**A Hands-On Review of the Samsung Galaxy Gear Smartwatch**

As I held the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch in my hand, I couldn't help but feel that it was still a product in its infancy. The device itself is sleek and stylish, with a futuristic design that makes it stand out from other smartwatches on the market. However, as I began to explore its features and functionality, I realized that there were many areas where the Galaxy Gear fell short.

One of my first experiences with the Galaxy Gear was trying to use S Voice, which is Samsung's virtual assistant. Unfortunately, I found it to be not very useful at all. The voice recognition software relies on a Subject Verb Object (SVO) syntax for voice commands, which can make it difficult to understand and follow instructions. Additionally, the voice quality of the speaker is mediocre at best, making it hard to hear what's being said over background noise.

Another feature that I was excited about was the camera functionality on the Galaxy Gear. However, when using the watch, I found that I could only view pictures that I had taken with the device itself, rather than viewing pictures from my phone or other devices. This limitation made me realize that there were many features of the Galaxy Gear that couldn't be used without an additional device.

One situation where the Galaxy Gear truly proved its worth was when I was holding a baby and needed to answer a call or respond to a message. In this scenario, being able to talk hands-free with my phone on my wrist was incredibly useful. The speaker quality of the watch may not have been top-notch, but it was sufficient for getting the job done.

When it comes to battery life, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Galaxy Gear lasted for two full days, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., with only occasional charging sessions. However, charging the device itself is a bit of a pain, as you need an adapter to plug into your phone.

**A Few Glaring Emotions**

There are several features and design choices that left me scratching my head in frustration. For example, I couldn't read emails on the Galaxy Gear, which seems like a glaring omission given its ability to make phone calls and send messages. Another issue is that the watch relies solely on S Voice for voice commands, which made it difficult to get anything done.

One of my biggest gripes with the Galaxy Gear is its price point of $399, which only works with one device - the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. This makes it a hard sell for anyone who might be interested in purchasing the watch as a standalone device.

**Waiting for Gen 2**

Given that the Galaxy Gear feels like a product still in beta, I think my best bet is to wait for its successor, which promises to bring significant improvements over the current model. The fact that it gets an A6 rating on the Techno Buffalo scale suggests that Samsung has been working hard to address some of the issues that plagued this first generation device.

Ultimately, while the Galaxy Gear shows promise as a smartwatch, it's still far from being a polished product. With its unique features and limitations, it may appeal to a niche market or enthusiasts who are looking for something new and innovative. However, for most people, I think it's hard to justify the price point without significant improvements.

