Hands On: Samsung’s Gear S2 Brings Some Elegance to the Smartwatch

Samsung’s new Gear S2 smartwatch reminds me of an Apple product. No, not the Apple Watch — the original iPod.

Its clever spinning bezel, which lets you quickly switch between apps and select things within them, offers some of the same discoverable agility as the iPod’s click-wheel dial. “Elegant” is not the word I’d use to describe my experiences with many smartwatches. But after an hour of trying out the S2 (at this week’s IFA trade show in Berlin), that description seems to fit.

Fit and feel

The Gear S2 — announced Monday and due in October at an unannounced price — comes in three basic versions: the regular S2 (at left below), the more traditional-looking S2 Classic (on the right), and a 3G-capable version that you can use as a phone on its own (with your wireless carrier collecting an extra fee for the privilege).

The round face helps all of these Gear S2 models look less like a wrist-bound computer — another common issue with these devices — and more like a traditional watch. It’s no less chunky than other smartwatches but no thicker than many popular men’s watches. If you’ve been okay having a hefty running watch or a complicated chronograph strapped to your wrist, you should be fine with this.

Samsung says it’s 11.4 millimeters (or almost .45 inches) thick; I measured it at a tad under 12 mm. (A Samsung rep said the difference was due to their measuring from the bottom of the watch to the surface of the face, not to the raised bezel around it.) The Apple Watch, by comparison, is 10.5 mm thick.

Between the spinning bezel and the Back and Home buttons on its right side, the S2 requires much less guessing about which swipes take you in and out of particular modes than you’d have with Android Wear.

Not Android, but Android-friendly

The S2 offers the same basic functions as other smartwatches: Its round, 360-by-360-pixel screen transmits important notifications; it lets you read and reply to text messages and e-mails; it tracks your exercise; and, yes, it tells the time too.

Unlike competing devices, the S2 doesn’t run Google’s Android Wear software, relying instead on Samsung’s Tizen platform. But (contrary to what Samsung initially suggested) it should still work with a wide variety of Android devices — anything running Android 4.4 or newer with at least 1.5 GB of memory should suffice.