SAMSUNG GALAXY GEAR: HIT OR MISS?

SAMSUNG GALAXY GEAR: HIT OR MISS?

Yep, they’ve gone and done it again, as if there weren’t enough super cool Galaxy devices this year. They just had to release another one. And this time they went…yes, James Bond style. What am I talking about? Enter the Samsung Galaxy Gear, the Korean smartphone giant’s latest gizmo. Now before you get any ideas, the Galaxy Gear is not a phone, as it were, it’s a smartphone accessory, which allows you to read notifications, control music playback, and of course keep time. But it does more than just that, in addition to its basic features; Samsung threw in a 1.9-megapixel camera, a speaker and two microphones, allowing you to shoot videos in 720p, make and receive calls.

The device sports a 1.63 inch Super AMOLED display, with a 320 x 320 screen resolution, a single core 800 MHz Exynos processor, and a very useful 4 gigabytes of onboard storage. It has a metal face and buckle, and comes in six different colours, so you’ll have a wide variety of options to choose from.

Now as I said earlier, the Galaxy Gear is a smartphone accessory, which means for you to access its full functionality, you’ll have to tether it via Bluetooth, to a Galaxy device, you cannot, for instance make calls or receive notifications, if the Gear is too far from your Galaxy smartphone. Currently, the only supported smartphones are the newly announced Galaxy Note III and Note 10.1 2014 edition, but compatibility updates for the Galaxy S4, S3 and Note II are due in October.

Apart from the basic features of the device, it also has the ability to find your Galaxy Smartphone via the Galaxy Gear or vice-versa, and comes with a nice plethora of apps (currently over 70 Gear specific apps). In addition it supports Samsung S-voice, which means the gear can be used to give commands to your Galaxy device remotely, pretty cool huh? The apps are installed on the Gear via the gear manager app on your smartphone.

The Samsung Galaxy Gear falls into a category of device known as smartwatches, and if there’s one thing these devices have in common, it’s that they’re not terribly smart. The Galaxy Gear, when tested, found it hard to read certain gestures that it supports, and there was a considerable amount of lag whenever you tried to do anything on the device and the inbuilt speaker makes it impractical for you to use for making calls in any conditions except a completely quiet area, and what good is that if when you try to show it off outside, you end up shouting like a primary school teacher? Another thing that really dulled my enthusiasm for the device was the lack of music playback; it only serves as a remote control for playback on your smartphone. And then there was the battery, why Samsung? Why? Such a beautiful device, what is a 315mAh, battery possibly supposed to accomplish?

All said and done, the device is pretty cool, if you’re looking for a toy, but at $300 dollars (45,000 NGN), is it really worth it? 

GOOGLE GLASS...HUH??

GOOGLE GLASS...HUH??

Ahh yes, Google glass, you may or may not have heard of it, the sci-fi like device that has been all over the blogosphere for quite some time now. First, let me tell you what Google glass is NOT. It is not, a device that magically turns you into Ethan Hunt, no; you still have to go through C.I.A. training for that. It is also not, contrary to the name, an Android-Powered drinking receptacle. What Google glass (Also known as Glass) is, is something known as a wearable computer (yes, wearable) fitted with an optical head mounted display (OHMD) which is basically just a pair of glasses with a prism projector which projects images directly onto your retina at a resolution of 640x800 pixels, which is equivalent to looking at a 25 inch screen from 8ft away.

APPEARANCE/BUILD                                                                                                                                             

 

At first glance, the Google glass looks like a pair of regular sunglasses, but looking closely, just above where the lens would normally be is the unit that houses both the  prism projector (The thingy that lets you see the images from the glass) and the camera, capable of capturing 5 Megapixel stills and recording videos in 720p HD at 30 frames per second. Further down is the battery compartment which holds a 2.1Wh Lithium Polymer battery. On that same side is the bone conduction transducer for audio and the micro-USB port, just about everything that makes this device tick is located on the right side, which can make them feel a little unbalanced at first but can easily be gotten used to.                    

 

 

UI/MEANS OF OPERATION                                                                                                                               

 

The explorer version of Glass currently runs on a modified version of Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich OS modified because it’s not exactly your regular android Smartphone. But it does have a small capacitive touch screen which is basically for navigation, but can be used to control certain functions of the device. The main means of operation however, is the voice control, which is actually very satisfactory. When the Glass is in sleep mode, you simply wake it up by saying “Ok Glass” followed by your command. Saying “Google” followed by a sentence searches Google for the sentence you spoke, and commands like “Take a picture” and “Record a video” do just that although the default video length is ten seconds, you can choose to extend. You can also ask Glass for directions and access emails, just like any other Smartphone.

HARDWARE                                                                                                                                              

Now, now, calm down, I know this is the part you geeks have been waiting for. What powers this oh-so wondrous device? Here’s the full breakdown of the Glass hardware.

Device Type: Wearable Computer, Optical Head Mounted Display.                                                              

OS: Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), MyGlass App                                                                                

CPU: Dual-Core OMAP 4430 SoC (Speed Undetermined)                                                                      

Storage: 16GB Internal Storage (12GB user-accessible).                                                                         

Memory:1GB RAM (682 MB User-accessible)                                                                                                                        

Display: Prism Projector (640X 360)                                                                                                          

Sound: Bone Conduction Transducer                                                                                                    

Input: Voice Commands, Capacitive Touchpad.                                                               

Camera: 5MP Camera, 720p video recording @30fps.

Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.1 b/b, Micro-USB.

 

PRICE RANGE/ AVAILABILITY

Glass according to Google, is going to be priced between $300 and $500 (Approximately N80,000). As for when it will be available, early 2014 seems to be the earliest before we will see any consumer versions, but lets keep our fingers crossed.