Details for Samsung’s Galaxy Gear emerge: 1GB RAM, 2.5-inch display

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Samsung’s Galaxy Gear, an upcoming Android smartwatch, comes as no surprise to anyone because firstly, tech companies have limited imaginations these days and secondly, everyone wants to copy Apple, whose creative juices dried up years ago, ironically. Apple said it was working on an “iWatch” that should emerge sometime in 2014 if this report from The Guardian has anything to say about it. Today though, new information for the Galaxy Gear has leaked, namely storage options and battery life. If you care about smartwatches, even a little bit, then keep reading.

Gigaom reports that the Galaxy Gear will have a 10-hour battery life, which isn’t really that impressive, considering it’s a watch and not the type of device that should have to be charged daily. But it’s the future, and in the future devices are quickly drained of energy it seems.

The screen is going to be low res as well, but still, only a ten-hour battery life. A 2.5-inch screen at a resolution of 320×320. As for the memory, the GG is said to have 1GB RAM and a choice of either 6 or 8GB of internal memory. The camera will be, well is supposed to be a 4-megapixel snapper that can record HD (720p) video. Let’s hope that Samsung integrates this all nicely into the GG, and that the pathetic ten-hour battery life is just an indication of the minimum amount of charge the GG is expected to hold.

Realistically, a three to four-day battery life is expected, so the GG should turn off the screen or go into low-power mode in order to survive longer than half a day.

There’s some interesting or crap news as well, depending on how much you love Samsung phones. The report says that Samsung, not Google will be making the companion app for the GG, this means that the smartwatch will only work on Samsung phones. For the GG to not sync with a standard Android phone is a crime, but what does Samsung care, it’s the most successful mobile phone maker worldwide. So if you don’t own a Samsung, what’s wrong with you? (we don’t think that, but Samsung surely does).

Regardless, the report could be wrong and our moaning could be for naught. Why can’t we just have simple smartwatches that last for days and will work with any phone? A geek can dream. Samsung has an event planned for 6 September and the GG will be unveiled there, hopefully.

Steven Norris: grumpy curmudgeon
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