Customer Ratings & Reviews

I've been in the market for a Smartwatch for quite some time now. This past week, I decided to purchase both the Pebble and Sony Smartwatch 2 to see which would reign supreme as my side kick to my Samsung Galaxy Note 3. While both of these devices do what they say they do, I was left with an unsatisfied feeling. The Pebble is a very basic smartwatch that, let's face it, is King due to its wide compatibility with iOS and Android devices and its simplicity and price point ($159). The Sony Smartwatch 2 ($199) kicks things up a notch with a color display and enhanced notification management and huge app support, however, the display looks like it came off a cell phone when colored displays were first introduced. I finally convinced myself to try Samsung's $300 Galaxy Gear. After spending several days with this device, I can honestly say that THIS IS A SMARTWATCH! While developer support is still limited and compatibility is restricted to select Galaxy devices, its functionality, hardware, and just overall design\build goes unmatched! A smartwatch IS NOT for everyone. It is simply an accessory or extension of your device. This is probably the most important question you need to answer to determine whether you should get one or not...Do you want/need an accessory that handles notifications discretely so that you never miss another message/email or call again? After this, it's all about how much you want to invest and what works best for you. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Pebble or Sony's Smartwatch 2. Having used all three, the Gear just felt like a more polished and promising device for me. As Samsung and developers continue to support this device, I foresee increased capability and possibly even compatibility with other Android devices not manufactured by Samsung. I highly recommend any user with a compatible smartphone give this device a shot. Unfortunately, Best Buy only carries demo models of the Gear and not the others if you were to try and go into the store to do your own comparison. The Gear goes for $299 brand new or use Best Buy's In Store Clearance/ Open Box Feature to located near mint condition Galaxy Gear devices going for $250 at a Best Buy near you!

I've had it for a few days. At first the camera made me nervous but seeing after how good of a quality picture it takes I was convinced to keep it. So far no complaints about it except the price. I have to give Samsung five stars because the rating system only allows five stars. On my personal rating I give it ten stars out of five. Glad my s4 got the 4.3 update so I could buy the gear.

I have the Samsung galaxy S4 and am using the jet black galaxy gear. First off let me start by saying the device is very fun and in many situations very useful. Now that the android 4.3 system update occurred, compatibility with other devices besides the note 3 is a huge plus. when on the road, the watch is great for talking on the phone hands free, the microphones on it pick up your voice easily and does not pick up background noise, making for a positive hands free phone call experience. Whether I am going to work or going out for a night on the town, there is a watch display that can match the event, ranging from a digital display showing me date and battery life of the device to a classy diamond analog display. And finally I think my favorite part of owning a galaxy gear is it's ability to attract anybody's attention. Everyday since I have purchased it, I have someone ask me what it is or whether I enjoy having it, and then proceed to tell me how much they want one or tell me how great it looks on me. The few things that I can complain about are the battery life and texting ability. The battery lasts about as long as a normal phone battery (with slight use), and less with extreme use. I wish the watch would have a stronger battery but at least it lasts as long as the phone it is attached to. The watch has the software necessary to be a texting machine, offering notifications of new text messages and the ability to respond to them through S voice, but the accuracy of the talk to text is a let down. Unless the text message is a short three or four word response, the message is understood incorrectly and a simple "what are you talking about" turns into "what are walking about". Overall the Gear is great and is an awesome wearable device in comparison to its current competitors. If you are considering a smart watch, this one is a solid choice, even as newer devices come out and existing devices get updates.

Purchased this with my note3 and thought it will be a stupid toy, wrong! It's really cool! The fact I can look over to a call coming in without taking my phone out and making a quick answer on the go is great. I thought I was going to give this to my kids, but I ended up keeping it. Try it and it you don't like it, I would shocked. Either you're not a techie or you are resistant to change because this watch really makes your phone experience take on a new feeling. Great job Samsung, now just get us more apps for it and bump up the pix for the camera. Cool toy! Word to the wise though, if you are trying to justify spending $300 for this toy, then this is not for you. If you want the latest fun tool to add to your note3, then it doesn't get any better.

