“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.]
Related articles:
Apple’s iWatch cleared for takeoff – September 4, 2013
Samsung announces ‘Galaxy Gear’ watch accessory for Galaxy Android devices – September 4, 2013
Worse than that Google Glass nonsense.
I fear that all this hype about how Apple will do this better has completely distorted our expectations and whatever they release will never satisfy.
This is going to be, if not already, very interesting…
Samsung’s customers buy their large (and cheap) phones to avoid spending money on a tablet. Now Samsung wants these people to spend money on a second device? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Within a year they’ll release the rest of the Galaxy Gear family with a choice of screen sizes up to 5 inches. This should cover from the common dork up through the super dorks.
And the mega dorks will sport one of these and the new Samsung Goggle Glasses which unsurprisingly will look just like Google Glasses
It is just like a netbook , upgrading itself to look like useful .
Apple need to think of something better then that.
Samsung Galaxy Gear look great with a cool features too. Well done!
will it work with my Samsung Fridge?
Making u want to wear a smartwatch is a hard task as it requires a greater level of innovation which Samsung has nothing .
I think the watch is a dumb idea! my Bluetooth headphones answer calls for me. Branding is a tribal experience. watch companies years ago started to make watches bigger so people could see that you plunked down a bundle to own a chariol or rolex Samsung is trying to make it painfully obvious that your in their tribe. apple did it with white headphones. there is certainly nothing elegant about this design and it will certainly show its shortcomings IF apple decides to put out a watch. like Jobs said about Microsoft “they just have such appallingly bad taste” Samsung is the new Microsoft ,once again “a camel is a horse built by committee”
The average do not need a device to fill a need. They get a device then they “get” the need. Samsung knows there are legions of average in the world. They profit handsomely from that market. Apple would do well to help lift the average from their “averageness” more effectively. A rising tide lifts all boats. Hopefully the new 5S will harbor millions of new boats.
P.S. one good thing about an I watch is it would cut down on the cracked glass problem