Gadgetory

every SmartWatch you've probably seen whether it's an Apple watch an Android wear model or a pebble needs to be connected to a phone to be smart if you disconnect it from the phone well then you kind of lose the smarts and it just becomes a regular old watch well Samsung's got a gear s2 that has a cellular radio in it now it's means that it doesn't need to be connected to your phone to do something you can place calls you can text message you can do a couple of other things when your phone and your watch are not in the same place cell for about two hundred ninety-nine bucks you can get it with AT&T Verizon or t-mobile support I haven't had the 18 T model here and it lets me leave my phone behind and still have some smart functions mostly what it lets me do is make phone calls and receive phone calls on my wrist when my phone isn't around and I can also send and receive text messages but other things like alerts from my phone notifications apps stuff like that I really can't do that when it's separated from my phone the design of the 3G model of the gear s2 is very similar to the Wi-Fi model it looks really similar it's got the same circular bezel controls same round display that's really vibrant and brilliant it's a little bit thicker than the other one but it's not totally uncomfortable to wear functionally it functions exactly the same as well it's got the same apps available the same interface the same features and stuff like that you can control your music with it you can get your notifications and stuff like that when it's all paired to your phone over Bluetooth of course it also has the same drawbacks meaning there's not a lot of apps here still that's kind of one of the biggest faults of the gear s2 model is that Samsung doesn't have any kind of apps available and that actually becomes a bigger deal when you're using it as a cellular device because if you want to take it on a run you can track your activity you can still get text messages and phone calls and stuff like that when you're out and about but it doesn't have a lot of fitness tracking apps available you're not going to find Strava or MapMyFitness or other popular apps that you might want to use when you're tracking your run pretty much you're left with Samsung's s health app and that's about it other things that aren't really great about it the battery life when it's on 3g is really poor it's not going to last much more than three or four hours when it's disconnected and out and about on the side network you also always have to have your phone on whether it's at home or at your desk or in your car to connect to the cellular network to make any of these functions work so it's not really a fully standalone device you have to pair it with your phone to set it up you have to install all the apps to your phone yeah change all the settings to your phone it just lets you separate your device from your phone every once in a while personally I didn't find that particularly useful most the time I have my phone with me anyways the only times that I might not have my phone is like I mentioned when I'm out on a run and then I could possibly use the wireless features on the gear s2 3G the other downside of this is you're gonna have to pay a monthly service fee to use this with ATT it's ten dollars per month the other carriers are about five dollars a month personally I don't think that's particularly worth it for the features that it gives you right now in the future all smart winters will probably be connected meaning you can use it separate from your phone and completely standalone device right now we're still a few steps away from that