A very stylish watch and looks fantastic. Works flawlessly with my Note 3. The battery only drains to 80 percent when I wear it for 15 hours, but be cautions if you have it set to 'wake-up gesture. The battery will be gone in half a day. Other than that, it's great. Make phone calls, send and receive text messages. Get discrete notifications when you're in a meeting.

I got this watch at a great price, $149, it was the deal of the day. I'm quite pleased, I like getting my texts and emails on the watch. Can't get fb messages, just a notification, but that's ok. I don't really think it needs games or anything, not sure what apps they could add, but it works for me. The camera is neat, although kind of loud. I wish the battery lasted a little longer, I get about 2 days before having to charge it. I had to adjust to not being able to type a response to a message, you have to use s voice , which doesn't always get it right. I've thought about trading his one for the new version, which is waterproof. I think I will wait and see if there are a lot of different features that I like better. But, for the price, this one isn't bad.

I did not buy this for $299.99 like most did. I actually traded in two of my old smartphones to Best Buy and they gave me a great deal in store credit, so I took the leap to partner this up to my Galaxy S4. This watch has a premium look. I went with Mocha Grey and it looks great and with the ability to customize the color or just overall face of the watch it really becomes a unique piece. This watch does have a battery life, but in my experience I have found that it lasts AT LEAST a day and a half on a full charge. I don't mind that it needs to be charged either as the battery replenishes itself incredibly fast. Feature wise this is a nice companion to your Galaxy devices. My biggest use of it is voice to text and phone calls. The voice to text is clear and correctly punctuates everything I say so my texts make sense. The call quality is crystal clear and everyone I talk to can't believe I'm talking to them through a watch. It allows for great multitasking. The ability to view notifications is HUGE, especially in an office environment where you cannot just casually pull out your phone. Of course there are fun features as well such as Spin the Bottle and Snapchat (which is great, although I'd like to VIEW snaps on the watch someday). Those are just icing on the cake for me. The camera quality isn't horrible either. It's a camera on a watch. Just be thankful that you can brag about owning such technology! haha. Of course the last thing that is great about this watch...it tells the time! There is an app in the Gear Manager that allows you to completely customize the look of your watch fast. You can use different watch faces, or an picture you took or downloaded. It really gives the Gear a nice touch because while other people might have the watch, yours can look different at least. Overall, I cannot say I would've purchased this if not for my trade-in phone value because the price tag is a little steep at $300, but at the end of the day it DOES make life easier for me and was a great purchase! Can't wait to see what Samsung has in store for us next!

I got this for my spouse to see if it would help me receive quicker responses when I text them. It has and I am completely over the top about that. My spouse has a small wrist so the Gear looks large on her wrist but it still looks good. I love the design and it feels very sturdy. The touch screen is heavy duty.....at least it looks and feel that way. My spouse bumped the gear several times by accident but not a scratch or scuff. The camera........WOW. I can't believe how clear the pictures are. It is worth the price IMO.

I bought this watch and took it out of the box, and it fit perfectly on my wrist. No adjustments. It took a few seconds to sync up to my Note 3. The camera is great, and I have taken many calls with it and it works like a charm. The only issue I have is that there are not enough apps, but I'm sure that will come in time. Some people were saying it is too big. I have bigger, bulkier, watches than this one, so I don't have a problem with the size. It's also so lightweight.

There is so many things you can do with this watch and what the watch does FOR you! You get text notifications and calls straight to the WATCH so you will never miss a CALL or TEXT. That is truly amazing for a watch! Plus you can take quick photos that could never happen again if you didn't have the watch! Memories that you can look at again and again and even transfer to the phone. It may not be the best quality but it works, and you can still see the pictures clearly! I love this watch! Yes sometimes the battery may not be the best at times but it depends on how much you use it just like your phone! I would definetly recommend this to a friend!

