Samsung has released several smartwatches in the recent past, and its latest addition to that list is the Samsung Gear Sport smartwatch, which is all about fitness and sports. How does it hold up against its competition, and does its extensive list of features justify its price tag? Let’s find out.
Design
The Samsung Gear Sport Smartwatch, as its name suggests, is marketed towards sports and fitness enthusiasts, which is evident in its design as well. It is smaller and lighter compared to other smartwatches from Samsung, along with a silicone trap, which shouldn’t get damaged even in excessive sweat.
The smaller design does come with one downside – you don’t get LTE connectivity, although it may not be of much use in a watch anyway.
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The Samsung Gear Sport is available in two color choices – black and blue. You are also provided with two straps – large and small. These straps are swappable with other standard watch straps as well, so you don’t need to worry about a nice fit. You can also purchase other stylish straps from Samsung including Hybrid Sport, Classic Leather, and the casual cool Premium Nato.
Screen
The Samsung Gear Sport watch features a 1.2-inch screen with 360X360 resolution. The display is excellent with vibrant colors and excellent sunlight visibility. You can also keep the display on to watch the time in a low power mode to extend battery life.
Hardware and Performance
The smartwatch is equipped with a dual-core 1 GHz processor, along with 768 MB of RAM and 4 GB of internal storage, which is more than enough to provide a smooth snappy experience.
This smartwatch comes with Tizen OS, developed by Samsung, instead of Android Wear. The software is great in terms of design and ease of use, but its biggest disadvantage is the inability to run apps from the Play Store.
There is a serious lack of apps in the Tizen market, including popular home automation and navigation apps. Spotify is present in the market though, in case you want to listen to music during your workout session.
Fitness Features
As the name suggests, the Samsung Gear Sport smartwatch focusses on fitness and sports. Hence, you get the usual collection of features, including an onboard GPS for accurate tracking, a barometer, a heart rate monitor, and an accelerometer to measure how many steps you have taken in a day.
The smartwatch also has 50m water resistance, which ensures it won’t get damaged while you go for a swim. A few apps related to tracking swimming activities are also preinstalled.
Considering its extensive set of features related to fitness, it only seems fair it comes equipped with a collection of workouts, including running, cycling, swimming. It can track your sleep cycles as well, including duration and sleeping efficiency. Your workouts will be tracked automatically, which is a nice feature.
You need to sign up for a Samsung Health account, since all of your data including your sleep routine, a number of steps taken, workout etc. are added to your account, which you can check in your smartwatch or smartphone in the future.
Battery
Battery life has always been one of the plus points of Samsung smartwatches, and the Samsung Gear Sport doesn’t disappoint. You can expect a maximum of three days of runtime, which will get reduced to around 2 if the always-on display mode is activated.
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However, if you start using the fitness features more, such as GPS or listening to songs via Bluetooth, the battery will drain faster. On average, you probably need to charge it every other day. This is a huge advantage, compared to Android wear and Apple smartwatches which usually need charging every night.
Summary
If you see the specifications of the smartwatch, it is on par with some of the best smartwatches in the market. The only major disadvantage is the Tizen market, which is lacking to say the least. You can’t expect to find popular fitness apps such as RunTracker, you have to rely completely on the Samsung Health app.
