Samsung Galaxy Gear Review
by Brian Klug on October 1, 2013 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Wearables
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Galaxy Gear
- galaxy note 3
- watches
Battery Life
Gear’s designers went in a direction that completely defies most of the norm we’ve seen in this latest crop of smartwatches. Rather than the low power Cortex M3 route that seems to be popular, Samsung went with a dual core SoC (Exynos 4212), disabled a core, and set the CPU frequency to a maximum of 800 MHz. On top of the whole thing runs Android 4.2.2 and the Gear software, making the watch more like a small smartphone. The combination of aggressive display timeout (with a maximum of 5 minutes) and the activation gesture for waking the watch up signals to me that battery life probably was a challenge on the Gear.
I don’t really know what the best way is to battery life test a watch yet, and I struggled with that while trying to review Pebble. I settled on just timing how long I got through a battery charge there, which ended up being almost exactly a week (7.02 days was my average), which is basically my only context for what smartwatch battery life should be. The Gear obviously has a considerably more powerful platform, display, and capabilities, so it isn’t a shocker that battery life overall is less.
It’s easy to get around the display timeout limitations and just keep the display on Gear turned on forever, displaying the watchface. I ran a rundown test with the watchface set to brightness level 4 (there are levels 1–5 and outdoor brightness) while connected over Bluetooth to the Note 3. Gear managed 5.117 hours of total screen-on time showing the watch face (clock plus weather) connected to Note 3.
Of course the way that Gear is setup which prevents display from being on all the time, battery life during actual use will be longer. I’d say somewhere just over a day would be on the short side, maybe two or three days is possible if you try to stretch it a lot. I placed a few calls and played with Gear a lot one day and almost didn’t make it through, another day I felt like Gear would’ve lasted two had I let the use pattern continue.
The positive side is that thanks to its smaller battery, Gear can charge from completely drained to 100 percent in just under an hour, the simultaneous downside is that you need the charging cradle to do it. If you’re comfortable charging the Gear daily, it’s survivable, the question is whether consumers are willing to adopt the daily charge requirements of another device. I’ve gotten in the habit of plugging Pebble in every night, so this isn’t a big deal for me, but I also enjoy having a week of battery life when I go travel. I suspect that’s a use pattern that others can empathize with when considering Gear, which guarantees a little over a day of use realistically, and a bit more if you’re careful.
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SilthDraeth - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
Persistent clock on smart phones? I have a Note 2, and I do not know of such a feature. Is this not available on the Note 2?Also, I would be warry of screen burn in. I have noticed a bit of it on my Note's screen.
snarfbot - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
first they need to shrink those bezels, and get some sapphire crystal on it. the lugs need to have a gap between them, not just for alternative bands but because it just looks better.watches are for the most part fashion accessories, unless you work somewhere that doesnt allow cell phones there is no reason to wear one unless it looks cool, rendering this monstrosity useless.
so class it up, maybe have it featured in the next bond movie and youll be in business.
brown leather strap, thin brushed gunmetal bezel and case. yea that would be pretty nice.
risus - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
I love those suggestions. I'm a huge sapphire crystal fan. I'm just afraid of what that price tag may look like :-/av_av - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Kudos for the Galactica reference :)greg zx - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
"...the company has a tendency to show up early with the wrong solution, but iterate aggressively to the point where it ends up with a very good solution."You misspelled "imitate".
Hammi - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Does this have the benchmark 'optimizations' enabled like the rest of the Samsung gear?wintermute000 - Sunday, October 6, 2013 - link
There's only a few real things I want and I suspect plenty of people are in the same boat- looks like normal watch (pebble is close but still no cigar)
- always on time/date etc. like a normal watch
- long battery life (BT 4.0 or whatever)
- handles notifications / music controls seamlessly
- does running apps
The rest is pointless and just adds proc requirement/lowers battery/makes it chunky (WTF with the camera, speakerphone etc. if you've got to pair it with a phone anyway...). For the form factor the main draw is notifications and changing music tracks without having to drag the phone from your pocket (I can see voice command also being used but seirously most of what you'll be commanding is the phone, and you gotta see the phone screen so might as well interact directly with phone). And unless it pretty much looks like a normal phone and doesn't need to be charged say more than once a week it won't gain widespread acceptance.
jameskatt - Sunday, October 6, 2013 - link
Anyone who wears this is a geek. Simple.p05esto - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Horrible, I wouldn't wear that if you paid me hjundreds of dollars. Not only is it ugly.... but WHY?wbensky - Sunday, November 10, 2013 - link
Instead of uselessly putting curved-displays into their phones, why doesn't Samsung actually use one of there "features" for something good for once by putting in one of these? Seriously, instead of enabling a phone to turn on when you "roll" it, make it so the watch doesn't seem like a brick.