Galaxy Gear S2 Classic — The wearable for now.
Galaxy’s Gear S2 Classic feels like the best wearable smart watch you can get ‘right now’ with much less hassle than that you have to go through with Apple Watch. I haven’t been on it but it probably feels like being on one of the Virgin airline trips. Paying less but looking kind of cool. (Pardon me if the metaphor doesn’t sits well here. I am not hesitating using Virgin airline even I haven’t been on one.)
Anyhow, the Classic model of Gear S2 is not that expensive here in Korea compared to the prices from other countries. Even if you count the combination of Apple Watches, it is way more reasonable. The plus side, it looks like a cool watch and the straps are replaceable with other generic bands for regular watch.
I chose Classic model over regular Gear S2 because I am afraid nobody would make replaceable bands for Gear S2 model. I am still waiting some cool new case for Galaxy S6 Edge but somehow, if you want some cool new cases, you need to go with iPhones. I know it sucks for me and Samsung but that is how life works.
Back to Gear S2 Classic.
The Gear S2 comes with this wheel interface. You can just wheel clockwise or anti-clock wise to select stuffs or managing volumes or other values. Samsung brilliantly sells this point all over the press releases as this doesn’t cover any of the screen like other smart watches. Touching screen or jiggling with digital crown will somehow eventually cover the display in some way. (Yeah Gear S2 also supports touch screen too but you can interact with less hassle.)
There are not so much you can do right now but initially essential stuffs are already there. You can start from customising your watch face. Activity tracking with heart rate sensing is also there along with S-health and Nike Running apps. Most of your notifications are sent to the watch via Bluetooth. Under known wi-fi network, Gear can also work without the paired Galaxy phone via wi-fi.
Here in Korea, they recently began to distribute T-Money app which you can just tag your watch and get on buses or subways or even you can pay stuff at the convenient stores. Also, they announced to bring up one of the popular navigation apps called Kimgisa. (I am not trying these featured yet since there are some bug reports regarding battery life leak.) For the device based on the Tizen, which seemingly Samsung only eagerly push out, actually apps are coming faster than I expect.
Like Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge, Samsung doesn’t hesitate to benchmark how Apple sells their products.
Well, yes. I though as if Apple made a new commercial for AppleWatch. However, even Samsung is slightly copying Apple in some ways, their marketing and their products look cool. Like how they do feels cute.
It is my first week in with the Gear and lots of people like what they see. As I did with my Galaxy S6 Edge, I don’t have to explain that Samsung made less hideous product and why you should care. People actually liked this watch.
The camouflage watch band is generic one which you can put any of the conventional watches. It costed around 40 US dollars at one of the neighbourhood for watch shopping (yeah we have those in Seoul). The rubber band is from Italy and they even made it smell like Vanilla to avoid bad smell of rubber. That means, with 30–50 something bucks, I can just have watch with new bands whenever I want.
Apple always pushes out stunning products with marvellous PR works. Samsung has been following Apple for years and finally they found how to compete with Apple. Make the product cool and new but make them with slightly less frills so people can pick them up without overthinking too much.
Gear S2 Classic is not a new Apple Watch but still it starts as a cool new watch with many features you can find in Apple Watch. If Apple Watch is the kind of gadget you want but you would likely to get in near future, then you can consider Galaxy Gear S2. As you chose Galaxy S6 or other successors, you can own some technology on your hand for ‘now’.
