Samsung Gear S2 announced ahead of IFA, features circular design

Samsung announced its Gear S2 smartwatch ahead of IFA today, bringing an early announcement that we hadn’t foreseen. It’s not uncommon for some announcements to come ahead of global conferences, though we do like seeing big announcements at conferences (done in a conventional way, of course).

True to the photo we’ve seen of the Gear S2 that started circulating on Instagram, Samsung’s newest Gear S smartwatch has a circular design that parts ways with the curved, 2-inch AMOLED display of its predecessor, the Gear S. Of course, the Gear S2 retains its commitment to Samsung’s homegrown Tizen OS, but the company does away with the curved display in favor of a round display in order to appease a growing number of consumers. Some have deemed the curved display a little too futuristic for their tastes, although it seems to allow Samsung to stand out from the usual smartwatch fashion.

The Gear S2 comes with a 1.2-inch, circular AMOLED display with a 360 x 360p screen resolution (over 300ppi pixel density), a 1Ghz, dual-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, a 250mAh battery, in-built wireless charging, along with 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, IP68 water and dust resistance, as well as an accelerometer, gyroscope, heart rate monitor, ambient light sensor, and barometer.

These specs seem to represent only one model, but, in fact, the Gear S2 comes in three models, one being dubbed “Standard,” another “Classic,” and a 3G data model that’ll let you text and make phone calls from your wrist. The Gear S2 Standard and Gear S2 Classic models involve different bands with different build materials, but the Gear S2 3G is the greatest predecessor of the original Gear S. The Gear S came with 3G capabilities, differing from the Bluetooth-connected Gear S2 and Gear S2 Neo (and the Galaxy Gear before that). The Gear S2 3G will feature a slightly larger battery than the Gear S2 Standard and Classic models, with a 300mAh battery instead of the typical 250mAh battery. Of course, Samsung says that its 250mAh battery will give 2-3 days of battery life, but only promises 2 days for its Gear S2 3G model.

As for pricing, Samsung did not reveal it yet, so we may indeed hear more at IFA 2015. For now, though, rest assured, Samsung’s newest smartwatches have been announced in some form — though their early announcement makes us wonder just what the Korean manufacturer has in store for IFA 2015 later this week.

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