It's hardly a stretch to say that the Gear S2 is Samsung's best effort yet at making a compelling smartwatch. The hardware is
very attractive and well made, and between the standard and Classic version you'll likely be able to settle on one that fits your style. The Gear S2 is refreshingly small for a smartwatch, and the rotating bezel is a genius way to overcome issues related to interacting with a very small touch screen. The screen is absolutely top-notch, and the battery lasts a full day without worry.
Unfortunately, the software on offer is still a bit of a mixed bag on the Gear S2. It's very capable when it comes to handling basic notifications, giving you glanceable information and using native functions provided by Samsung. On the other hand, the third-party app support is anemic and poorly implemented at best, interaction between the watch and the phone can be a bit clunky, and voice commands and speech-to-text leave something to be desired.
Samsung clearly learned a lot of lessons from the original Gear S, but with the Gear S2 it's still trying to do far too much in the software considering the limitations of the screen size. Having lots of options and features on a watch is great in theory, but those extra options and interactions get in the way of getting things done on the watch — and in the end the goal should be to interact with the smartwatch
less, not more.
One of the biggest hurdles facing Samsung on previous Gears was its limited support of
justits own phones, which with this generation it has finally eliminated. Though that opens up the Gear S2 to dramatically more people, it doesn't mean the Gear S2 has vaulted to the top of the list of smartwatches to buy if you have an Android phone.
While the hardware on the Gear S2 is really great, and surely on-par with other Android Wear offerings in the same price range, the software doesn't quite offer the great experience it may have seemed to at first glance. And even though Samsung has made leaps in adding support for third-party apps and improving its overall interface, there's no getting around the fact that Android Wear more seamlessly integrates with all Android phones and is simpler to use.
Sure there are places where the Gear S2 beats Android Wear — namely in the use of widgets, the rotating bezel for interaction and (albeit limited) on-watch apps — but those few wins don't overtake the issues in interface and interaction that are handled much better on Android Wear. And when we're talking about
a $299 or $349 smartwatch, I don't think you should feel the need to settle for something that doesn't work as well as the other offerings out there.
