Earlier today, Samsung announced what is considered the first major smart watch; the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch. Samsung, being in a long running competition with Apple, seems to have finally beat Apple to the punch. But what benefit could this smartwatch have on an ever growing technological world?

Perhaps this taps into the dreams and fantasies of our youth of wanting to be like James Bond or some other super spy who could do almost anything with a simple watch. Though lacking the qualities that would make this smartwatch super spy worthy, there are features to the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch that do catch the eye and bring us closer to those childhood dreams.

To begin, Samsung is calling their new smart watch the Samsung Gear. Seems a little cliché but that’s okay, it’s a watch right? Samsung announced that the Samsung watch will have plenty of capabilities such as being able to take photos, answer calls (when connected via Bluetooth to a Samsung device), and run certain applications that would make this almost enticing to get. There are many other interesting things to do such as being able to SnapChat, which of course in our world of video/picture messaging, is very important.

I do find though that despite the cool features and near super spy appeal, there are concerns on how well this device will function. Regular watches are often worn as accessories and usually have a level of protection offered by being mechanical or semi-mechanical time pieces, bringing in the idea of a non-water-proof watch might be a little off setting for those who like cool tech but love to take on the elements.

Other concerns would be the battery life. As stated in Business Weekly among other news sites, having to charge this watch every day would require you to take along extra chargers and docking stations just to use this while on the go.

Other than those concerns though, Samsung doesn’t fail to deliver a decent product. Making it to the front of a market before Apple is a good accomplishment by any company standards, but the real test of how well this watch preforms and whether Apple will release their own smart watch, well that will take time.

To give an honest estimation of the success of the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch, I would say it will sell because it is the latest gadget and let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to seem like a super spy answering calls on their watch? I do plan to acquire this watch in the near future (perhaps on debut) to give you an in-depth report of the actual functionality and usefulness of the Gear. Until then, below are listed the basic stats that Samsung released today for the gear.

 

Samsung Galaxy Gear Smartwatch:

Processor clock speed: 800mhz

Memory: 4gb

Screen Size: 1.63 (type: Super AMOLED with gyroscopes and accelerometer)

Batter life: roughly a days worth of regular use

Other features: S Voice, camera (called Memographer)