Samsung Gear 2 Smartwatch Review

Wearables in general--and smartwatches in particular--are among the hottest tech trends of today. Despite a great deal of hullabaloo over these devices, though, many aren’t quite finding them as compelling as you might think. As a result, there’s a sense that no one has yet figured out the secret sauce that makes a wearable / smartwatch a "much have" device.

Samsung is at the forefront of the smartwatch push, looking to develop that perfect swoon-worthy device. The company is already on the second generation of its smartwatch line with its Gear 2, the wearable that we’re looking at today.

Samsung makes some fine mobile devices, but the smartwatch is a different beast than a smartphone or tablet. Is the Gear 2 the smartwatch we’ve been waiting for?

Samsung Gear 2 Specifications & Features

The Gear 2 features a 1.63-inch Super AMOLED display and is housed in a pretty yet sturdy brushed-metal chassis. The watchband itself is rubber with a metal clasp, and the whole thing is IP67-certified dust and water resistant.

Under the (tiny) hood, there lies several sensors including an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a heart rate sensor, and if you can believe it, there’s a 2MP camera embedded on one side. The Gear 2 also offers Bluetooth 4.0 LE to connect to not just your smartphone but also devices such as wireless headphones.


Samsung promises that you can get 2-3 days of life out of the Gear 2’s battery under typical usage, and up to 6 days with “low usage”.

For such a tiny device, those aren’t bad specs to be sure, but it’s important to note a thing or two about the Gear 2 right off the bat. First, it is very much an accessory, designed to enhance the experience of using your smartphone (although some of the functionality works quite nicely on its own). Without being Bluetooth-connected to a smartphone, for example, it can’t make calls, send texts, or view emails, and it possesses no ability to connect with the Internet on its own. (I.e., you can’t browse the web with it--not that you’d want to on such a tiny screen.)