The watch arrived a little while ago .
Something that NEVER happened on the GW7 or Ultra that has already happened on the GW is going into airplane mode due to overheating . Not cool at all .
Now the good .
It's supposed to be the same screen as the 7 and Ultra but it's crisper and more realistic plus the blacks are amazingly blacker . The UI is a little different in tidbits here and there and to be honest where I find Wear 6 to be Meh or even dislike they seem to have tweaked things just a little more . An example , the egg shape to the notifications and tiles is actually not quite as oval and a hair larger . Bold fonts on the 8 are truly bold and not just a slight thickening of the regular font .
Watchmaker is acting stupid on the 8 but it did the same thing when the Ultra updated to Wear 6 . A bunch of reboots , force closes and a couple of cache clears and it magically started working .
Graphite , to me, is black . To Samsung Graphite seems to be more of a light charcoal gray as the photo will attest and the black is with the bumper/cover I had on it .
The (p)leather band that came with the watch has a silver clasp and clips plus white stitching . Yuk. Fortunately I already bought a black leather (real cowhide) band with black accents and black stitching . It's also wider at the clamps for a more Ultra look and not so dressy watch looking .
I set it up as an existing based on the Ultra and all the settings took and worked great but most of the apps I have on the Ultra didn't cross over . No biggie. I've already added them on . Speaking of that , with Wi-Fi on everything downloads as fast as on my phone , ala VERY fast, but took Scott the same time to install .
The biggest thing , so far , is how comfortable it is . Samsung really hit it out of the park with this one . As comfortable as the GW7 feels it has those sensors sticking seemingly inches out so it never really gets comfortable if you have it the proper snugness . Hopefully the photo will show how the 8 sensor is basically flush so it rests perfectly on my arm . Specs state the 8 is only 10% more slim than the 7 but the photo shows it's thinner PLUS no extremely protruding sensor array for what feels like a much more comfortable wear . It feels like my Active 2 . I just can't say enough about the difference in comfort , especially vs the 7 . The Ultra is twice as thick weighs a lot more and is just a beast so to compare those 2 would be unfair as it's mandarins to grapefruits
I can't speculate on the battery yet but I'm hoping it's on par with the GW7. I could get as much as 2 days on that watch without turning anything off I usually keep on . I got the Bluetooth, non LTE , version just like with the 7 .
The new style clip works just like the Ultra but they are not interchangeable . That's a little disappointing . The band I'm using on my Ultra right now is supremely comfortable , is tough as nails and the beating the leather had taken along with sweat stains have given it a superb look that'll be missed . It started as a medium light brown that is now a dark carmel and lots of scratches . It also has hinges at the clip for extra comfort . Anyway I'll adapt .
As things progress I'll post back and hopefully the overheat was just a glitch .