**What Do You Think?**

So, what do you guys think of our first smartwatch review? Is the Galaxy Gear something that interests you, or is it not for you? Let us know in the comments below! If you're considering picking up a combo package with the Note 3 and Gear, I'd love to hear your thoughts. And don't forget to subscribe to TechnoBuffalo for more tech news, reviews, and videos.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up everyone John Brer from techno Buffalo here the review of this guy it is the Galaxy Gear it is Samsung's first Smartwatch and perhaps the smart watch that's going to lead the Smartwatch charge over the next few years I put it through its Paces let me tell you what I think so as I do with all of my devices let me give you a disclaimer I used it as my only watch for 7 days which is the first time I really ever get to say that uh so this is one of the hardest devices I've really ever had to review I tried really really hard to keep all bias out from any product I checked out but from the get-go I just really couldn't see the point of the Galaxy Gear from the outside looking in it's got a super lowres 1.9 megapixel camera and really doesn't do anything that my phone doesn't but I gave it a shot mostly because I had to and as it turns out the more I wore it the more I started to see its utility which is really surprising it's for my mind it's kind of harder to change someone's mind than it is to reinforce already preconceived idea about a product so it's still far from perfect so let's go ahead and get started so from a hardware standpoint it's got a 1.6 in screen and 800 MHz single core processor but it's not a phone it's a watch and it doesn't suffer at all from any lack of power in fact you almost want less power to maximize battery life everything on the UI felt really really Zippy I actually really like the way the watch looked the brushed aluminum and textured rubber band actually looked pretty nice and the camera jetting out the side sort of made it look very Hightech surprisingly comfortable to wear at least as comfortable as any other watch um I I wear a watch all the time it felt a little bit on the thick side but after day or so I really didn't notice it mentioning that camera the shots on this camera are awful I don't mean just like bad I mean really really bad I'd say probably even worse than my first camera film from like a decade ago video predictably is equally as bad I really ended up only using the camera when I was showing someone what the watch could do and be like hey look it's got a camera and it's really strange to take pictures with it on your wrist you have to hold it and you got to tilt your head up and look and then finally take your picture it just didn't make sense to me it didn't look good uh it's a bad viewfinder it's a bad camera the gear has an outdoor mode which turns up the brightness but don't expect to see the screen at all in the daylight uh or with polarized lenses on at all it might as well just be black um so if you want to use this in the daylight you work in direct sunlight you're going to have a really really hard time with it and the more you keep it in that outdoor mode the less your battery is going to be which we will definitely talk about so let's jump over to software this is where we get down to the functionality of the watch navigating the UI is actually pretty simple you swipe left and right to get to your apps and your settings and all that kind of stuff and from there it's just tapping and scrolling what you want if you've Ed a modern smartphone it's actually pretty intuitive uh let go to your watch screen you just swipe down from anywhere it's almost like pulling down the Android notification stray you're supposed to be able to turn the screen on by lifting your wrist sort of doing like a this motion but it only worked about 60% of the time sometimes you have to like exaggerate it like this uh to get it to turn on mostly I just pushed the button on the side to get it to turn on and you get to that watch screen you can customize it which is actually pretty nice for mine I had the time and had three shortcuts made it very easy I didn't have to go into the settings or the apps all that often everything I needed was right on that home screen uh there are apps for most things including a pedometer notifications uh and more can be downloaded uh I liked that it gave me notifications for text messages it was actually really really handy and let me read them but why didn't it do that for mail so I give an example of how I start to find utility here uh with the Galaxy Gear so I just had a newborn baby uh and it was about 4 in the morning and I was trying to rock him to sleep in his rocker I had my phone in my pocket and had the Galaxy Gear on I got a text message from a friend on the east coast and I couldn't turn my phone on to look at it cuz the light would have woken up the kid and if you ever had a child you do not want to wake a sleeping baby because it could be hours before they go back to bed so I was able just to check the message right on my phone the light didn't wake him up and it was really easy and sort of at that point I started to see okay I I can't get why you might use this um it does rely on SVO for voice commands not Google search which is really a shame so it's really a crap sh is actually going to work as voice I am not a fan of at all and it doesn't really work all that well here on the watch so back to camera you can only view the pictures you've taken not those on your device so that's kind of annoying uh pinch to zoom though works pretty well on those and it'll sync the pictures automatically from the gear over to your Galaxy Note 3 which it only works with right now it does not work with any other device only the Galaxy Note 3 which is kind of silly uh Samsung's got an app called a Gear Manager let you customize your device and download tons more applications uh so many of my gripes that I've got could get addressed by applications and there are as I use the device every day it seem to be more apps that were available so much like a phone it also makes phone calls essentially just a Bluetooth speaker on your wrist you got a speaker right down there and