Samsung officially Announces the Gear S2 Smartwatch

After teasing it on stage just a few weeks ago, today Samsung has officially announced details about its upcoming Gear S2 smartwatch. According to Samsung’s press release, the Tizen-powered smartwatch comes in two models: The Gear S2 and a Gear S2 classic, which is aimed at consumers who “prefer more timeless watch design.”

The Gear S2 classic features a simple black finish with a matching leather band aimed at taking on the Apple Watch and other “classic-looking” Android Wear watches such as the LG Watch Urbane. The regular Gear S2 will be available in a grey case with a grey band o a silver case with a white band. Samsung also says that the packaged options can easily be swapped.

The Gear S2 is 11.4mm thing and has a 1.2-inch round display with a resolution of 360 x 360 with a rotating bezel plus two buttons: a home and a back button. It runs a on a dual core 1GHz processor with 4GB of internal memory. The S2 also has NFC built-in and Samsung says it will soon be able to do mobile payments, likely Samsung Pay. Samsung also says that their S2 will offer its users somewhere around 2-3 days of battery life, something the Apple Watch nor any other smartwatch can do. How they’ve done that will be interesting to see.

Of course, because the watch Tizen-based, it will not have access to the Google Play store which houses thousands of third-party watch faces and applications. Beyond Samsung’s own apps, Samsung says that it’s working with developers to grow its ecosystem of apps for its watch, but clearly that’s easier said than done. How do they plan to lure developers who are making Apple Watch apps and Android Wear apps?

Images of the S2 have been floating around for some time and we have to admit that we think it looks pretty good. Samsung has yet to announce when the watch will be available and for how much, but either way, it’s an exciting time for wearables. As more information turns up, we’ll keep you updated.