Samsung Galaxy Gear SM-7000
Samsung Galaxy Gear SM-7000 2014/2013 Review
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The good: The Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch is attractive, comfortable, and makes it easy to see incoming calls
The bad: A lack of e-mail and social network support, limited compatibility with other devices, the external charging case, and hit-and-miss voice control seriously limit its usefulness.
The bottom line: Samsung's take on the smartwatch has some potential, and it does get some things right, but its inability to perform truly "smart" functions means it falls far short of expectations.
Your phone is way too big and unwieldy -- what you need is a smaller second screen to let you know what's going on with ease. At least, that's what Samsung reckons. Its new Galaxy Gear Smartwatch lets you take calls, send texts, and perform various other tasks from your wrist without touching your phone.
The Gear has no SIM card or data connection of its own. Instead, it links to your phone over Bluetooth, acting more as an external display so you don't have to fish your phone out every time it rings.
Samsung's Gear is among the first smartwatches we've seen from a major mobile manufacturer and is intended to lead the way in the emerging field of wearable, connected technology. Exciting stuff, sure, but I'm certainly not bowled over by it. With hardly any third-party apps to speak of, its functions are limited to handling calls and texts -- email and social services are not yet supported.
It didn't start well. Trying to simply set up a Bluetooth connection doesn't work -- you need to use the NFC caddy. The NFC caddy launches a setup manager that starts the Bluetooth pairing and takes you through some initial setup steps.
Samsung's S Voice software lets you control many of the functions by talking to the watch, but you'll need to make sure you have this setup on your Note before you start. I didn't, and kept being flashed a prompt to activate it on the phone, expecting to see a similar dialog box on the bigger screen. Eventually, I realised I needed to go into S Voice settings on the Note, not the watch.
Each time the Gear wakes up -- it does so when you turn it toward your face -- you're met with your watch face of choice, with loads of analogue and digital styles to choose from. Swiping to the left or right takes you through a carousel of functions. Key tools like the notifications panel, S Voice, voice memo, the gallery, the media controller, the pedometer, and settings are all given their own individual tile, or you can scroll to the main apps list.
When a call comes in, it'll pop up on screen with options to accept or decline the call. If the contact is saved to your phone, it'll show the person's name and a linked image, if you have one. Text messages are handled in much the same way, with an icon and name popping up that you can tap on, or head into the notifications section to read it later, along with other received messages. Texts are clearly defined and you can scroll easily through them to read more of the conversation.
An irritating quirk I found is that if you're walking around wearing headphones (with a microphone) and accept a call using the Gear, it will route the call only through the watch on its loudspeaker, not through the cans plugged into your phone. This is an issue I only found out to my embarrassment while walking through a busy central London station attempting to take a call from my grandmother.
The watch's loudspeaker is loud enough to hear comfortably in a busy office, but walking alongside traffic it becomes more of a struggle. It's also more difficult for the microphone to pick up your voice, so expect to repeat yourself a few times if you're somewhere noisy. You can also expect to feel a little foolish, as you'll need to hold the watch to your face as you speak and up to your ear to properly hear the person who's calling. If you're fine with that, you're evidently much less easily embarrassed than I am.
Placing a call is a fairly simple process. You can either go to the contacts section, which will take you through all contacts saved on your phone, or double-tap the side button to launch S Voice and say "Call Luke," for example. If there is more than one Luke, it will allow you to select which one to call. As the screen is too small for an onscreen keyboard, text messages must be dictated using S Voice.