cool the interface in addition to a touch screen and side mounted back and home buttons the gear s2 introduces a rotating bezel control that provides a really nice experience in areas like the main menu where you can navigate just by spinning the ring from the watch face you turn the ring left to go to notifications you turn it right to access widgets yeah it takes some getting used to but it's no more complicated than save the Apple watch my bigger concern is responsiveness the Samsung Tizen powered watches aren't always as speedy has their Android wear counterparts and the gear s2 did feel slow on the whole that's to be expected with non-final software of course Samsung says the gear s2 will last two to three days on a charge a bold claim given its comparatively small 250 milliamp hour battery taking a cue from Motorola the watch will ship with a Qi wireless charging dock for topping up and this one uses magnets to keep the watch firmly in place each version of the watch offers removable bands with the classic having a standard 20 millimeter attachment point and the standard using a proprietary quick-release mechanism while the standard s2 will come in multiple colors the classic comes in any color you want as long as it's black Samsung is withholding pricing and availability for the moment but you can expect the classic to be priced a bit higher than its sibling when these hits stores as a press time every major wireless carrier except Sprint had committed to carry the gear s2 personally speaking I think this is a really sharp looking SmartWatch with a really interesting user interface and I can't wait to try it out properly we'll have more in-depth thoughts on the gear s2 when we take it for a full review of course stay tuned for that and dive into all the other wearable coverage coming from Aoife 2015 here on YouTube and at pocketnow.com till next time this has been Michael Fisher with paka now captain to phones on Twitter thanks for watching we'll see you next time