Samsung Announces Round 'Gear S2' Smart Watch

[lagwagon]

You are out of you mind about 1,3 and 5
it's simply much nicer looking than Apple watch whether you admit it or not,Apple watch is boring and ugly in terms of design and that's why no body wants it.being round is a major plus design wise and Apple will eventually follow.
I was just talking about design part of course.

No body wants the Apple Watch? https://www.macrumors.com/2015/08/27/idc-apple-watch-sales-3-6-million-estimate/ Seems to me that no body wants Samsung's. They're at 5th and about to release their 7th watch, Apple at 2nd and not far behind 1st on its first generation product.

 

[JCrz]

A watch is supposed to look cool. look at Brietling, Gucci, Tissot, Suunto, digital watches and with the exception of a few Tags, nearly all are round.

And Brietlings are great at displaying scrolling text.

 

[Keirasplace]

You are out of you mind about 1,3 and 5
it's simply much nicer looking than Apple watch whether you admit it or not,Apple watch is boring and ugly in terms of design and that's why no body wants it.being round is a major plus design wise and Apple will eventually follow.
I was just talking about design part of course.

It looks like a $50 dollar timex; if that's what your going for, it is for you.

 

[xotigu]

i wish the apple watch was round too.

No. Why are people obsessed with round watch face. It's a smartwatch, it's easier to operate in a square/rectangle watch face.

 

[kdarling]

Then why are all the round smartwatches so damn huge?

You might as well ask why almost all the rectangular ones are also so huge.

So far, only Apple seems to have put in the extra effort to go smaller.

As a woman with small wrists, there's no way in hell I would wear a watch that big. People who like round watches are just old-fashioned and resistant to change. That's all.

A bit ironic, considering you've said that you wore a round watch yourself, which wasn't exactly tiny:

Did you actually try one on? I did and it doesn't seem any bigger or thicker than any other watch I've owned. It's actually smaller than my current watch that's round.

You even showed us a picture and gave us a sense of the size of what you wore/wear:

Not that you really care about a real answer to this but the 38mm is only a couple mm taller than my current watch and since it isn't round, it's smaller sideways:

I love that the ?Watch uses ALL of the screen real estate

What? Think of how many apps in it use a round UI.

and has a neutral look that goes with ANY kind of jewelry I want to wear with it. It fits any style a person has and doesn't look douchey like so many luxury watches posers wear.

No comment.

I'll say this for you. You've been pretty consistent since the beginning about not liking a round smartwatch display.

Of course, many iOS fans were also consistently against phone screens larger than 4". Opinions often change when opportunity presents itself.

Heck, just go back and look at the early forum threads when people thought the iWatch would be round. People were praising the idea.

 

[kdarling]

It's bigger than the Apple watch

The two bigger models are, but the Classic is not much bigger, if at all:

The larger Apple Watch is 42.5 mm tall x 12.5 mm thick, and 36.4mm wide.

The Gear S2 Classic is 43.6 mm tall x 11.4 mm thick, and 39.9mm wide (it's round). And the tallness includes band lugs, something Apple leaves out of their case dimensions by moving them into the bands (and/or people use third party lug adapters). So it's like 40mm without lugs.

 

[goconnor_ca]

I think the samsung 3G could be a GAME CHANGER. The apple watch should have been a standalone phone with bluetooth from the get go. If Apple wants you to buy an iPhone so they can sell you a watch and other stuff and protect their iPhone marketshare they will end up like IBM, Microsoft, GM etc. They need to adapt and innovate before the competition or become a dinosaur.

 

[happyslayer]

I gotta say, the silver one looks pretty cool. I'd wear it. Though I wouldn't actually buy it. The only Samsung gear I buy on a regular basis is their EVO850 SSD hard drives for my customers' computers; they make the best SSD in my opinion. I will, however, eventually get an Apple Watch. I've just been waiting for the ecosystem to mature a bit... and I bought a 1.2/512 rMB earlier this year and my bank account needs some recuperation time

 

[ErikGrim]

What? Think of how many apps in it use a round UI.

View attachment 578425

LOL. You keep bringing these up as if they are good examples. There's FOUR examples of round UI, and only the watch face and the exercise rings are truly suited to the round UI.

And they are not even constrained to the circle, notice all that extra information on display OUTSIDE of the circle? Good luck finding room for that on a truly round display.

The friend picker is a worse experience than a scrolling list (although balanced by being aesthetically pleasing). And the less said about the launcher screen the better.

The truth is that apart from displaying information that goes from 0-100 (or 1-12), a circle is an awful waste of space.

