Samsung Gear S2 (India) Review

Samsung has launched the Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch in India and I thought I'd inform you with the information you need to know if you are thinking about buying one. It's been only a few hours since I've began wearing it, and I've already formed an opinion about the S2. The main intention of this review is to tell you what I think Samsung's done right and wrong with this wearable and whether it's 'worth it'. I've added photos that should give you an overall 'feel' of the product, saving you a trip to Samsung store.


...But no one needs a smartwatch! Why bother?

Right. I agree. No one really needs a smartwatch. It doesn't 'solve' any real problem and it's pretty costly too. So why should you even bother about smartwatches? Well, one simple answer is that it's going to be one heck of a useful and 'relevant' device when IoT makes way to our lives. I've began believing that we'd end up doing lot of 'common' tasks on our smartwatches in near future, say ~3-5 years from now.


Smartwatch design has sucked and I sincerely believe that even Apple's got it all WRONG. I've had a chance to visit Apple retail store and check out the Apple Watch - and it didn't impress at all. Is Samsung any different? Here's what I think -

"Samsung's cracked the smartwatch design code. This is how smartwatch should be designed"

I'll give an A+ to Samsung's engineers and designers who developed the S2. Note, this isn't Sammy's first ever smartwatch. They've produced a bad smartwatch design; but S2 is from a different world.

The only thing that I expect from future versions of Samsung Gear Sx is a thinner body. At just 11.4mm, S2 ain't painfully thick; I just think a thinner design would have been better unlike Samsung's smartphones which are impossible to hold in hand, especially when making calls.

Even the 1.2" display looks just about right to me; it should fit and look well on any average wrist. Note that the display is Super AMOLED, which is best in class and leaves no room for complaints. It's protected by Gorilla Glass 3 and the device is IP68 certified; which means dust and water won't damage the watch easily.

The next thing I want you to appreciate is the quality of the straps that the Gear S2 ships with. I'm not sure what material it is, but it feels soft and I was comfortable wearing it for 4 hours straight. The straps and the metal body is bit on the heavier side; but won't make you uncomfortable even if you wear it full day long.

So far so good. I'll continue updating this article with my opinions on software, real life usage and general opinions. You may add your questions or comments below and I will address them in this article itself.

To Be Continued...

Update Day 2 -

The Not So Good Part Of The Gear S2 :

You'd want any smartwatch to be independent - manage its own connections, sync up the data with the servers, get your notifications et al. This is one part where the S2 (and I guess it applies to most of the smartwatches available in India) disappoints. The Gear S2 is totally dependent on your phone! In order to read your messages and other notifications and do some basic functions, the Smartwatch needs to maintain a connection with your phone.

Without a connection - you can use the watch to view time and other basic stuff like using timer, stopwatch, measure heart rate etc. Maybe the Gear S2 designers wanted it that way; but let me tell you - it's very inconvenient if you prefer to keep your bluetooth and data connections off and turn on only when required. It saves the battery!

One thing to note is that the Gear S2 smartwatch can automatically sync up the data provided you have a Samsung account. If the S2 can't connect to your phone using Bluetooth, it can still sync up with it over a wireless connection - and your phone and smartwatch need not be connected to the same Wi-Fi. As long as both Gear S2 and your phone are hooked to the Internet, they can sync up the data. Pretty good, I'd say.

That said, most of the useful functionality - like reading notifications, responding to texts, getting calendar information will all need a connection. Unless you have the 3G model; which has not been launched in India at the time of writing this review, you'll always be looking for wi-fi zones.

Other than that, I didn't find anything more to complain. I slept for about 7 hours, wearing the smartwatch, and it was pretty comfortable.

The Most Likeable Part Of The Gear S2 :

I feature that's most impressed me so far is that the smartwatch keeps track of my activity and reminds me to get out of my seat and move around. It tells me that I've been sitting in the same position for about an hour and I should move around a bit. When I do so, it says "Good Job!". Nothing great; but I'm enjoying this feature the most.

I'll continue updating this review with my experiences and observations about the smartwatch. Stay tuned.

To Be Continued....

Battery Life Tested

One of the biggest concern anyone should have is the battery life of this tiny gadget. I charged the watch to 100% about 48 hours ago and have been using it constantly but have turned off bluetooth, wireless and NFC. I did sync the watch with my phone a few times but the battery life is more than enough. As of writing this article, there's good 37% of it remaining. Had I not played with various watch faces and settings, I'm sure it'd be in the 45-50% range; and that means you can surely get ~3 days of usage on a single charge.

There's a power saving mode that should add even more life; and I'm going to test it when the battery level drops to about 15%. Let's see how it works.

One more thing I'm going to check is to disable the gestures - the one that brings display to life when you want to view time. I'm OK having to press a button to see time. Those who want to keep wireless and bluetooth ON all the times can surely expect a little over a day of battery backup. Not bad, I'd say.

To Be Continued....

Samsung Galaxy Gear S2 - The Good & The Not So Good

Gear S2 : Good Parts

• Design: The Gear S2, I believe, is the perfectly designed smartwatch. I'm talking about the physical aspects of the smartwatch - from the body to the belt.
• Rotating Bezel : Rotating bezel feels like a nice way to navigate on a perfectly rounded display.
• Display : I've always been a fan of SAMOLED displays. They're good - both on smartphones and on the smartwatches. Perfectly colorful and perfectly bright.
• Battery Life: With about 2-3 days on average usage, Gear S2 will keep lot of people happy. Given that the competition (Apple Watch) lasts for just about a day; the battery life has become one of the 'good things' about Gear S2.
• NFC : I personally am quite excited about Gear S2 making use of Samsung Pay system. This can really alter the way payments are made and making payments with smartwatch? Bring it on!

Gear S2: Not So Good Parts

• Overall usefulness: Gear S2 is really an engineering marvel; but it still doesn't bring the change in lifestyle a la smartphone. I think we'll have to see what the developer community makes out of the Samsung's ecosystem.
• Tizen (O really?) : Tizen is no match for Android yet and the ecosystem is still developing. That may put you off. Samsung's going to put all their might behind Tizen; but unless the developers adopt the Tizen platform; the ecosystem won't flourish.
• Price : I don't know if it's even possible; but the right price for the Gear S2 should be in the range of Rs. 5-8K. I know it's a third of what Samsung's selling it for; but how much of your hard earned money should you blow on an accessory that does nothing more than what your smartwatch?

That finishes my official review of the Samsung Gear S2. If you have questions, comments or opinions about the Gear S2; post them below.