If you spend any time watching television, chances are you’ve seen the new Samsung Galaxy Gear commercial at least a hundred times — the montage of movie and TV show clips of spies, robots and futuristic personalities talking into devices on their wrists. Regardless of how annoyingly frequent these commercials have become, if you’re looking for the fanciest new piece of tech, your wish has come true with the new pairing of the Samsung Galaxy Gear “smart watch” and Galaxy Note 3 smartphone.
Your dreams of communicating like Dick Tracey or Inspector Gadget can now be a reality with this latest installment in the series of devices with oversized screens, or “phablets.” The Galaxy Note 3, equipped with a 5.7-inch display, is breaking ground alongside its wrist-strap watch companion.
The device comes with an array of features that will please the savviest of technophiles. The watch’s bluetooth connection to the phone allows wearers to make voice and video calls without having to touch their phones. It comes equipped with a 2 megapixel camera — to complement the 13 megapixel camera on the phone — and it includes 4 gigabytes of storage. Though the watch has no computer connections and currently only works with the Galaxy Note 3, Samsung plans to update to be compatible with the Galaxy Note 2, S3, S4 phones by the end of the year.
But the Galaxy Gear watch may not be for everyone. It does not allow third-party calls and has no social media applications, both of which are popular features with smartphones. As with any mobile device, battery life will always prove to be an issue, and the only way to charge the watch is by connecting it to a watch-specific charging caddy. In addition, at $300 per watch — in addition to the cost of the phone and accompanying data plan — the overall price of the package may scare away a significant percentage of interested customers.
The Galaxy Gear watch can be found at most phone stores such as Verizon, Sprint and AT&T.
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