Samsung Galaxy Gear shown off

Samsung's most interesting announcement at IFA is the Galaxy Gear, the company's first smartwatch. This relatively new type of product category will be promoted by several electronics giants and the final design of the Galaxy Gear definitely look better than the prototype that was leaked last week.

The Galaxy Gear features an industrial design and has a 1.63" AMOLED touchscreen with a 320 x 320 pixel resolution. The device weighs 74g and has an unnamed 800MHz processor, 512MB RAM, 4GB flash storage, a 315mAh battery and a 1.9MP camera capable of shooting still images and up to 10 seconds long video clips with a max resolution of 720p HD.

Mainly designed as a smartphone companion, the watch is designed to let you make phone calls, watch incoming notifications, remotely control certain features of your smartphone as well as to keep track off your fitness performance.

One of the big downsides is that it's only compatible with select high-end Android phones from Samsung. The Galaxy Gear is exclusively compatible with the Galaxy Note 3, the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) and the Galaxy S4 (after Samsung published the update to Android 4.3).

Availability is slated for September 25th, but we do not know the European pricing. The US will get the Gear in October for $299.





Here's a video of how the device operates, courtesy of Engadget. The reviewer notes that he isn't really blown away by the Galaxy Gear and that its performance is in-line with other smartwatches. The Gear reportedly feels "awfully sluggish" and has quite a few shortcomings.