Samsung has released its smartwatch in India for Rs. 28,900. The Samsung Gear S smartwatch has a built-in SIM card slot, 2 inch (360 x 480 pixels) curved Super AMOLED display. Samsung started taking pre-orders for the Gear S earlier this week and now the smartwatch is available from the Samsung official eStore for Rs. 27,900, which is Rs. 1,000 cheaper compared to the original launch price of the device. The smartwatch retails for approximately $454 US dollars and $526 Australian dollars.
Let’s talk specs! This amazing little device has an IP67 certification for dust and water-resistance and connects to other devices using Bluetooth 4.1 LE. With a 1 GHz Dual-Core processor, 4GB of internal memory and 512MB RAM it’s hard to see how it can all fit into a watch-sized device. The watch has WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.1, A-GPS/Glonass. Run by a 300mAh Li-ion battery that promises two days of battery life, the smartwatch has an inbuilt heart rate monitor, accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, ambient light, UV, and barometer. The Gear S is a Tizen based wearable platform and is available in black and white in India.
Despite being labelled as a unique smartwatch, one of its kind, one of the down sides is said to be the size of the screen. While most of the time we’re aching for a bigger screen that will also fit in our hands when it comes to smartphones, it seems that the large screen size of the Gear S is putting some potential buyers off. It does take up the full width of a man’s wrist, which only leads me to wonder how it fits a smaller wrist at all. Of course, the smartwatch needs to be able to show as much information on the screen as possible, but perhaps there is no point if the user can’t wear it!
Coming with changeable straps, including one from Swarovski, the stand-alone smartwatch offers some amazing features, including 69 languages to choose from and fitness tracking that allows users to track workouts and the number of steps they take to gauge their level of fitness. Despite its size it sounds like a one size fits all. We’re looking forward to seeing it reach a broader market.