Samsung Gear S2 First Impressions

[geekaren]

I added pics in the OP. I can't help but think that Samsung hired off some Swatch designers. Am I the only one that thinks this looks kinda like a high tech Swatch?

Funny, that's what I'd been thinking too! Excellent review btw, thanks for posting and continuing to update it.

I have the T-Mobile (cellular) Gear S, and love the functionality but wish it were smaller. Gear S2 is the 1st smartwatch I've owned that's a reasonable size for someone with a small frame -- really happy about that. Love the Gear S2 UI... very enjoyable to use.

 

[winpeguy]

View attachment 199615

This is my watch face too! Although I didn't put Battery on there as easy enough to check swiping down from the clock. Step Count and Weather for mine.

 

[kodos]

This is my watch face too! Although I didn't put Battery on there as easy enough to check swiping down from the clock. Step Count and Weather for mine.

It's a very good watch face. I'm very pleased with it so far. I just left battery on there to see what the drain looks like on my first day. Assuming this thing lasts a full day, then I'm probably going to throw weather on there as well. Especially when I'm inside the office, and away from windows - I can at least imagine what is going on in the real world...

 

[kodos]

The other thing I have to say that I like is the Haptic response on the watch. It is less obnoxious and messy feeling than my Zenwatch which felt like a smartphone strapped to my wrist. While it perhaps isn't as nice as the "Taptic" feedback on an Apple Watch, it is a lot more "pointed" (for lack of a better word) in the way that it feels on your wrist. Now, other Gear watches might have felt the same in the past, but this is the first Gear I've owned.

 

[winpeguy]

Added more pics to OP.

 

[L_E_O]

First, I'll have to admit to be an Android Wear diehard... by which I mean I've had several of the watches... not that I think it's perfect. That said, the Tizen experience so far for me has been a little jarring and disorienting. The rotating bezel navigation is cool, but for some reason, I was expecting to be able to "execute" actions without touching the watch face. Using the bezel to navigate and then having to touch the screen just feels off to me. It reminds me of trying to use a touchscreen Windows device and a mouse at the same time. Shifting between the two inputs methods seems awkward and just as fidgety as Wear does.

Other than that, here are a few more quick observations:

• The screen is awesome. Probably on par or better than the Urbane and Huawei. Animations are much cooler.
• S Voice... so far, it's pretty much what you expect. I'm almost ready to turn it off already.
• The HRM seems faster and more accurate than the pack of Wear watches, but oo early to say for certain.
• Really irked about the lack of call-taking ability. This might wind up being a deal-breaker.

 

[L_E_O]

So today I walked into Best Buy (Greenspoint, Houston) at store opening. I'll update this post and share whatever information I can.

Samsung Pay
No clue yet on how to use, there is no Samsung Pay app. I will have to try this in a store, but there was a setting to enable NFC which I did turn on. The NFC is on the front top, so you turn your wrist to pay. And there is no MST, so it has to be an NFC terminal that accepts payment. I assume you have to use the phone to do Samsung Pay, authenticate (fingerprint) and then you can tap your watch, but at this point since you already have your phone open, seems pointless to use the S2 when you can just tap your phone. More to come on this one.

If this is truly the case, it's just flat out asinine.

 

[L_E_O]

Not sure if this is related to my Hangouts setup ( I use Google Voice and Hangouts as my default SMS app), but it does appear that Tizen can interact with those notifications just fine. I've sent several "Quick Replies" from the watch in response to SMS messages I've received. I'm not sure if it's tied to the notification being actionable from the app or if there's some hooks in place that Tizen is using, but it worked great.

 

[winpeguy]

Keep in mind that these are supposed to be compatible with Android phones other than Samsung, so quite possibly this is a change.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

 

[winpeguy]

If this is truly the case, it's just flat out asinine.

Found sub-menus! In Settings > Connections it showed NFC on. Clicking on this will bring up the NFC sub-menu.
Bluetooth has BT headset
Wi-Fi has Networks (if not on BT)
So apparently Tap to Pay needs a Samsung Pay update to work

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

 

[LuckeeeShot]

I just got mine today from a BB in Vegas and I love it. I can actual text people with the small on screen keyboard. Not ideal but its doable. The only thing I didn't like is there is no Spotify app. Now I know there is a tizen app because it works on Samsung smart tvs. I hope they add one to the store soon!

 

[ELAkid]

Man I wish I knew able that $15 buck gift card,I'm too lazy to go and see if they would give me one.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[nickdeck]

Thanks for the excellent review! Just paid $8 for overnight from Amazon, and mine should be here tomorrow.

 

[srz1977]

Thanks for the long review. Samsung Pay won't be working on the watch until November from what I have heard from Samsung. I've been using it on my GS6 daily and loving it.

 

[ks-man]

One thing I'm noticing is that whenever I move my hand from the mouse to the keyboard the watch face lights up. I wish it was less sensitive to this movement as I'm on a computer all day long (and usually all night). This is really going to kill my battery. Are other people noticing the same thing when they move their hand from the mouse to the keyboard?

Actually now that I think of it I'm a lefty so I wear it on my right hand. Chances are most people don't use the watch on their mouse hand. Not sure how big an issue this is going to be.

 

[winpeguy]

One thing I'm noticing is that whenever I move my hand from the mouse to the keyboard the watch face lights up. I wish it was less sensitive to this movement as I'm on a computer all day long (and usually all night). This is really going to kill my battery. Are other people noticing the same thing when they move their hand from the mouse to the keyboard?

Actually now that I think of it I'm a lefty so I wear it on my right hand. Chances are most people don't use the watch on their mouse hand. Not sure how big an issue this is going to be.

I figured you were a lefty when you described the issue. So you don't mouse with your left?

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

 

[ks-man]

Nope, mouse with my right. Every time I go mouse to keyboard it is lightly up.

Something else I'm noticing is that I don't think you can flip the screen upside down which would be great for lefties. Anybody figure out how to do this? You can swap the band so it would be great to have the buttons on the left however when I do that the screen is upside down. If it isn't available now hopefully Samsung can do a software update.

 

[ab304945]

Has anyone been able to figure out how to enable Samsung Pay? Holding the back button doesn't work.

I think they said Samsung pay wood be coming out a bit later in the watch

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[alex346]

Great first impressions write up! Big thanks to the o.p. Winpeguy!

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[winpeguy]

Battery Life
Not as good as I would have hoped. At 2:49PM today I decided to test the Battery Life of the S2. I cranked the display brightness all the way to 11 (ok, actually to 10) and had notifications on 150 apps. I didn't run it like I normally would though, since this is the first day with a new toy, there was lots of playing around (more than I would normally). 7 hours later at 9:45PM, my battery hit 50%. At this rate, I will go through a full charge in 14 hours.
Assuming I change the brightness to 7/10, maybe I will get another 30%? So from 14 hours to 18 hours. And if I cut back on the play time with the watch, maybe another 2 hours, so 20 hours. Still way short of 2-3 days, but I am sure this will even out later.
I did have ambient mode on, so I guess that matters. Tomorrow morning I will test with Ambient Off and Brightness at 7/10 and go from there.

Quick Charge
While the watch comes with a 5v .7A Charger, I decided to plug in the Wireless Charger to my Samsung Rapid Charger. After 15 minutes I am up from 50% to 60%. So at this rate from 0% to 100% should take 1 hour and 40 minutes. I'm ok with this as it is a Wireless Charger and not a cradle dock with a direct connection. This was with the S2 powered off. I assume with the S2 powered on it will take longer, so maybe 2 hours for a complete charge.