Samsung Galaxy Gear Review

It had to begin somewhere.

So after the utter catastrophe that was the Chinese knockoff Gear 2, I decided to get a real Samsung smartwatch to see how it compares. This is the Galaxy Gear, Samsung's first smartwatch in the Gear lineup and probably responsible for the whole smartwatch craze that's been going on nowadays. I will say right off the bat it is a million times better than the Chinese watch and I've been using it for a bit over a month just get a good feel for it. The real question is, is it a good smartwatch in general? Well it does what I need it to but it's also very flawed. Lets see why.

Sound comes out of your wrist. Why not at you?

The Gear came out in 2013 which in modern technology terms means it's old as shit. The watch itself is pretty high quality, the top of the device is what looks to be stainless steel as is the clasp on the bottom. The back of the watch is made out of plastic and it's not removable at all. The bands are made out of some type of silicon/rubber, they feel fairly durable and they have a good amount of adjustment. Interestingly enough the speaker is on the clasp so it has the classic smartphone issue of the sound projecting away from you but it does it's job fine. I found the watch fairly comfortable initially but after long periods of time I get prone to shifting it around a lot and that's a downside. The problem is that a lot of hardware is actually in the bands which reduces the flexibility of the bands making the watch a bit of a bitch to wear for extended periods of time. If you have huge wrists it's even worse as parts of the band have literally zero flex in them and dig into your wrist a bit. It's also why you can't use your own watch bands. The Gear 2 fixed most of this but it too wasn't perfect comfort wise either. Also the watch is rated IP55 which means being hurled around in water is a pretty bad idea.

For peeping toms around the world.

I mentioned the really non flexible parts of the band; this is why, the camera. Okay, the watch has a camera and I got to admit, that is some really cool 007 type stuff right there but it is the biggest reason why the watch is pretty awful to wear for most people at extended periods of time. Also just to throw this out there, I have zero use for it. I used a few time to mess with it but other than that nothing. Unless you're some sort of sick monopolizer of shooting photos up girl's skirts(which is a bad idea anyways because there isn't a way to turn the shutter sound off) the camera is easily the most useless feature of the watch. The Gear 2 fixed the band issue with the camera by moving it onto the watch body but again, no use and Samsung realized that, thus dropped it from their later models.

Not gonna lie, it's really not bad at all.

But it's actually a pretty solid little camera! No kidding. The Chinese watch took photos of appalling quality but the Gear's little 1.9 megapixel package actually takes a rather clear photo. That's the same Enzo from the Chinese watch review and the Gear totally owns it. It can also take video too but like I said, I couldn't find a way to turn of the shutter sound and that's a little annoying. All photos and videos get transferred straight to your phone once you take them. It's nifty, but again you won't use this when you have a phone that takes significantly nicer photos in your pocket.

Charging contacts. Great.

Okay the camera was nice but let's talk about bad things again. Let's say the watch needs some juice, or you need to transfer files. You can look all over the watch and not find a single USB port on it. Reason for this is that Samsung decided it would be "cool" to use a proprietary charging cradle to charge the watch and transfer files to your computer.

Not acceptable.

Granted this isn't the OEM cradle but you get the idea, it's stupid. It probably was just to cut down on mass but it's a huge inconvenience. What if you forget to charge the watch but you're at work? Chances are you won't have the cradle with you because it's just more shit to carry and you probably forgot that the watch itself does not take a microUSB, unlike literally every other phone on the market except for the iPhone. Also on a side note this watch only works with certain Samsung devices so if you have an LG or a HTC, sorry guys.

Yeah... I don't think so.

Okay, maybe you can get away with wearing the watch while the cradle is on if you don't mind it looking like... well... absolute crap. That describes how that looks well enough.

It looks clean and modern overall.

Basically the Gear's physical hardware is either stupid or completely useless. I can't even say the AMOLED screen is good because the watch had developed screen burn in because of it showing the same screen 24 hours a day. My Gear was used so I wasn't at all shocked about this but be warned. As for the software, it runs a modified version of Android so it is possible to sideload apps or totally new ROMs on the Gear without too much hassle. You do have the option of upgrading to Tizen which is Samsung's in house OS that all their new watches run on with the exception of the Gear Fit and Gear Live. Tizen is bit smoother of an experience than the modified Android but it lacks support for a lot of things you can do with a bit of Android know how. That's about the only reason why most people still buy the Gear of this model is for tinkering but it is possible to replace Tizen with full Android or Android Wear on some of the newer Gear models

Apps page, typical stuff.

That being said, the Gear has no access to Google Play by default and all the apps you can download normally have to be done off your phone, same goes for watch faces. That's the Gear's biggest problem is that it's too reliant on the phone it's paired to. Without the phone, half it's features are completely useless effectively making it a regular digital watch with a continuous use battery life of about a day, and in a world where regular watches have batteries that last years, that's terrible. And don't forget about the cradle when it dies on you. I does what it needs to though, and that's fine. I primarily use it as a second screen for notifications when my phone can't be out which works great. Phone calls work as you expect too(Dick Tracy reference here) but if you hate using speaker phone, you will hate using the Gear to talk to grandma or your friend who swears too much. Also S-Voice, which is the only way you can send text messages on the Gear, is a bit spotty. Basically if you hate people hearing your conversations, the Gear is terrible device for privacy. Also, it does have a Pedometer but that's about it for fitness. If you want a good workout wearable, get a FitBit, not this.

It's at least good for telling time. Sort of.

The Galaxy Gear really is mixed bag of things ambitious and things awful. It's not exactly comfortable for a lot of people, many of it's features are either dumb or completely useless, and it what features do have some use just don't work like you would want them to like the phone or S-Voice texting function. Plus without a phone it's completely useless for the most part. It's just not a very good smartwatch, and if you take the battery life into account it's not a very good watch either. The Galaxy Gear has been far surpassed by newer devices that do a lot better job but you have to give it credit for at least setting base for improvement. We probably wouldn't have had the Apple Watch or the Moto 360 if Samsung didn't stop trying to improve the Gear, and at least for that reason, it did what it had to.

The Galaxy Gear is currently discontinued.