I'm liking this watch more and more each day. Since I already owned the Pebble Smart Watch, I wanted to try something new. This watch has really impressed me, and has since replaced my Pebble. There are quite a few tech reviewers bashing the product. Many claim that the notifications are great, but they were wishing they could scroll their Facebook & Twitter feeds, as well as browse the internet on the watch. I took those negative reviews with a grain of salt, because many of them said they ditched their iPhones in previous reviews for larger phones with more screen real-estate. If they claim that the iPhone screen is so small for browsing the web, then why one earth would they want to browse the web on a 1.63 in screen? I purchased the Gear because I was missing quite a few notifications and missed calls from my cell phone. My phone doesn't give off a strong enough vibration, therefore I was wanting something that would help alert me of those notifications. The Gear does a great job in that department. I have my Gmail account setup so that it'll only alert me for Emails that are in received from my Primary Inbox. I disabled notifications for all of the other Tabs, because those Emails aren't that important and I didn't want to receive a ton of notifications. The Pebble would notify me of Emails from all Tabs, even when I had those Tabs disabled. The Gear does much better in this regards. If you're using your phone, notifications won't be sent to your Gear. That way you don't have to worry about your watch steady going off while you're using your phone. The Voice Memo feature is cool. When I create a Voice Note, it'll create a recorded version, and it will also convert the message I recorded into a text file. So I end up with an audio version, as well as text version. I have the ColorNote app from GooglePlay installed to open the text file. I received a lot of compliments on my Gear. It's definitely a head turner. The Gear will also notify me when I'm beyond the Bluetooth range. This has helped me a few times when I almost left my phone behind. The microphone clasp at the bottom of the wrist band bumps up against my laptop at times. If I have to type for extended periods, then I would take it off, or angle my wrist. I wasn't sure if I would be able to see the screen outdoors, but the daylight setting makes the screen bright enough to see outdoors with no problems. I do wish that the vibration pattern could be a little stronger, or had the ability to be changed. When I go into settings and choose the strongest vibration setting, it's pretty strong. When I receive a notification, it has a series of short, subtle vibrations. I wish I could have a long and steady pattern, which would be stronger. Perhaps a future update could address this. The battery life has been better than expected. I heard that battery life may have been addressed in recent updates, in comparison to when the phone was first released. After a 16-18 hour day, I still have 60-70% battery life left. It can easily go 2-3 days with my usage. I also have wake feature disabled, so I'm not sure if that has helped. Overall, I'm pleased with the watch and would recommend it to others.

A lot of people think this device is stupid but I believe it is highly useful! Using S Voice you can nearly make a hands free phone call or speak to send text messages. I was driving and talking through it to send a receive messages. Never touched my phone. The camera quality is surprisingly good! I just wish more apps were compatible with more apps and third party apps. Also the connection is over Bluetooth so if you go too far the connection is lost. However the relay is instantaneous; as soon as my phone rings so does my wrist. People should give it a try before they judge!

This watch is good start considering smart watches are a relatively new concept. It has a lot of good features that make wireless communication easier. The watch makes call screening so much easier because I don't need to pull my phone out of my pocket to see who's calling me anymore, plus if it's somebody I don't want to talk I can reject the call from the watch. This watch is a worthwhile purchase solely for that reason. Other good features are the pedometer because I walk a lot, It displays the weather forecast, it tells you who incoming emails are from, and I can snap a picture quickly and easily with it. The things that I don't like about it are the short battery life (less than 2 days#, charging cradle #why not mini usb?#, bulky size #big for a wristwatch and is prone to scratch and catch on things), and its' text features aren't that great. Overall, like I said before, the call screening abilities make this watch a worthwhile purchase. I'm looking forward to the incarnation of the Samsung Watch because I'm hoping the battery lasts longer, that it will be smaller, and that it will have more functionality.

My phone has lasted 3 days consistently . After the update it works much better as for notifications work great. I am not sure why people say 300 is too high. It is a full computer with blue tooth. Color screen and Crystal screen. Had for two months and no scratches. This is a great device. I recommend trying it out your self. Not everyone feels same but I really like it.

