Samsung Gear 2 Neo - Retail Packaging - Black

In the one week I’ve had notifications available on my wrist, I have come to one inexorable conclusion: I never want to go back to the old way. I can’t tell you how freeing it is to be able to wander about the house, free of that bulky rectangle of a phone, and still get all my notifications. Email? Texts? IMs over GChat? Twitter mentions? They all show up instantly, subtly vibrating my wrist. The screen lights up briefly, I glance down and know immediately if it’s important. I never miss a call. I never miss a text. I used to miss calls and texts ALL THE TIME. People ask whether an accessory like this is necessary. Why do you need notifications on your wrist? they ask. Your smartphone is always within arm’s reach. That would be a perfectly valid criticism – if true. But my smartphone isn’t always within arm’s reach. Sometimes it’s on my desk, or plugged in somewhere, sometimes I left it in my jacket pocket. Even when it’s in my pocket, it can take a while to fish it out – and there is little more annoying than struggling to get a massive smartphone out of your pants pocket only to find Betsy has sent you another request in Candy Crush. I love the ability to set my watch face to show the time in large font, and just below, the next thing coming up on my schedule. As an absentminded professor type, I need that constant reminder that I have a meeting scheduled at 3 pm. Now, literally every time I look down at my wrist, I see that reminder. (Well, not every time; the flick/lift your wrist gesture turns on the screen like it should about 90% of the time. The other times I find myself staring at my reflection in the blank screen, until I either flick my wrist again, or just hit the on button. It’s a minor irritance.) The other functions are neat. The voice memo function is useful enough so that I have it set to automatically open when I double tap the home button. I like the countdown timer, and the weather app. Again, I know all this stuff is on my phone, but my watch is RIGHT THERE in front of me, all the time. Who knows where my phone is? Which brings us to the other neat thing: “Find My Device” will make my phone alarm go off, letting me determine exactly which couch cushion I left it under. On the health and exercise front, it’s satisfactory. I’m the guy who always forgets to put his pedometer in his pocket, so it’s great to have one always on me. Even if it’s not entirely accurate, it’s close enough – and while inconsistent, it’s consistently inconsistent, making it a useful gauge of how active I was today compared to yesterday. That said, don’t expect it to sync up well with Samsung’s other health apps on the Galaxy – it simply doesn’t work well, and gives me different data, and there’s no way to view the information on the web or anything like that. But for what it does – a basic pedometer on your wrist – it’s nice. The heart rate monitor works pretty well sitting down, although I haven’t used it yet during exercise (I’ll update when I do). Honestly I find that function, and the remote control IR blaster, to be kind of novelties. It’s not why I bought the watch. I bought it for notifications, and in that respect it delivers beautifully. I’m still not sure whether I’m going to keep the Neo, or return it and pick up the Gear 2 with the camera. It would be nice to have a camera available all the time, even if my phone is under one of the aforementioned couch cushions. (I actually ordered the Gear 2 with camera a couple weeks ago, but it’s been stuck in “Temporarily Out of Stock” purgatory since then, so I picked up the Neo because I have no impulse control.) In conclusion, this watch is really cool and does exactly what I hoped it would do – make me a less forgetful, more responsive member of society. I can’t tell you how refreshing and freeing it is to be able to just casually glance down at my wrist to see the emails and texts people are sending me. It’s changed my workflow, and my life, for the better. The app store is still woefully limited, and I’m sure there will be better designed software in competing offerings from Apple, Moto, etc, in the future. But right now, the Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 is as good as it gets. HIGHLY recommended.

Before I purchased this one I was planning on purchasing the Fit, but after reading hundreds of reviews about both I decided to pick up this little guy. Before getting it I new exactly what it does, so I had no expectations whatsoever regarding to features at the time when it was delivered; it was all about the experience and performance... Performance wise, it is great. No hiccups, no delays, all goes smooth. The overall experience, that is what caused me drop one star on the rating. If I have to buy this product again, I would not pay more than $120 for it. It does what Samsung advertised that it will do, and it does it well, don't get me wrong, but its features and the overall experience are not worthy of the $200 price tag. These are qualitative stuff that I cannot describe because they are 100% related to my own desires, so I cannot give specifics because we are all different, with different taste... But, again, the product does what is was meant to do, and it does it well. Connection with my phone is always smooth, transferring files to the Neo (music) over bluetooth works fine, I have not transferred pictures or videos to the Neo yet, pedometer works extremely well, heart rate sensor works fine (if your wrist is not wet, like when you are doing cardio), calls from the Neo work superb too. One thing that I would like from this device is to be able to read and reply to SMS when your default SMS program on your phone is not the stock Messages app. That app on the phone has many limitations and I am forced now to use it in order to interact with the Neo. Well, I hope that this would help you, guys. Enjoy your Neo! UPDATE: One and a half year later, I am still in love with this guy. When I forget to wear it I feel kind of lost! Hehehehe. I have increased my rating from 4 to 5 stars for several reasons: (1) This is one of the first smart watches out there, and there have been no big changes on the smart watch business since its release. (2) After playing with the different settings/options provided by the Gear Manager app and the apps from the Samsung Gear Store, I have managed to setup the watch the way that I need. I can now compose and reply (in full text) to my SMS's and get notifications from virtually all the apps from my phone. (3) Battery life is awesome, it lasts for two and even three days. (4) Range of connection to the phone goes over 30m under certain conditions. I did notice a big difference when I upgraded from a Galaxy S3 to a S5; the bluetooth range doubled or tripled, so this is directly related to the phone.

My husband loves this watch, but Samsung needs to have longer wristband options for people with bigger wrists. We had to MacGyver the band to fit him.