Samsung Unveils the Curved Gear S Smartwatch With Tizen and 3G Connectivity
by Brandon Chester on August 27, 2014 11:45 PM EST
LG isn't the only company announcing a new smartwatch today. Samsung has announced a new device in their line of Gear smartwatches. Their latest watch is the Samsung Gear S, and it's one of the only smartwatches on the market that sports 3G connectivity. This allows it to function on its own without having to be forever tethered to a smartphone to access notifications and other content.
The other unique feature of the Gear S is its 2" curved OLED display with a resolution of 320x480. Samsung believes that a convex display allows for a more ergonomic and comfortable smartwatch. With its curved rectangular display the form factor of the Gear S is like a cross between fitness bands and smartwatches.
Inside it features an unnamed 1GHz dual core CPU paired with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of NAND. Samsung rates the 300mAh battery inside for two days of usage. Like most of Samsung's other smartwatches, it includes a heart rate sensor and IP67 dust and water resistance rated for 30 minutes of submersion in up to 1 meter of water.
Unlike most other smartwatches, the Gear S runs Samsung's Tizen operating system rather than Google's Android Wear platform. It includes some of Samsung's software like S Health and their smartwatch music player. Between Tizen's built in applications and the watch's support for WiFi and 3G networking, the Gear S may be the first smartwatch that can act as its own device rather than an extension of a user's smartphone.
Samsung will begin sales of the Gear S in early October. Pricing is yet to be announced.
Source: Samsung Mobile Press
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ArthurG - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
tizen = failhpglow - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
On a device like this I fail to see how OS matters. In the phone sector I hope Tizen goes somewhere because Apple and Google aren't doing anything good anymore. You get the choice of overpriced mediocre or bloated software on devices that look cheap. Both tied to a shop designed to keep you on the platform. Then there is windows phone while ok has no apps.Mattle - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
A slightly unfair comment on good making bloated software on devices that look cheap, my Nexus 7 (2013) has neither of those faults and has been excellent from day 1. I would agree with phones from third parties (Samsung etc.) though in that they are full of bloatware.cwolf78 - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
Agreed. Also don't forget HTC. My One M8 is on the opposite end of the spectrum of cheap and bloated. Samsung is definitely among the worst when it comes those attributes.jakebruno - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Another good watch from Samsung, but honestly the Samsung Gear 2 is still more usable it will probably still sell a lot more. /Jake from http://www.consumertop.com/best-wearable-tech-guid...Murloc - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
you hope to see Tizen go somewhere but you complain about windows phone not having apps?It has 1/4 of the apps android has and it's been around for years. If that is not enough, then tizen will never work for you either.
fteoath64 - Sunday, August 31, 2014 - link
I agree!. While Tizen for smartphone suffers from the lack of an ecosystem, for a Smartwatch, it is a totally blank slate hence, it makes sense to use Tizen rather than Android Wear. The dependence on Google needs to be reduced in order to innovate further as tight control as Google started for Wear is just going to limit its usefulness. The design cue is nicer than the previous iterations and hopefully with better materials in future, such a watch would be a normal thing for many many people. Yeah, I meant titanium casing for the watch. A highly sensitive and accurate microphone is really needed for this watch to be useful. Keep innovating Sammy!.SultanD - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
BS. It's an appropriate OS for the device. Although I am a fan of Android, I think Android wear is bloated, rushed and not ready for prime-time. My Tizen powered Gear 2 Neo just got put to bed with 78% battery power remaining after a full long day. It's fast and efficient. It gets the job done surprisingly well.Kronicle - Thursday, November 27, 2014 - link
Want to make a bet? haha.... Tizen is actually now over 3yrs old and isn't just installed on Samsung's smartwatches. Samsung now isn't the only company involved in what was originally the Samsung Linux Project in 2008. It's went through several stages LiMo being one and then having Bada integrated with it. Samsung doesn't really own it or control it even. HTC and LG are just two of this Linux projects other phone and mobile makers. Then you have car makers, aircraft makers, navigation and mapping companies, home appliance makers, security firms, chip makers like Intel and many other Open Source members in other fields.Samsung alone has it running on appliances, cameras (including high end NX1 said to be the Best camera of 2014), original Gear upgraded, Gear 2 and Neo run it. Some navigation companies run it. It's being used on many devices or products without you knowing that's what it's running, either renamed or simply termed SLP instead of Tizen.
It actually has several application layers/frameworks within it. Flora UI is questionable as being Open Source FOSS as Linux Foundation out licensed it separately from GPL, so some proprietary needs could be fulfilled via media requiring DRM installed. Ubuntu is the same on this subject, recently making agreements with content providers to have non-open source DRM code being available for install after the OS has been installed by users. Like FLASH and other 3rd party drivers are installed on Ubuntu's family of Linux distros. Reality is that Android is just as much Linux as Tizen and Ubuntu. All now have more complex licensing and even though Tizen is mostly open source, it's still running some software that's not completely Open Source!
Tizen will be around for years and with it starting to be distributed in developing markets on cheaper phones, Tizen will be on many devices in a very short period of time. Just like Bada OS was the 3rd most popular OS to Android and iOS at it's peak and even ahead of Microsoft's WP8 in market share only distributed to a few markets. The object is to get the OS growing in numbers quickly. LG and HTC will also be installing it on smartphones in developing markets. It's the one newest mobile OS that can beat out both iOS and Android over the long haul. With an application framework built on W3C's .wgt Web Widget format within the HTML 5 standards. In fact Tizen has the most open cross platform application framework of any mobile OS and is set up better for the future than both iOS and Android put together. It's already killing them on benchmark performance testing, because it's base is built web widgets that can run on any HTML5 compliant browser. It's also set to run Mirage OS streamed Cloud based applications. Which are totally isolated from System OS itself. Security is therefore built in and that's why Tizen has a better future than iOS or Android. Application Framework is Open Source at it's very core and based on HTML 5 standards from the start!!!
Mugur - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
And I bet it's working only with certain Samsung Galaxy / Note smartphones (unless you want to use it as standalone with a SIM).