Galaxy Gear S Deal I Couldn't Refuse

[Jonny Kansas]

One area the Fit blows away the S is using a music player on the phone and connected to the watch. On the Fit it shows track info and seamlessly changes tracks and volume. On the S you get a generic screen, no info about what's playing and there's a lag of over 2 seconds when changing track or volume. When using the built in music player on the S the screen changes to more like the Fit and has no discernible lag when changing tracks, volume,ff, etc.

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Sorry to hear about the music player troubles. Does it matter what app you're using to play music on the phone?

With the G watch and Google Play music, you get band and track name, album art (if available) in the backround, swipe for volume up/down and previous/next track, swipe again for the thumbs up, again for thumbs down, then (I think) again to open the app on the phone.

Volume and track switching happens pretty quick. Thumbs up takes a little while to register on the watch as having gone through, but I've noticed that lag a little on the phone itself.

 

[mountainbikermark]

Sorry to hear about the music player troubles. Does it matter what app you're using to play music on the phone?

With the G watch and Google Play music, you get band and track name, album art (if available) in the backround, swipe for volume up/down and previous/next track, swipe again for the thumbs up, again for thumbs down, then (I think) again to open the app on the phone.

Volume and track switching happens pretty quick. Thumbs up takes a little while to register on the watch as having gone through, but I've noticed that lag a little on the phone itself.

I have Google Play and the stock Samsung player frozen on the phone so I really can't answer that. It's really no biggie though as I can just use the music player on the watch if need be. It's a seamless switch and I've already put a bunch of music on the Gear S anyway. I just wanted to pass my findings along for those who are on the fence with the Gear S vs others. I was more impressed with how well the Fit does with an aftermarket player than disappointed in the S, which is about what I expected being a Bluetooth connection and all . Sometimes even my Tones and other Bluetooth stereo headsets have lag in track changes also so it wasn't something I've never experienced. In the not too distant past Bluetooth headphones didn't control aftermarket music players at all when changing tracks, only controlled the stock players. I remember it was a BIG deal to me being able to start using Bluetooth with Power Amp instead of having to plug in the corded ones. If memory serves that started with the Jelly Bean update on my Rezound.
I watched some videos last night on the S and 1 guy posted videos to answer questions he gets in his comments of previous videos about the S. One question was scratch resistance so he took a pair of scissors and tried his best to beat, scrape, gouge some the screen to no avail. This is the same guy that took his Fit to a water park to check its water resistance, had it fall off into 10' water and it sat there for over 30 minutes, according to him, until a life guard got free to go get it and his Fit passed the accidental extreme test with flying colors. It almost made me cancel my order of an Armor Shield screen protector until I remembered it'd already shipped last night. $7 on Amazon and I like the very slight tactile feel it added to the Fit .


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[mountainbikermark]

I took the S and the Fit on a hike a bit ago but had to cut it short due to a sudden agonizing pain in my left knee about 15 minutes in. (Olditis kicked in for a bit but icing it up while bloviating on Tapatalk has stopped the pain, knocking the swelling back down) with the S on my right arm, Fit on my left, hrm on my left, pedometer on my front hip (good thing I had on a coat cuz I looked like a poser on steroids).
What I found was the Fit was very close to the actual steps the S being over 1k steps low, but was high on the heart rate, skewing the overall calorie burn results. The Fit was almost spot on with the heart rate and calories. I had the Fit tethered to my phone for mapping and the S using its own gps and not connected to the phone at all. The mileage was within 1/100 mile (I didn't take my Garmin GPS to verify accuracy because I didn't want to look TOO much like a poser ) of each other. I was using the Gear Circle headphones connected to the phone just to see how many connections I can to at once ( 3: Fit, Circle for music Whisper for phone calls. Maybe I'll charge the old Bluetooth keyboard and see if I can push that to 4). I write that part to tout how it used to be "choose 1 connection and 1 only" no matter the protocol it used . Technology has grown wonderfully in just a short period of time, heck this decade alone.

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[mountainbikermark]

Ok another thing I just found. I just updated Here app on the phone and opened it up to check out the new features, then remembered it's on the S (embedded bloatware) so I tapped the wake button and the app was open on the watch with current status of my navigation and the ability to end that one and start a new one. The app I the watch doesn't have my saved locations and the "Google like" search for a general place such as "north elementary school, with city and state" didn't return any results when used independently but when syncing the phone version to the S it was flawless if I initiated that search on the phone. For a standalone search it needed the exact address to find it and map it

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[droidprincess]

Question......could I get a Gear S from a different carrier than my phone?

 

[cr6]

I don't see why not if you're purchasing it outright.. (I don't think you can buy one "on contact" like a smartphone)
Good question though!

S5 tap'n

 

[mountainbikermark]

Question......could I get a Gear S from a different carrier than my phone?

Yes. Buying outright costs about $50-100 more than on contract, depending on carrier , BUT be careful which you go with. The Verizon and Sprint versions have no SIM card capability so you'd be locked to a cdma carrier should you decide to add it to your existing account.
If you've got an older Samsung phone with 4.3 or higher Android that is not currently being used you can use it to sync the S with (for apps and such) using Wi-Fi only so you can technically use it as a stand alone and still have access to apps, updates, etc.
The thread I mentioned before on Android Central, the op bought an S at AT&T, and has used it for months on a single line with T-Mobile as a stand alone phone.

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[mountainbikermark]

I don't see why not if you're purchasing it outright.. (I don't think you can buy one "on contact" like a smartphone)
Good question though!

S5 tap'n

Yes you can buy one on contract but it'd be just like buying a phone with a single line plan. T-Mobile is the only carrier not currently not offering contract pricing since they no longer do contracts and they only recently started selling them outright.
I just thought about if you want to buy it outright and not use anyone's data network, one can do like we do with older smartphones......Wi-Fi only.

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[droidprincess]

Is Tizen hard to get used to?

 

[mountainbikermark]

Not if you use Touch Wiz. It really looks and feels like they took the Note2, tossed it in an oven to shrink and curve it then put it in a rubbery band. Minus the s pen.
From home swipe up for app drawer, swipe down for connections and stats screen (like Android phones, swipe left to right to get to notifications, swipe right to get to user set widgets (partially opened apps really). Once off the home screen swipe down acts like the back button. That's the basics of how it operates and icons are Touch Wiz looking.
The only problem I'm having is I'm so used to the home button being on the side of my Fit I keep looking for it on the S and wish they'd put it there instead. On the front just doesn't feel right to me after the Fit and 45+ years of a time piece watch having its button on the side as well.
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[mountainbikermark]

Slight overkill? The most data intensive thing I know the watch can do is load photos on Opera Mini web pages but they're so small 3g would more than suffice

I wonder why nobody is making hay that the thing is 4g capable?
Volume was on and up because I was using the built in music player for a few hours at work and was out of range of my phone.

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[Jonny Kansas]

Slight overkill? The most data intensive thing I know the watch can do is load photos on Opera Mini web pages but they're so small 3g would more than sufficeView attachment 74310
I wonder why nobody is making hay that the thing is 4g capable?

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Didn't think it was...?

Sent from my Note 4 via Tapatalk

 

[mountainbikermark]

Didn't think it was...?

Sent from my Note 4 via Tapatalk

Nobody noticed? Samsung didn't tell anybody at AT&T? It's got me wondering now if the phone part can use lte, if it's lte 4g, for calls the way the Note4 can. Just wow. Surfing on my watch or looking up driving directions while talking on its phone. Just wow.

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[droidprincess]

Fixing to head up to Verizon......stay tuned...

 

[droidprincess]