there's a microphone built in so as I mentioned I started to find the watch more useful and again somehow it involves a baby uh so I was holding the baby in one hand I had my phone on the couch and I was trying to rock them to get them to quiet down uh and my mom called she was coming over with dinner which was super appreciated and I couldn't have made it over to get the phone and answer it while still holding the baby I was able to just answer the phone right from my wrist talk to her have her come over and bring us a delicious fish dinner coincidentally and so as then I thought okay no one's around so I don't feel silly going like this the quality of the speaker wasn't overly awesome but I was definitely able to use it and it was really really helpful to have and I wouldn't have sort of realized that if I didn't use it for as long as I did so a big question mark for me was how is battery life going to be on this and it lasted pretty Solid 2 days and was freny from 700 a.m. to 700 p.m. and I turned it off at night which was not awful uh you can charge it sort of every day and be fine speaking of charging it is a gigantic pain in the butt you need an adapter to do so you don't have a micro USB port on here you got to plug it into this pretty clunky adapter and then you can charge it so the Galaxy gear for me feels very very much like a public beta sort of like Google Glass it does a finished product I do now totally see the utility behind it but at 3.99 only working on one device I could never ever ever in a million years justify the price for this it was useful for those few times I was holding a baby or rock the baby to sleep uh but it doesn't do anything that my phone doesn't so maybe I can just carry my phone with me in my pocket or maybe turn the brightness down when I'm trying to rock the baby to sleep and then the Galaxy Gear maybe not so much right now a few glaring emissions not being able to read emails on it makes very little sense to me relying on S Voice makes even less sense to me the speaker quality is mediocre it looks cool functions pretty well it's relatively comfortable but there are a lot of holes that need to be addressed if you're thinking about getting the Galaxy Gear my best bet is to wait for Gen 2 this gets A6 on the Techno Buffalo scale which is much improved over what I thought it was going to get initially it's got utility but it's very far from a polished product so what do you guys think of our first Smartwatch review do you like the Galaxy Gear is it for you not for you I would love to hear your thoughts are you picking up the combo of the Note 3 in the gear leave in the comments down below and let us know what your opinions are till next time I am John regger from techn Buffalo be sure to check us out at techn buffalo.com for latest and greatest Tech news and I'll see you guys in the next video byebye what's up everyone it's Ashley thanks so much for watching that most recent video If you enjoyed it please click on the word subscribe right underneath me to get tons of more Tech videos from us here at TechnoBuffalo we have got unboxings comparisons reviews Recaps and everything else you can think of here on the channel if you're in the mood for more technology just click right over here to check out some of our most recent videos see you next time humanswhat's up everyone John Brer from techno Buffalo here the review of this guy it is the Galaxy Gear it is Samsung's first Smartwatch and perhaps the smart watch that's going to lead the Smartwatch charge over the next few years I put it through its Paces let me tell you what I think so as I do with all of my devices let me give you a disclaimer I used it as my only watch for 7 days which is the first time I really ever get to say that uh so this is one of the hardest devices I've really ever had to review I tried really really hard to keep all bias out from any product I checked out but from the get-go I just really couldn't see the point of the Galaxy Gear from the outside looking in it's got a super lowres 1.9 megapixel camera and really doesn't do anything that my phone doesn't but I gave it a shot mostly because I had to and as it turns out the more I wore it the more I started to see its utility which is really surprising it's for my mind it's kind of harder to change someone's mind than it is to reinforce already preconceived idea about a product so it's still far from perfect so let's go ahead and get started so from a hardware standpoint it's got a 1.6 in screen and 800 MHz single core processor but it's not a phone it's a watch and it doesn't suffer at all from any lack of power in fact you almost want less power to maximize battery life everything on the UI felt really really Zippy I actually really like the way the watch looked the brushed aluminum and textured rubber band actually looked pretty nice and the camera jetting out the side sort of made it look very Hightech surprisingly comfortable to wear at least as comfortable as any other watch um I I wear a watch all the time it felt a little bit on the thick side but after day or so I really didn't notice it mentioning that camera the shots on this camera are awful I don't mean just like bad I mean really really bad I'd say probably even worse than my first camera film from like a decade ago video predictably is equally as bad I really ended up only using the camera when I was showing someone what the watch could do and be like hey look it's got a camera and it's really strange to take pictures with it on your wrist you have to hold it and you got to tilt your head up and look and then finally take your picture it just didn't make sense to me it didn't look good uh it's a bad viewfinder it's a bad camera the gear has an outdoor mode which turns up the brightness but don't expect to see the screen at all in the daylight uh or with polarized lenses on at all it might as well just be black um so if you want to use this in the daylight you work in direct sunlight you're going to have a really really hard time with it and the more you keep it in that outdoor mode the less your battery is going to be which we will definitely talk about so let's jump over to software this is where we get down to the functionality