 

[MasterRyu2011]

2 to 3 days of battery life for a retina-screened full fledge smart watch? Tizen or not, it's pretty tempting. In fact, I heard Tizen is a lot better than Android Wear (except for lack of app support). If this thing is around $250, it's insta-buy for me

 

[JackieInCo]

No pricing or availability yet. In other words, it's not a real product. And if/when it is (in any volume), the happy owner can look forward to paying for a second cellular phone number.
btw: Tizen means it doezn't.

You do realize that the watch can also connect via bluetooth, eliminating the need to keep cellular service on the watch. My Gear S ran a full three days when connected through BT.

You are correct though about tizen. There will be very little support in the apps department yet again. I gave up wearing my Gear S just after three months because I was so bored to tears with it. I will likely never buy another watch no matter who makes it.

 

[kdarling]

Apple gives us the digital crown, Samsung gives us the twisting watch face. Lol. Not sure why they didn't just outright copy the digital crown concept.

Perhaps they didn't use a digital crown because many people would claim they copied it from Apple.

Yet Samsung patented a combination rotating bezel and digital crown watch UI almost a decade before the Apple Watch used the latter, and almost a year before even the iPhone came out:

 

[djgamble]

Tizen. who the hell wants to develop for Tizen?

Time will tell but I suspect nobody. Same-song needs Google's backing and marketing. Other than that, they are a pretty lame brand.

PS - the watch looks rubbish.

 

[djgamble]

My Gear S ran a full three days when connected through BT.

Cool, my Pebble gets 10 days of usage and works with my iPhone.

 

[JackieInCo]

Cool, my Pebble gets 10 days of usage and works with my iPhone.

Both watches were still better in battery life then what one would get with the Apple Watch.

Samsung does however need to dump Tizen. That's an automatic failure.

 

[kgtenacious]

View attachment 578335 Round screens are fantastic until you use literally anything but the watch display.

Credit: @Piggie

According to samsung, the display itself is circular: 1.2”, Circular Super AMOLED, 360x360, 302ppi. Repeatedly showing a rectangle inside a circle is meaningless.

 

[Bbqthis]

Cool, my Pebble gets 10 days of usage and works with my iPhone.

I mean...it "works"..."with" your iPhone.

 

[JackieInCo]

Also, Samsung sucks at supporting it's own devices.

I bought my Gear S watch back in February and I believe it had one OS/software update for it waiting when I took it out of the box. Since then, there has not been one OS update for it and there never will likely be one again.

 

[ErikGrim]

According to samsung, the display itself is circular: 1.2”, Circular Super AMOLED, 360x360, 302ppi. Repeatedly showing a rectangle inside a circle is meaningless.

IT. DOESN'T. MATTER.

You can't read cut off text nor interact with cut off UI. The usable area of a circle is still a square unless your content is also circular. Not sure how I can spell it out clearer for you.

 

[kgtenacious]

IT. DOESN'T. MATTER.

You can't read cut off text nor interact with cut off UI. The usable area of a circle is still a square unless your content is also circular. Not sure how I can spell it out clearer for you.

Why would you stick with rectangular content when your usable area is circular? Text and content can be justified to match any surface shape.

There is another front page post on here with a video that shows apps using a circular UI rather nicely: https://www.macrumors.com/2015/08/31/android-wear-iphone-now-compatible/

 

[uzdarumorsluke]

It's like owning a Porsche and wearing Hyuandai merchandise.... Know your product!

 

[wigby]

Originally I think round watch face is better. but after wearing apple watch for a while, I definitely think you should make it square. round watch face is exactly as old none-smart watch. And the style basically are same. So you cannot really compete with those Swaziland watch brands. which means you could never replace them even smart watches are smart

Both round and square look good. It's about functionality in the end. Apple chose 4:3 for their iPad and everyone ignored them or laughed. No one is laughing now because even Samsung has switched to 4:3. You will see the same thing happen with all smart watches as soon as this "look like a classic watch" fad is done. No one has put as much thought into this as Apple so within 2 years all smart watches will adopt the square look like Apple had from the beginning.

 

[pacalis]

Are those smart watches?

No, like Apple's watch they can't make calls.

It's like owning a Porsche and wearing Hyuandai merchandise.... Know your product!

This is more absurdity. Given Samsung is such a big Apple supplier a better metaphor would be paying for a Porsche made of Hyundai parts.... Know your product!

 

[wigby]

Both these and Apple Watch look dull and boring. Maybe Chinese will come up with nice design.

Name one Chinese design that wasn't heavily "inspired" by other non-Chinese tech companies. There's just no originally there, only commodity rip-off electronics.

 

[wigby]

no you don't.

If you compare the footprint both take then yes, you are getting screen for the amount of space it occupies on the wrist. And with such a small screen, every mm counts. Round screens look cool but that's about it. Rectangular will win in the end just like iPad's 4:3 won over 16:9.