“The Galaxy Gear is here. For those who haven’t been following this very closely, let me break this down: It’s a smartwatch from Samsung with a bright, clear touchscreen, built-in microphones, a speaker, and a camera. It can do certain things on its own, and when connected via Bluetooth with a Samsung smartphone it can also send and receive calls. The watch can display texts and e-mails from your phone and launch a selection of specially-designed apps from Pocket, Evernote, and RunKeeper,” Sam Grobart writes for Businessweek.
“There is one thing that the Gear doesn’t seem to have: a purpose. This is true for all smartwatches, which tend to be liked more in theory than practice,” Grobart writes. “Samsung’s latest attempt is part of a larger effort the company calls ‘Smart Freedom,’ which means very little… But the Gear doesn’t necessarily provide a larger answer to the watch-of-the-future puzzle, either. The $299 device provides ‘a day’s’ worth of battery life, says Samsung, but dumb wristwatches already offer infinite levels of power due to the cunning use of springs. This seems like a step backward. Recharging the Gear also requires a dock, so you have to take that with you if you do any traveling.”
Grobart writes, “The Galaxy S3 and S4 smartphones were launched with an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink assortment of features and capabilities. The Gear is another chapter in the Do Everything, Show Everything book that Samsung is writing. With the Gear’s significant limitations and lacking a clear reason for existing, it remains to be seen if customers want to read that book.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote earlier:
And now Samsung waits with the Sonys of the world to find out how smartwatches are really supposed to be done.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “The Roving Skeptic” for the heads up.]
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Samsung announces ‘Galaxy Gear’ watch accessory for Galaxy Android devices – September 4, 2013