Samsung Gear S2 hands-on: getting cozy with Android

Samsung was one of the first to jump into the smartwatch scene with its custom Android-based Galaxy Gear. Back then, not many paid attention to what many labeled as a fad that would disappear in a few months. Now almost two years later, the smartwatch market remains and Samsung is unveiling yet another wearable innovation in the Gear S2 and its rotating bezel control. But before you go knocking this smartwatch because it isn’t running Android Wear, perhaps you might want to take a second look. This time, Samsung is making it work with any modern Android smartphone.

Let’s get the tech details out of the way first. While the 1.2-inch 320×320 circular Super AMOLED screen might sound common these days, the innards of the Gear S2 are quite different from your run of the mill smartwatch. For one, it runs on an Exynos chip instead of the usual Qualcomm, a dual core 1.0 GHz to be exact. For another, it has, or at least has an option, for its own 3G connectivity. Samsung revealed three variants of the Gear S2, a basic one and a “Classic” version. The Gear S2 Classic is designed to appeal to those who want a more conventional looking timepiece with a black case and genuine leather band. The Gear S2, which comes in a regular and a 3G version, sports Samsung’s conventional rubbery aesthetic for wearables.

Appearance-wise, the Gear S2 might not be such a huge sell. Even the Gear S2 Classic looks less classy than some Android Wear smartwatches these days. But beauty is only skin deep and the biggest selling point of the Gear S2 will be its user interface, both physical and digital.

The smartwatch sports two physical buttons, one for back and one for home, the latter doubling as an app launcher. But the real star is the rotating bezel, which adds a new kind of control never seen before in a smartwatch. The control has a nice audible but not grating click to it, giving confidence that your turn of the dial actually does something at each step rather than one, smooth, but ambiguous swivel. How that functionality will be used, and even abused, is something we’ll have to see if, and when, apps start populating it.

As you might already know, the Gear S2 runs Tizen, not Android Wear, not even Samsung’s old custom Android ROM on the Galaxy Gear. In the past, Samsung’s wearables have been pretty much been exclusive to its own TouchWiz-based smartphones. This time, Samsung is singing a slightly different tune. Any smartphone running Android 4.4 or later will be able to work with the smartwatch as long as it has more than 1.5 GB of RAM. Yes, you heard that right. The Tizen-based Gear S2 can be used on Android 4.4 and later devices. That definitely opens up the door for more users, and, consequently, more buyers.

That, however, only solves half of the problem. How about the user interface? And how about the apps? Samsung has taken great pains to update the UI on the Gear S2 to be more “circle friendly”, and to be totally honest, it works! It gets a bit of getting used to if you’re already entrenched in Android Wear’s ways, but this incarnation of Tizen works better on round watch faces. Noticeable is the use of circular icons, not unlike Apple’s own interface, but arranged in a less dizzying format.

The other part of the question is the apps. Try as it might, Samsung just hasn’t gotten enough traction to get the same amount of apps, both the essential and the nonsensical, that Android Wear has, but it’s getting there. Slowly. For this round it has sought the partnership of many big names in the mobile app industry to give the Gear S2 a fighting chance in this almost black and white world of Android Wear and Apple Watch.

There will be a variety of bands available for the Gear S2 Classic, which uses a standard 20 mm lug. ranging from rubber to leather, from plain to patterned.

The Samsung Gear S2 and Gear S2 Classic will be available in the US starting October, with carriers announcing their own dates for the 3G-enabled Gear S2. Non-Samsung Android smartphone users should note that while the Gear S2 will be compatible with their devices, some functionality, like Samsung Pay, won’t be available.