Samsung's round, Tizen powered Gear S2 revealed
Samsung has taken the wraps of its round-faced and more stylish successor to the Gear S smartwatch, the Gear S2.
While Samsung has been producing smartwatches since 2013 - including the Galaxy Gear, followed by Gear 2, the Gear 2 Neo, Gear Fit, and the Gear - the S2 is a more serious challenger to the Apple Watch, which has come to dominate the category.
Samsung gave the first hints about Gear S2 last month at the launch of its Note 5 phablet. At the event, Samsung showed off a round faced device with a rotating bezel that can scroll through apps, a similar function to the Apple Watch's crown.
Now, the company has published more details about the watch, including its specs, ahead of a launch event for the wearable at the IFA trade show in Berlin this week.
The Gear S2 will be running Samsung's Tizen OS, a noticeable difference from most of the smartwatches already on the market which run Android Wear, some of which can now function with an iPhone.
Samsung has developed two main flavours of the Gear S2. The Gear S2 classic has a ridged rotating bezel on a black finished case with a matching leather band. The other option, simply called the Gear S2, has a smooth finished face and will be in available in dark grey with a matching band or silver with a white band.
Buyers will be able to choose a 3G option for either device, to allow for voice calls and other functions without being tethered to a phone.
The dimensions of each variant differ slightly, for example, both variants of the non-3G Gear S2 are 11.4mm thick compared to the 3G edition's 13.7mm. However, all have a 1.2 inch circular screen at a 360 x 360 resolution (302 pixels per inch) and are IP68 certified to be dust and water resistant.
Supporting Samsung's renewed efforts to crack mobile payments, the Gear S2 will have an NFC chip. Meanwhile, the 250 mAh battery will be good for up to three days without a charge while the 3G version can last two days. The watches also support wireless charging.
Samsung said it's working with third-party partners to offer a range of watch faces and watch bands that can click into place.
Inside, the Gear S2 is running on a 1.0GHz dual core processor with 4GB internal storage and 512 MB RAM and comes with numerous sensors, including an accelerometer, gyroscope, heart rate monitor, ambient light sensor, and barometer.
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