We've written before about the round Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch. The company announced today that the watch will go on sale October 2, but it may be a little hard to find. Although you'll be able to get it at Samsung's own site and Amazon, if you want to get hands on at launch, you'll have to make the a pilgrimage to your local Best Buy or to Macy's main store in Herald Square, … [Read more...]
Samsung Sneaks Next Gear Smartwatch
Samsung held a press shindig today to show off its latest cellphone and phablet (a word that our spell-checker seems to think is OK), and used the occasion to give a quick look at the Gear S2 smartwatch, which it won't formally introduce until next month. The round-faced S2, like most Samsung smartwatches, looks like it will be based on the Tizen operating system. Nice watch … [Read more...]
Samsung Gear S Comes to US Next Week
Samsung's Tizen-based Gear S smartband starts shipping to the US on November 7, the company announced today. The device looks and acts more than a little like will.i.am's PULS cuff, but not as slick: two inches wide with a curved Super AMOLED touch screen and built-in SIM card so it can stand alone without being tethered to a phone. Fitness tracking is done with a Nike+ app … [Read more...]
WSJ Says Samsung Will Ship Wrist Communicator This Summer
The Wall Street Journal is saying that Samsung, which already has several bits of wristware in its product line, will come out this summer with a wrist-worn communicator that will not require a cellphone. Citing "people familiar with the company's plans," the Journal says the device will run the open-source Tizen operating system (like the Gear Fit and Gear 2, but unlike the … [Read more...]
Fitbit Leads the Wearables World: Canalys
Anyone can project billions of dollars in the future, but counting actual shipping products is hard. The consulting firm Canalys reports that Fitbit shipped nearly half of all wearable bands in the world in the first quarter of 2014. Overall, Canalys reported, 2.7 million wearable bands shipped worldwide last quarter, and Fitbit's strength was despite the skin rash-related … [Read more...]
Fixya Crowdsources Five Smartwatch Reviews
We here have been writing and editing tech product reviews for going on three decades, so we claim some significant expertise about them. But Fixya's showing an interesting approach to the process we haven't seen before: collecting thousands of troubleshooting reports and drawing conclusions about the products. Fixya aggregated about 6,000 user reports about five smart … [Read more...]
Hands-On With the Samsung Gear 2s and Gear Fit
As promised, Samsung unveiled the new Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo tonight at Mobile World Congress, along with a surprise: a sports band that fits neatly into its ecosystem. The new products, frankly, are lots better than we'd expected -- and vastly improved from last year's initial versions. (There also was the Galaxy 5 smartphone, a nifty piece of gear. But it's not wearable in … [Read more...]
Samsung Updates Its Little-Loved Gear to Gear 2
The Samsung Gear was one of the most derided pieces of wearable tech of 2013. So the Korean tech giant went back to the drawing board with the wristwear and revised it to be pretty much more of the same. We need to say this up front: we haven't clapped eyes or even hands on the Gear 2 or the more plastic Gear 2 Neo. It was introduced Sunday in the run-up to Mobile World … [Read more...]
Samsung Gear To Play Well With More Tablets
One of the biggest raps, among the many, against the Samsung Gear smartwatch is that it's an add-on device that would only work with one Samsung tablet. Samsung's now fixing that -- a little -- by expanding the roster of devices. When the Samsung Galaxy S4,S III and Note II get their updates to Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean), the company says they'll be able to work with the Gear. … [Read more...]