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more. So guys, we're hands-on with the Galaxy Gear, which as you can see, if

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you were to measure the uh luxuriousness of a watch by the size compared to the P

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No, I'm just messing with you guys. It's not actually that big. So, one of my big

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complaints about smart devices is often the use of micro USB. However, I

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actually love the way Samsung's implemented this with the Galaxy Gear.

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So, it has a little charging cradle that sits around it. So, this plugs in via

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micro USB. So, you can see there's a connector here on the back. So, that lives on your nightstand because really

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the device is good for about 24 hours of

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battery life is about what they're quoting. So, if you can get through a

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full day, then great. And if you can get through two days, then so much the

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better if you're a very light user. But heavy users are expected to get a day

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out of it. So then once we've actually taken that off, I'll show you guys how

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you adjust the strap. Now I'm going to draw a few sort of comparisons to the

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Pebble. I recently got a Pebble, so I would consider this to be more like the

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Toyota Yarus of the smartwatch sort of world, and I'd expect this to be more

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like more like a Cadillac. So we'll start with the the basics of what's out

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there right now. So hardware buttons as opposed to uh having a touchcreen. Uh

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very sort of, you know, rudimentary look and feel to it. I I kind of regret

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ordering the orange one because to me it feels kind of like uh the sort of thing

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you a 12-year-old would wear. Has kind of a rubber strap that comes with it out

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of the box, but the good news is you can change it. Now, let's go ahead and

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compare that to the Galaxy Gear. So, it has a 1.68 in AMOLED screen, which is

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touchscreen and supports swiping in from different directions. So, this enables a

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lot of different functionality. So, I'm going to go ahead and put it on. Hopefully, I've got it at the right size

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here. That should give you some idea how it looks. I'm personally not a huge fan

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of the whole rubberized or or plasticky

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watch surface here. And unfortunately, unlike the Pebble, you can't change it.

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But there's a good reason for that. And that's because there is functionality

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built into the Hold on. I'm going to move this again cuz apparently it's

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still too big. There's functionality built into it. So, not only does it have

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a microphone and speaker that's built into the bottom of the watch, which will

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allow you to take calls simply by holding your hand next to your head, which I think is sort of debatable

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whether that's much better than Bluetooth sitting there and just being

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walking around talking to yourself, talking to an empty hand, but at least

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you'll have um at least you'll be hands-free technically if you were

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driving a car or whatever else. So, that's one advantage to it. And then

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there's also a camera built into it. Does this have the same kind of quality

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that you might get with, you know, a companion device such as the Note 3? The

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answer is obviously not, but it does have the advantage of being extremely

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quick to activate. So, you can see the screen turned itself on without me actually pressing that loan button

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that's on the side, although you can turn it on manually. And a double click

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here will launch an application of your choosing depending on what you prefer.

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So, in this case, it is bound to SVoice. Other than that, most of the navigation

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is done by swiping up and down on the screen. So, the defaults are swiping

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down opens up the camera, which allows you to quickly take a picture. There we

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go. Take a picture of my camera. Tap to record. Tap again to stop recording. So,

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it does support, I think it was 15-second video clips. I'm getting the

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nod from over there. And then the other main functionality that you can access

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simply by swiping is the phone functionality. Now, other than that, you

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might go, "Okay, well, Lus, that wasn't a whole lot." But you can swipe from side to side, and that actually gives

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you access to a bunch of different cool stuff. So, notifications are one of the

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big ones. Whenever something comes in, whether it's a text or a phone call or

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whatever else, it's going to go to your phone, but your phone might be in your pocket or it might be face down on your

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desk or whatever else the case may be. This notifications right here, here we

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go. Let's just open that up. Allows you to see it. And you can also see archive

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notifications as well. Now, this particular one isn't configured right now, so we're not going to worry too

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much about that. SVoice is another thing I really see people using a lot with

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something like the Galaxy Gear because obviously while it does have a

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touchcreen and while it does have a color AMOLED screen, you're not going to

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be typing text messages on it. That's ridiculous. So, if you were to dictate

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text messages, this is a great way to once again it comes down to that uh

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driving or on the- go scenario. It's a great way to be able to use it without

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actually bringing out the full-size device. Now, let's keep going through

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here. Now, there's going to be customizable applications. Uh so, we'll

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go ahead. There's voice memo, gallery, media controller, this is a big one for

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me. And while um while the

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implementation for me for the Galaxy Gear isn't as effective as the Pebble

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because tactile buttons are better. So when I'm riding on my motorbike, I

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actually have speakers wired up into my helmet and I've been wishing for a way

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to skip tracks easily without digging my phone out of my pocket. And touchscreen

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won't work for me when I'm wearing gloves, but the Pebble does. But if you don't have that particular limitation

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and you're not wearing gloves all the time, having a media controller just to

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skip songs and pause and play is outstanding. You can check out your

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contacts logs, you can go to the camera manually. Settings are in here, but

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they're mostly going to be configured through the companion application that

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runs on the Note 3. However, I don't think I have it installed on this

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particular one right now anyway, so we're not going to worry too much about that. And then there's the apps. So,

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right now, app support is about as limited as phone support. So, you're

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going to be able to use the Galaxy Gear with the Note 2, the Note 3, the S4, and

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the S3 out of the box. However, Samsung is committing support for additional

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devices and not even necessarily just Samsung devices. So, stay tuned for

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updates. Um, that is again another advantage of something that's more open

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like the Pebble where it does work with pretty much anything, but you don't get

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that uh you don't get that tight integration. One of the things that they were demoing at the reveal for the for

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the Galaxy Gear as well as the Note 3 was simple things like when you get a

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notification here and you whip out your phone, it's automatically ready to go on

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the phone itself. And that type of integration doesn't happen if you aren't using devices from within the same

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family. So, you have to decide. Basically, it's down to your personal preference. Do you want something that's

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more open but is going to have inherently more limited functionality or

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do you want something that is less open, operates from within a more closed ecosystem or more open moving forward

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and gives you enhanced functionality that you otherwise can't get. It's

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available in I believe it's three different colors, black, white, and orange. And it's going to be have an

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MSRP of this is where it gets tricky again over $300 here in Canada. With

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that said, a little bird told me that at launch or potentially at other times,

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who knows what's going to happen down the road, you might be able to get bundles with devices such as the Note 3,

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which is a perfect companion device for it, and save, you know, up to maybe even

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$100, which brings it down into a pricing where I'd go, okay, so compared

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to the Pebble, I know I'm drawing that comparison a lot, but it's the only smartwatch I have so far, so I'll be

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able to talk more about it in the future. But compared to something like that, what do you get? You get well a

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faster processor or well tangible processing power at all. You get a color

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screen. You get an ID that is better out

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of the box but perhaps less customizable. And you get that enhanced

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functionality with the Galaxy companion

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devices. I did say app support was a little bit limited, but that doesn't

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mean it's useless. So, there's already Evernote support and you can change

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things like the watch faces. Although, I haven't played much around with this

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one. In fact, I was going to have a device to take away with me to do a full

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unboxing and overview, but this is pretty much all the hands-on time I have

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with it here. So, hopefully I'll be able to bring you guys more information about it later. Thanks for checking out this

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video on the Samsung Galaxy Gear, something I'm particularly excited about

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because I mean, I don't think there's really any argument to be had about

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wearables being the future. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more

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unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos. Like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, and leave

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a comment if your feelings were somewhere in between.