Samsung Gear Live: first Samsung smartwatch with Android Wear

Cons

• Google Now not in Dutch
• No automatic brightness control
• Battery does not last long

At the end of June, Google unveiled Android Wear, a special version of the mobile operating system that is completely focused on so-called wearable devices, such as smartwatches. Three smartwatches were announced at the same time: LG showed the G Watch, Samsung the Gear Live and Motorola the Moto 360. We have already discussed LG’s G Watch extensively and the Moto 360 has yet to be released.

Manufacturers are not allowed to modify the software on their smartwatches, so functionally the Gear Live is identical to the G Watch. So if you want to know how the software works, what you can do with it and which things can be improved, we recommend that you first read our review of the G Watch. Then you can learn more about the hardware, build quality, ergonomics and battery life of the Gear Live in this review.

The watch

The Gear Live is Samsung’s first Android Wear watch, but not its first smartwatch. At the end of 2013, the manufacturer introduced the Galaxy Gear and earlier this year the Gear 2 and Gear Fit were released. The Gear Live is very similar to that Gear 2; the watch has a case consisting of a plastic bottom and a metal top that is attached to the wrist via a plastic strap. On the right side of the smartwatch is a small button to wake it up and at the bottom are three contacts that are used to connect to the charger.

The charger consists of an attachment that you click onto the bottom of the watch and then connects with a USB cable. That attachment is very small and therefore easy to lose. Clicking and releasing is also not smooth and we would therefore have preferred a magnetic solution, such as with the G Watch.

The watch is dust and water resistant, so you can shower or do the dishes without worrying about it being damaged. Furthermore, the Gear Live has a heart rate sensor on the inside as a special feature, just like the Gear 2 and Gear Fit. However, it works moderately. For example, you have to keep your hand very still for a good measurement and the smartwatch has to sit just right on your wrist. For example, if it is too high, the wrist bone cannot detect the heartbeat. We therefore hardly used the function.

The watch is comfortable to wear, although the wristband is a bit stiff. Fortunately, you can easily remove the strap by pushing a spring to the side where it attaches to the watch on the inside. You can then attach any standard 22mm watch strap to the Gear Live.

Whether the Gear Live is a nice watch is hard to say; it really depends on your taste. Many people in the editorial office think it looks better than LG’s G Watch, although that is not a great achievement. If you are a fan of beautiful watches, the Gear Live may not appeal to you as much and it may be better to wait until the Moto 360 comes out.

The screen

The square amoled screen of the Gear measures 1.63″, which is almost the same size as the screen of LG’s G Watch. However, the screens are technically quite different. Where LG uses a normal LCD, Samsung opts for its own amoled technology. The contrast is therefore many times greater, which in turn means that watch faces with a dark background look better. In addition, the screen reflects less, which is an advantage if you view the watch outside.

With a resolution of 320×320 pixels, Samsung also outperforms the G Watch in that area; which remains stuck at 280×280 pixels. The difference in sharpness is not huge, but the screen of the Gear Live can contain just a little more text, so that the information density of the Google Now cards is sometimes a fraction higher.

Below the line, Samsung has built the better screen into its watch, but just like LG, Samsung has not thought of adding a brightness sensor. That means you have to control the screen brightness yourself, via a hard-to-reach settings menu. That is very cumbersome, especially because you actually want to adjust the brightness for each environment.

Hardware and battery life

It seems that Google has strict requirements for Android Wear watches and also prescribes which hardware can be used. That would explain why Samsung, like LG, has opted for a quad-core Snapdragon 400-soc of which only one core is active; a solution that we would not call elegant. The amount of memory is also the same at 512MB, but the battery capacity differs.

With its 300mAh battery, the Gear Live has a third less capacity than the G Watch, but the amoled screen in turn saves power when only dark elements are displayed. That is the case with the standard clock; those are just hands on a dark background. The standby time of the Gear Live therefore seems to be a bit better than that of the G Watch, but if you receive a lot of notifications and therefore a lot of light and colored things appear on the screen, there is little difference to be discovered. In practice, the differences are therefore small; just like with the G Watch, you will also have trouble with the Gear Live to achieve a battery life of two days with fairly intensive use. So charging every night remains the motto.

The Android Wear ecosystem

The last time we looked at an Android Wear watch was several weeks ago and many new apps have been added. Most of them are simply updates to existing apps to ensure that notifications are properly displayed on the watch. For example, with the latest beta of WhatsApp you can reply from your Android Wear watch and the same applies to Facebook Messenger.

However, useful apps that run on the watch itself are gradually appearing. Our favorite is without a doubt Wear Mini Launcher . The name actually says it all; it’s an app that installs a small application launcher on the watch that you can reach by swiping right from the top left corner. If you then swipe to the right again, you will arrive at a page with shortcuts, where you can quickly switch functionality on and off, and also control the brightness of the screen via a slider.