Samsung unveiled the Gear S, its latest smartwatch, prior to IFA in Berlin, but Wired.co.uk went hands-on with the wearable just ahead of its official launch.
The primary feature of the Gear S is 3G functionality, which means it can be used to make and receive calls without the need to be paired with a phone -- it has its own little SIM card slot around the back. We didn't get to test this (we will in our forthcoming full review), but we did have a swipe around the interface to check out some of the other new features.
The first thing to notice is that the standard clock face has been designed to look like a proper old-fashioned timepiece with a face full of dials. However, each of these dials gives you a piece of useful data -- how many steps you've walked, how much battery you have left, how many notifications you have and more simply, the date.
From the face, you swipe right to access your notifications, swipe left to find your most-used apps and swipe up to access the full menu. When it comes to notifications, you can reply to messages from the watch itself, either by using dictation, or by using the on-screen keyboard. Despite the tiny size of the keys, we were pleased to find that this was very accurate.
There seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to making smartwatches -- either you go bulky but feature-packed, or discreet and specialist. The Gear S is definitely a product of the latter, although it has to be said that the curved screen does make it whole lot more pleasant to wear than others of its ilk. Rather than leaving the core module to perch awkwardly atop a slimmer wrist, Samsung has made an effort to get the ergonomics right with this one. It's still pretty inconspicuous however.
The Gear S runs Tizen and also comes with GPS in the shape of Nokia/Microsoft's Here maps, which vibrates to give turn-by-turn directions. Battery life remains disappointing at only two days, but at least the phone comes with some advanced fitness software, which go so far as to provide you with graphs. Most impressively, the Gear S doesn't always rely on 3G. It turns from companion mode to standalone mode depending whether or not it is near to the phone it is paired to, if paired at all.
We'll give the Samsung Gear S the full review treatment ahead of its UK release date, which has yet to be announced but is expected to be in October.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
