Specs for the heavily rumoured Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch have emerged online, revealing the capabilities of the Samsung smartwatch.
Strongly expected to launch at the Samsung Unpacked event on September 4 at IFA 2013, the first specs rumour for the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch has popped up online.
According to “sources who are familiar with Samsung’s plans”, the Samsung smartwatch will have a 2.5-inch high quality OLED square display with a 320 x 320p resolution.
Speaking to GigaOm, the sources also suggest that the Samsung smartwatch will be powered by a dual-core Samsung Exynos 4212 processor clocked at 1.5GHz and a Mali-400 MP4 GPU.
Built into the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch strap will be a camera and integrated speakers will be placed in the clasp.
Connecting to smartphones using Bluetooth 4.0 LE technology, the Samsung smartwatch will also pack an accelerometer that would recognise when the watch was being viewed. This could potentially conserve battery life and make the device switch from being a regular time-keeper to a bona fide smartwatch.
Apparently, the Galaxy Gear smartwatch prototypes that have made it into the hands of developers run Android 4.1 or 4.2 Jelly Bean. However, with the addition of Bluetooth LE in Android 4.3 it seems sensible for the smartwatch to run the latest version of Google’s mobile OS.
Smartwatch and smartphone integration is said to be very tight, to the point that if a user is viewing an email on the smartwatch and then picks up their smartphone, the phone will present them with the same content being viewed on the watch.
How strong the integration will eventually be still remains to be seen, but it is an interesting concept nonetheless. It may well be that Samsung is beginning to create its own Apple-esque exclusivity and will make the smartwatch only compatible with Samsung smartphones like the flagship Samsung Galaxy S4.
The screen will support touch, swipe and select gestures but of course, given the size of the screen, won’t support text input.
The Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch is expected to launch on September 4 alongside the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
Next, let us know what Apple iWatch features you’d like to see.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
