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We’ve already got our flight booked for this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. It’s no secret that Samsung will officially unveil their next Galaxy flagship during their Unpacked 5 event on February 24th — that much we know. What we don’t know is what else Sammy has up their sleeve (literally).
According to sources with “direct knowledge on the matter,” Samsung is also planning to unveil the sequel to their smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy Gear. The original Galaxy Gear originally launched barely six months ago amid rumors Apple would enter into the wearables market with a smartwatch of their own. Of course, that didn’t exactly pan out (at least not yet), leaving Samsung with, what many felt, was a rushed effort.
Samsung is taking many of those criticisms to heart, and in a strange twist, it’s now being reported that we could see multiple Galaxy Gear wearables debut at MWC, one that might not even run Android this time around. According to USA Today, Samsung will instead rely on their own in-house Tizen operating system, giving Android the boot completely.
Unlike with the original Gear running the full Android operating system, this particular version of the Gear will run a special HTML5 version of Tizen catered to smaller displays and less powerful devices. It appears Samsung could be targeting developers already familiar with creating web apps to help create apps designed specifically for their smartwatch.
Can’t say Samsung would be stepping on Google’s toes with the move given Google hasn’t exactly created a version of their OS designed with wearables in mind. While we at Phandroid are Android all the way, we wouldn’t be directly opposed to a smartwatch running a different operating system a la the Pebble. How ’bout you?
It would have to be freaking out of this world amazing for me to even consider a proprietary solution such as “tizen”. Android all the way!
Tizen is not proprietary. It’s opensource.
But this watch most likely will not fully work with anything other than a few select Samsung phones, thus making the whole thing proprietary. I won’t even consider a watch that doesn’t work with non samsung phones and preferably it would even work with iPhone.
And so it begins
Ew.
How do you say it?
Let me be completely professional about this. LOLOLOL.
Fail…stick with android yo!
Don’t fall for Tizen. It’s a trap! But honestly tho, Android is the way to go.
One other smart watch to launch in February is the SmartQ Z-Watch and is priced at $155
The SmartQ Z-Watch is made by Smart Devices, which won a 2013 CTIA E-Tech Award for innovation and offers a new updated model from the original launched late last year and now features Android 4.4 that works with the iPhone and Android phones to handle phone calls and view texts and schedule…
The Z-Watch has specs that compare to the upcoming Galaxy 2 watch and is much more competitively priced, with the Z-Watch offering an advanced 1Ghz processor, a long-lasting 300 mAh battery, a high resolution color touchscreen display, a full-featured MP3 Player; as well as a Walking/Jogging Pedometer and sleep analyzer and the ability to use the watch to play music while exercising and keeping walking/jogging stats
Available at the same price point as the Pebble Watch, the Z-Watch has a lot more to offer compared to the Pebble, with its monochrome non-touch display, slower 180Mhz processor and limit of 8 Apps that can be installed on the Pebble
TabletMaxx — is one of the first U.S. sources to offer the new, updated version of the SmartQ Z-watch and also includes a premium headset for MP3 function as well as an extra leather watch strap…
Dude you sound like an infomercial. I will consider the device as it looks decent and has a phenomenal price. Thanks
tizen is all fail last Samsung phone for me
Meh, Pebble Steel FTW
If they make a watch that works on all reasonable versions of Android and the iPhone I’m all for it. I don’t care what os it has as long as it is trying to play nice and not be proprietary.