Gadgetory

well I've loved the verge and this is the Samsung Galaxy gear there are two things about the gear that you love its built-in camera and the ability to send and receive phone calls Dick Tracy style the gears camera has at least past my admittedly low expectations far from being a gimmick it produces some very decent images and works with reliability and quickness the 1.9 megapixel square pictures won't compete with a proper camera but it's so much fun to take that even a jaded scenic like me can't help but smile you could also record 720p video clips about the 15 seconds in length which can be stored on the gears 4 kilobytes of storage or automatically transferred to your Galaxy handset via bluetooth other than Bluetooth the gear has no external connectivity of its own even the NFC chip is built into the charging cradle so you'll be relying on a connected galaxy device for much of this watch's functionality phone calls can be initiated or received on the gear without ever touching the phone which simply acts as a conduit as with a camera the gears integrated microphones and loudspeaker are surprisingly high quality you can carry on a conversation without needed to assume any weight poses to be heard although as with any speaker from our conversation using this function is best reserved for quieter area you won't be surprised to find that it gives two best features also is most readily accessible swipe down from the home screen gets you into the camera a swipe up from the same spot brings up the phone dialer a sideswipe in either direction will get you into the apps menu where unfortunately things start to fall apart navigation is quick once you know what you're doing but terribly unintuitive the same damn will swipe that gets you into the camera from home acts as a back button everywhere else the preloaded apps on the gear a limited both in number and functionality the pedometer is inaccurate the tweet quick view and pocket apps consistently failed to even launch correctly and the music controls only just volume interval between tracks notifications a huge important aspect of a companion device like this are similarly limited where do I had one or a dozen unread Gmail's the number next to the red m icon on the gear was always one and even then the only thing you can do is tap a link on the watch that unlocks your galaxy phone it shows the emails there samsung's boasts of 70 gear wraps at launch sounds impressive at first but there are we the two limited or dysfunctional to excite any interest things that helped by the fact that you have to use the galaxy gear manager app honest am so device to install anything to reveal or to just such basic things is the color of the default watch face the Samson's credit the Bluetooth connection between the gear and spared device is consistently reliable and the automatic transfers the photos and alerts in both directions workflow because of its use of the new bluetooth low energy standard Samsung manages to get surprisingly decent battery life out of the tiny cell would has inside the gear it will last for a full day almost 24 hours even if you have vibration that's enabled and a pretty active social life but be aware that the camera stopped working wants to drop a load fifteen percent to preserve energy physically the gear is a tale of design compromises steel screws and chunky oversized metal parts clash with gentle color schemes like rose gold and oatmeal beige the gary is too big to ever be considered elegant yet to refined to be a proper oversized men's watch as with the pebble the gear screen is activated with rest gesture Sampson tries to be more natural by reacting to your raising the arm the watches on but that's only if you're sitting or standing up it's only useless when you're trying to check the time in bed the experience of using the galaxy gear is running like that of biting into a donut with two little filling there's some fun to be had for sure but most of it is bland a little frustrating this could all be forgivable if the gears price tag match that of an arrow used phone accessory however to ninety nine dollars Samsung's watch is in a whole different stratosphere the galaxy game marks the rough outlines of what could be a very appealing device from Samsung but as it stands today an intuitive oversized overpriced and in constant need of a galaxy guardian it have been better off staying on the drawing board you