of the watch navigating the UI is actually pretty simple you swipe left and right to get to your apps and your settings and all that kind of stuff and from there it's just tapping and scrolling what you want if you've Ed a modern smartphone it's actually pretty intuitive uh let go to your watch screen you just swipe down from anywhere it's almost like pulling down the Android notification stray you're supposed to be able to turn the screen on by lifting your wrist sort of doing like a this motion but it only worked about 60% of the time sometimes you have to like exaggerate it like this uh to get it to turn on mostly I just pushed the button on the side to get it to turn on and you get to that watch screen you can customize it which is actually pretty nice for mine I had the time and had three shortcuts made it very easy I didn't have to go into the settings or the apps all that often everything I needed was right on that home screen uh there are apps for most things including a pedometer notifications uh and more can be downloaded uh I liked that it gave me notifications for text messages it was actually really really handy and let me read them but why didn't it do that for mail so I give an example of how I start to find utility here uh with the Galaxy Gear so I just had a newborn baby uh and it was about 4 in the morning and I was trying to rock him to sleep in his rocker I had my phone in my pocket and had the Galaxy Gear on I got a text message from a friend on the east coast and I couldn't turn my phone on to look at it cuz the light would have woken up the kid and if you ever had a child you do not want to wake a sleeping baby because it could be hours before they go back to bed so I was able just to check the message right on my phone the light didn't wake him up and it was really easy and sort of at that point I started to see okay I I can't get why you might use this um it does rely on SVO for voice commands not Google search which is really a shame so it's really a crap sh is actually going to work as voice I am not a fan of at all and it doesn't really work all that well here on the watch so back to camera you can only view the pictures you've taken not those on your device so that's kind of annoying uh pinch to zoom though works pretty well on those and it'll sync the pictures automatically from the gear over to your Galaxy Note 3 which it only works with right now it does not work with any other device only the Galaxy Note 3 which is kind of silly uh Samsung's got an app called a Gear Manager let you customize your device and download tons more applications uh so many of my gripes that I've got could get addressed by applications and there are as I use the device every day it seem to be more apps that were available so much like a phone it also makes phone calls essentially just a Bluetooth speaker on your wrist you got a speaker right down there and there's a microphone built in so as I mentioned I started to find the watch more useful and again somehow it involves a baby uh so I was holding the baby in one hand I had my phone on the couch and I was trying to rock them to get them to quiet down uh and my mom called she was coming over with dinner which was super appreciated and I couldn't have made it over to get the phone and answer it while still holding the baby I was able to just answer the phone right from my wrist talk to her have her come over and bring us a delicious fish dinner coincidentally and so as then I thought okay no one's around so I don't feel silly going like this the quality of the speaker wasn't overly awesome but I was definitely able to use it and it was really really helpful to have and I wouldn't have sort of realized that if I didn't use it for as long as I did so a big question mark for me was how is battery life going to be on this and it lasted pretty Solid 2 days and was freny from 700 a.m. to 700 p.m. and I turned it off at night which was not awful uh you can charge it sort of every day and be fine speaking of charging it is a gigantic pain in the butt you need an adapter to do so you don't have a micro USB port on here you got to plug it into this pretty clunky adapter and then you can charge it so the Galaxy gear for me feels very very much like a public beta sort of like Google Glass it does a finished product I do now totally see the utility behind it but at 3.99 only working on one device I could never ever ever in a million years justify the price for this it was useful for those few times I was holding a baby or rock the baby to sleep uh but it doesn't do anything that my phone doesn't so maybe I can just carry my phone with me in my pocket or maybe turn the brightness down when I'm trying to rock the baby to sleep and then the Galaxy Gear maybe not so much right now a few glaring emissions not being able to read emails on it makes very little sense to me relying on S Voice makes even less sense to me the speaker quality is mediocre it looks cool functions pretty well it's relatively comfortable but there are a lot of holes that need to be addressed if you're thinking about getting the Galaxy Gear my best bet is to wait for Gen 2 this gets A6 on the Techno Buffalo scale which is much improved over what I thought it was going to get initially it's got utility but it's very far from a polished product so what do you guys think of our first Smartwatch review do you like the Galaxy Gear is it for you not for you I would love to hear your thoughts are you picking up the combo of the Note 3 in the gear leave in the comments down below and let us know what your opinions are till next time I am John regger from techn Buffalo be sure to check us out at techn buffalo.com for latest and greatest Tech news and I'll see you guys in the next video byebye what's up everyone it's Ashley thanks so much for watching that most recent video If you enjoyed it please click on the word subscribe right underneath me to get tons of more Tech videos from us here at TechnoBuffalo we have got unboxings comparisons reviews Recaps and everything else you can think of here on the channel if you're in the mood for more technology just click right over here to check out some of our most recent videos see you next time humans\n"