Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Thinking about getting Galaxy Gear
- Thread starter rockitdog
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I don't have too, but I usually end up doing it by force of habit. On vacation I know it's gone at least three days without charging. I keep it on the bedstand, though, and it's simple enough to clip on the magnetic cable that I do it before throwing my S4 on the charging pad rather than worry about if it's a night I need to charge it or not. If the Pebble had a more granular battery readout I probably wouldn't bother, but it takes less than 10 seconds a day so I just don't think about it.
Pebble battery life is probably 3x better than the Gear's, but in practice it didn't matter to me.
Thankfully if you're patient and shop around, you can find one for around half the asking price
Honestly, if notifications are what you're looking for the Pebble does them much better for half the price. It's a much simpler device, but after my experience with the Gear it's a much more reliable one as well.
The Pebble delivers on a pretty simple concept. The Gear tries to do a lot more and fails at almost all of them. That may improve with later software updates, but based on their performance right now the Pebble has the Gear bear for notifications.
In what way is the gear less reliable? I've used the pebble and the gear and have never had reliability issues on the gear. However, my pebble has crashed on me numerous times.
The extra features, whilst a bit gimmicky, have actually proved to be occasionally useful, like being able to dictate a quick memo, take a photo when my phone's in my pocket, or take a call while driving. It's not perfect but after comparing the pebble and the gear, I would have to say the gear is the better device.
I had the Galaxy Gear for about a week and I absolutely hated it. It's clunky and the area on the wrist always gets in the way of me trying to type on my keyboard.
Notifications that appeared on the phone but not on the gear. "Error Occured" messages in the Gear Manager when trying to setup S-Voice and weather with no explanation that only went away after multiple resets. S-Voice activation attempts that started S-Voice on the phone but didn't record any audio.
Yeah, next to none of these are issues that would have happened on the Pebble just because it's functionality the Pebble doesn't provide. Still, the basics (notifications) seem to occur reliably on the Pebble for me, where I had a significant number of failures to notify on the Gear. YMMV.
Is the update actually out yet in the US? Last I heard it had been announced, every rumor site said it would be out by the end if Thanksgiving week, and then nothing.
Got one too. Amazing little device. I'm staggered that it got such bad reviews for it being such a nice polished product. I'll say however that it's probably made for men with larger bodies. If you're a skinny little dude it'll feel clunky on your hand. But the notifications are awesome now. New email? It'll notify me and give me the icon. Press the icon and I get the full email right there on the watch. Same goes for practically any app (now that the update's been rolled out, you can activate notifications for pretty much everything, and it's not just previews either, but full messages/emails show up).
I installed the null rom but honestly it's a bit of a waste of time because running Nova on a screen that small just doesn't make sense. Samsung did well to make a UI just for that screen size and it's a joy to use.
The battery lasts several days, not one like was mentioned in reviews. The UI has no hint of lag whatsoever so, again, I have no idea what the reviews exactly tested but I'm going to assume that the recent updates fixed it up a lot.
I installed the null rom but honestly it's a bit of a waste of time because running Nova on a screen that small just doesn't make sense. Samsung did well to make a UI just for that screen size and it's a joy to use.
The battery lasts several days, not one like was mentioned in reviews. The UI has no hint of lag whatsoever so, again, I have no idea what the reviews exactly tested but I'm going to assume that the recent updates fixed it up a lot.
how do e-mails come up? does it still come up when you fetch e-mails or is it just push?
The update has made this device a great one IMO.
Well I just use Gmail so I get push on my phone. Whenever my phone gets an email, the watch notifies me. The watch gets its notifications straight from the phone so whatever fetch/push settings your phone uses, the watch uses as well.
cheers, thought that might be the case. Think this will be perfect when out and about or sitting somewhere getting your phone out would be considered rude ha.
Got a black one for christmas and installed a bunch of clock faces from the long thread at xda
one annoyance is that when I read an email (gmail) on the gear, I have to dismiss the same email again on the phone. However, if i read the email on the phone first, the gear will dismiss the corresponding notification. I wish it worked both ways instead...
edit: when i'm reading an email on the gear, it doesn't show the entire email. The bottom will show "More on mobile device". Are you guys experiencing the same?
one annoyance is that when I read an email (gmail) on the gear, I have to dismiss the same email again on the phone. However, if i read the email on the phone first, the gear will dismiss the corresponding notification. I wish it worked both ways instead...
edit: when i'm reading an email on the gear, it doesn't show the entire email. The bottom will show "More on mobile device". Are you guys experiencing the same?
I can only speak for myself, but I found little use for having notifications only on my wrist when a simple flip of my phone would give me the same information. Maybe if the gear weren't such a monstrosity, but probably not.
I like some of the true smartwatches out there which actually have a phone built in. I pledged a kickstarter for the Neptune Pine, which admittedly is a monstrosity as well, but I plan on clipping it to my belt and having a full phone in such a small package just seems pretty neat.
I like some of the true smartwatches out there which actually have a phone built in. I pledged a kickstarter for the Neptune Pine, which admittedly is a monstrosity as well, but I plan on clipping it to my belt and having a full phone in such a small package just seems pretty neat.
I got a pebble for Christmas and enjoy notifications on my wrist. I am always in enviorments where I cannot hear my phone. Also, we use hangouts and my work so I pull my phone out 50+ times a day to check a chat that does not need a response. This solves that problem
. I think they definitely cater to a certain audience, but if you fall in that cstegroy it is definitely a great device.
If it was around $199, I would have picked one up months ago.
it was that price as the ebay daily deal on couple of days ago...but for a refurbished unit...
If it was around $199, I would have picked one up months ago.
The price and size are what made me choose the pebble over the gear. I'm sure 2014 will see some awesome smart watches