Gadgetory

this is Dancy for with the verge and we're checking out the new Samsung gear s2 this is the latest SmartWatch from Samsung it's running Samsung's proprietary software platform however as a new feature this year it not only works with Samsung smartphones but it should work with most Android smartphones that run Android 4.4 or higher which is a new thing so it really opens up these devices to a lot more people that might be interested in them as far as what you're seeing here this is the standard s2 it's kind of like the sport model it's got a 42 millimeter face here it's a metal body and then what they're calling elastomer rubber strap here standard clasp at the bottom underneath you've got things like the heartrate monitor activity tracking things like that this is a proprietary strap mounting system but it is possible to remove these straps and Samsung says that third-party manufacturers will also be manufacturing straps for it this particular one is silver with the white strap simpson will also be offering a darker model with a black strap of course what's really unique here is this rotating bezel which is how you do a lot of interactions with the watch now it still has a touch screen you can still tap into things and see more information and scroll and things like that but a lot of what you can do there you can also do the scrolling on the wheel which is pretty cool since it keeps your fingers off of the screen and it's got a basic back button and a home button you can see the app launcher here various apps and available Samsung says that about thousand apps will be available at launch and a hundred of those have been developed in hand-in-hand with Samsung so there's all kinds of things like uber and weather and you can also customize between different 26 different watch faces ranging from digital to analog to different various design or styles and one of the new things is the new what they're calling dynamic watch faces which bring different information to the fore so you can have things like your Twitter feed right on your watch or different news or things like that you can also of course access your notifications you can reply to messages with your voice or we can responses Samsung's also offering a t9 style keyboard so you can type different responses as well in addition to the standard s2 there's another model called the s2 classic which is a little bit of a dressier design it's got a slightly different bezel here with the knurled grip on it it's a darker model it comes with a black leather strap as opposed to the rubber and it's a standard 20 millimeter strap here so you can easily swap it for a different one the face is 40 millimeters so it's a little bit smaller but it really doesn't look too much different all the other features are pretty much the same got your circular ring here to control the interface as well as the touch screen all of the same apps are available as well Samsung isn't saying when the new watch will be available or exactly how much they'll cost they expect to have that information fairly soon there's a quick look at the gear s2 and the gear s2 classic on samsung