The Samsung Gear smartwatch is expected to be launched on September 4, that’s in less than three week’s time. But it won’t be the only introduction at the Samsung Unpacked 2013: Episode 2 event which was confirmed by the company through a tweet earlier this month. We’re talking about the next Note, of course. The spotlight has been on the Galaxy Note 3 so far, but if the South Korean company has built a smartwatch that will actually come in handier than presently available offerings, then its ‘one more thing’ may add some excitement to the affair.
So what is this ‘gear’ which makes our list of gadgets we didn’t know we needed even longer? It’s a watch that’s smarter than you average one. Samsung is rumored to position it as an accessory for the Galaxy series of smartphones. If we were only playing the guessing game based on other smartwatches in the market and the preliminary evidence, the Gear may allow users to pick up or answer a call without having to pull out the connected handset. Patent filings depict the possibility of a mic/speaker on the body. Media playback controls should also be found on the wearable and developers can probably look forward to developing apps for it.
SamMobile mentions SM-V700 as the peripheral’s model number and confirms that it will indeed be showcased at the September 4th event. Note that this date is very close to the IFA 2013 expo which runs from 5th to 9th September. Since the idea is to grab as many eyeballs as possible, kicking off the show before regular folks start suffering from tech-fatigue is a good move. Another thing to remember is that Samsung has scheduled the launch to fall earlier than Apple’s speculated event. So assuming Cupertino does deliver a smartwatch (which is highly unlikely considering the absence of leaked images), there will be a slight feeling of the company having made it late to the finish line.
As for the Note 3, at least two versions are apparently on the cards. A 5.68-inch touchscreen, 3GB RAM, 16/32/64GB onboard space, up to 64GB memory expandability, a 13MP camera, a 1.8GHz octa-core Exynos 5420 processor and Android 4.3 may feature on the specs list. If the Gear watch is coming on the aforementioned date, then Samsung has hopefully made it cool enough to get some of the attention too.