I was a bit skeptical with all the negative reviews so initially went with a Pebble and returned it in 3 hours for a Gear. First thing is you can't expect this to do everything you phone can which it won't but it's excellent for getting weather, sms, and email updates. S Voice works flawlessly and correctly with punctuation (I use it to respond to texts more than Google Now) Camera is decent and is perfect for taking a pic quickly. Downsides are It takes some getting used to as far as wearing, the speakerphone is horrible and very few apps right now although it looks like it will be getting updated to Tizen OS where there is the promise for more apps. Overall an excellent product

I bought this to see what the hype was about. I've only had it for about five days and I'm very impressed with this watch. Everything works flawlessly with my S4, yes it works with the Galaxy S3, S4, Note 2 and 3. All you have to do is update your phone to 4.3 and you are set. All the apps work as intended and they do what they are supposed to do. This watch doesn't take the place of your phone, it only acts as a secondary screen so you are not constantly looking at your phone. All notifications will be displayed on the watch's screen. You can have it notify you by sound or by vibration. It doesn't come with a Facebook app but you can download the FBQuickview app (free) and you will receive your Facebook notifications, messages, pictures, etc. There are a few apps you can download to make it more versatile. Battery life is awesome!! I'm going to on 2 days of use and I still have around 35% battery life left. The speaker phone feature is great. I haven't had any complaints of people not being able to hear me. The camera is not the greatest but it's not bad. All pictures and videos will be sent and stored in your phone not in your watch. The quality of this watch is very good. The only concern would be the glass screen as it's exposed and if one is not careful it can get damaged. The band is rubber but seems pretty good quality. I definitely recommend this watch to anyone with a Galaxy smart phone. Well worth the money. It will only get better as they update and come out with more apps.

I purchased the Gear because I am a tech geek that likes to try everything when it comes out, even though it received a lot of criticism for its usefulness. Right out of the box, I liked the fact that it was very fast charging (15 minutes), and really easy to set up. Using NFC to activate the software in the phone is genius. Learning how to navigate the watch is simple and fast. The look and feel of the watch itself is top notch. The only real issue I have with it is unfortunately a big one. It destroys the battery life of your phone to the point where you better have a charger handy at all times. I am not someone that is on the phone constantly, but from my experience (with my GS4), it will kill the phone battery in about 8 hours. My phone is on about 14 hours daily, and I usually only get the battery down to about 60%. With the Gear paired to it, I hit 60% in about 3.5 hours. Bummer!

I am a big fan of smart watches and a lot of research this definitely was worth looking into. Although I really wish that there was more apps available and more direct view functionality for apps. hopefully in the near future there will be more updates and more functional features considering that this is the first of many smart watches. but overall I will say that this is a very nice device to have it certainly makes viewing and notifications a lot more convenience and less disruptive whenever you're at work you can still keep track of things going on outside. This isn't meant to be a phone so I understand if there's not as many features but nonetheless I wish I could view things with more clarity

In the 3 months I've had this watch, it has issues. It will change apps without telling you, voice commands go out or shut off. When you call tech service they will warn you about being charged for repairs if wet and it'll take a week to 10 days to get back from their service center. I didn't pay 300.00 (now worth less then half that price) for my watch to be in the shop And there is no trade in, they don't know how to correct problems, I spoke to 4 techs and only one walked me through reboot. I bought 6 different units: phones, tabs and watch and left apple in the dark, I'm starting to believe I made a mistake. Apple would have exchanged the watch, Samsung only wants you to buy another one. Not real happy with them, And watch for upgraded units because they won't tell you they are coming out with a new and better version and they won't deal on a trade in. All in all, watch pretty good when it works right, suggest you wait till bugs out of gear 2 and then look at it. But if you can't wait, go to you tube and follow the tips and tricks to find out how it works, the techs don't know how.

I really love learning about this gadget. It's sleek in design. You can make phone calls from your arm! I am a realtor, it's great that you can discreetly check your phone. I am also a grad student, I use it to record things I need to remember in class. It's a very fun new toy, If you're on the fence about getting it, Go ahead and try it!