The Gear twins are official

The twins

Okay readers, I am not gonna tell you what you already know about the twins. I am here to discuss a bit about what we learned today.

First of all it is two of them:

The twins

The hi end Gear 2 

Gear 2 - front

Gear 2 - back

The cheaper Gear 2 Neo

Gear 2 Neo - front

Gear 2 Neo - back

The obvious difference between the two is that the Neo does not sport a camera, whereas it also 13g lighter than it's brother and hopefully quite cheaper so that to justify it's existence along the Gear 2. Let me remind you that the original Gear was 74g and tell you that the Gear 2 is 68g, so do the math to see how much the Neo weighs (hint: it is not a lot). This difference in weight kind of suggests a different material in my book. We will find out soon enough.

Both babies:

• Come with Tizen OS and this may be a good thing. 
• First of all with a little smaller battery Samsung promises three times the stamina of the original, which is quite a feat in itself and directly related to the OS choice.
• Then, fOmey (the person who transformed the original Gear to the beast it is right now) over at XDA thinks he could hack the s**t out of the Gear 2! (Have i ever mentioned i love this guy?)
• Have a slightly bumped up dual core 1GHz processor.
• Feature a heart rate sensor, ala Adidas micoach smartwatch.
• Support sleep tracking magic.
• Have IR blaster for uhmmm you know blasting IR.

The camera hump on the Gear I has disappeared and the camera has moved on top of the screen. The speaker that was formerly being housed in the clasp is gone (again you may find it in the watch itself). This renders the straps kind of interchangeable. The lack of which was something many people where whining about in the past.

However, there are some considerations:

• Is the placement of the camera on the Gear 2 a well thought out one? Will it be pointing outwards like the original? How about video calling from the watch? Can this be achieved?
• The speaker on the first Gear, although resulting in a rather uncomfortable clasp, was in the perfect position if your intention was to speak on the watch with the volume set to low (so that only you can hear the other side). I am not sure if this remains the case now.

What is still missing (assuming we know all there is to know)

For God's sake Samsung, you put a God damned optical heart rate sensor on the watch, you made it capable of playing MP3s through BT headset (no need for a phone nearby), didn't you? Where is the GPS then? Uh? How am i supposed to go jogging and track my route, huh? Please, please, please tell me that there is a GPS chipset hidden in there somewhere...

Compatibility

For me the questions (in order of significance) are simple: 

• Will it work with an iPhone out of the box? 
• Will it work with Androids that are not made by Samsung?
• Will it work with WP8? 

What about the Gear 1 owners?

I have already seen some people bitching about the fact that the Gear 2 was announced too soon. They are saying they lost money on this one and Sammy is the one to blame.

Dear Gear 1 owners, you knew (or you should have known) you are early adopters. You knew you were pioneers. You knew you were paying for smth many people have never heard of. You knew the second Gear was on the pipeline for a long long time. Some rumours were there even before the Gear 1 was available to buy. So please stop.

I have bought the original Gear for 300 EUR, fully knowing that i am wasting hard earned money. This is how it is with tech products. I have got used to it. If you want to buy a gadget that keeps it's price high for quite some time, go get a good telescope. Or an iPhone. End of story.