Gadgetory

even after roughly four years the SmartWatch world is still in search of its perfect device and while this isn't it it gets a lot closer than I expected I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow and this is the Samsung gear s2 review rebuttal it's a rebuttal because it's not a full review our official review already went up a few months back courtesy of our own Jules Wang and it's when we still stand behind but after using an s2 loaner myself as part of our trial of a TN t--'s numbersync feature I had a few additional thoughts of my own one thing I'll say having strapped on both the standard and classic editions of this watch at both FIFA and CES this one is a fair bit beefier that's because this is the 3g variant which is over 2 millimeters thicker than the bluetooth only model and it's white band and bright metal casing make every bit of that added height very visible so if you're in the market for one of these be sure and take note of which one you're looking at the added bulk will be worth it to you though if you often find yourself separated from your smartphone during my testing I left my phone at home several times while going out on the town with the gear s2 and because the watch could connect independently to AT&T network I could still make voice calls send and receive text messages and check the news samsung deserves a lot of credit first for being willing to strike off on its own direction with the design and second for being willing to abandon its previous design language while 2014's gear s was a cumbersome cuff the gear s2 is actually quite attractive more than that it's innovative I get the same feeling from using the rotating bezel as I did using Apple's digital crown namely why didn't somebody think of this sooner the spinning bezel is something that's been built into many watches for decades and it makes all the sense in the world to put it to work as a software switch on the s2 the Tizen based software is as zippy as you can ask for and its high contrast iconography is just gorgeous on the 1.2 inch AMOLED screen that said using the s2 software takes some getting used to in addition to the bezel you've got two hardware buttons on the side plus a touchscreen with its own set of gestures to learn not to draw another comparison to the Cupertino competition but constantly switching back and forth between the various interface methods mirrors the kind of muddled UX I encountered on the Apple watch also some basic watch functions like the timer and stopwatch are buried deep in the app menu which makes getting to them cumbersome fortunately there's a shortcut you can set the home button to jump directly to a specific app with a double click features like that are all over the gear s2 software actually and it takes a while to uncover them all holding down the home button lets you power the watch off but it also gives you access to power saving mode which switches the watch to grayscale and powers down most of its functions to help you last a little longer if you forgot your charger the charger by the way is a very cool magnetic pedestal that uses qi wireless charging swiping down on the watch face is a lot like doing so on an android phone get to a connection screen as well as Do Not Disturb settings and other system toggles these are all great features to have but again it feels sort of like a whole smartphone it's been crammed onto your wrist no matter how good the interface is that's a lot of stuff to squeeze into a tiny little display and so the s2 feels the pretty crowded the more you try to do with it one of my favorite features is weirdly in text messaging yeah it's nice to be able to dictate messages on pebble and Android wear watches and you can do it here too but when you don't want to talk you can type Samsung is built in a t9 style keyboard here which is fantastic if you grew up sending SMSs with a numeric keypad on a dumb phone if you didn't well there's always the emoticons the gear s2 isn't quite a slam-dunk like most smartwatches I think it's fairly overpriced though AT&T does offer various promotions to bring that cost down including a current offer to get a free s2 with a qualifying Galaxy smartphone purchase the fact that it syncs with Samsung's gear app means third-party app installs are a little more complex than on say Android wear and while it's supposed to work with most modern Android phones you'll have to take your chances if you can't find your model on Samsung's already outdated compatibility list but as a companion to a newly purchased Galaxy smartphone or a change of pace from the stark simplicity of Android wear the gear s2 will please those already sold on the SmartWatch as a category and as an indication of what Samsung can do when it chooses to innovate rather than replicate it's a genuine success story our full gear s2 review is available at pocketnow.com and while you're there be sure to check out our written coverage on ATT numbersync till next time this has been michael fisher captain two phones on twitter thanks for watching we'll see you next time