Samsung Galaxy Gear: Size and Build
In the past, some have seen Samsung's design as plasticky and cheap, the Samsung Galaxy Gear is not. With an aluminium face and a rubber wrist-strap, it feels much more premium than the Pebble. It's not small, with a 1.63-inch screen, 11.1mm thickness and a width of 36.8mm, some would call it chunky, but we don't mind that in a watch.
It's not dull either, you can choose from your classic black, beige or grey and for those who like more colour, there's orange, green and yellow (or Rose Gold as Samsung likes to call it).
The clasp is a little bit fiddly but as soon as you've managed to wrangle it on, it feels secure on your wrist and there's no chance it'll fall off.
Unlike the Pebble and the Sony smart watch, the Galaxy Gear isn't water proof but splash proof. It'll survive the shower but not a dunk in the pool.
Samsung Galaxy Gear: Features
At the time of writing this review, the Samsung Galaxy Gear is only compatible with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 but Samsung has promised to add the Samsung Galaxy S4 (via software update) by the end of October.
This is one of the failings of the Galaxy Gear, we would have loved it if it was compatible with Android devices as a whole rather than being locked to Samsung.
NFC will be your main port of call to pair up with your Galaxy device but in order to do this you'll need the charging case. You will only need to do this once but you will need it to charge up your device so don't go losing it.
The Bluetooth range is good, we got to around 150 metres before the Gear buzzed like an electronic tag to notify us that we'd gone too far from our phone.
As with the Pebble and the Sony Smartwatch 2, the Galaxy Gear's main use is to notify you of happenings on your phone. With text messages, you'll be able to receive and reply using S Voice but with emails and Twitter notifications, there's no preview. You'll only be told that you need to check your phone and deal with it there.
As we mentioned, unlike the Pebble, the Galaxy Gear does have voice smarts and you can also take calls on the device. Taking calls, the quality matched that of a mobile device and the loudspeaker is good enough to use but we'd opt to pair it with a set of Bluetooth headphones. Although it works, you still feel like a prize idiot when taking calls, a bit like when using Google Glass.
Assorted Colours to choose from :
Jet Black
Oatmeal Beige
Mocha Gray
Wild Orange
Lime Green
Rose Gold
