In the closest thing yet to a "just one more thing" moment, Samsung just gave industry observers a glimpse of it's 7th smartwatch. A sneak preview of the upcoming Gear S2 smartwatch capped off Samsung's big New York event launching the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, Note 5 and Samsung Pay. There is certainly no shortage of questions on the long rumored round-face smartwatch.

Will this latest Tizen-powered device be worth the year long wait? Samsung's Q2 smartwatch market share plummeted with the introduction of the Apple Watch and the company has its work cut out for it. With respect to Android Wear and watchOS we hope to see a significant ecosystem boost for Tizen when the device is launched at IFA in Berlin on Sept 3rd. Samsung will need to include flawless Samsung Pay integration, a full roster of known prime-time launch partners, and quite frankly some new "wow" features in order to compete with Apple Watch.




Another key question is will the S2 be cellular-enabled? This is Samsung's differentiator with the choice of Tizen and the (fairly bulky) Gear S. Cellular would be an ace-in-the-hole if Samsung has leveraged its CE pedigree for all its worth to create a compellingly slim design. The photos shown so far show a huge improvement size and fashion wise over previous designs, but do not offer quite enough of a side-view to determine thickness.

The official launch will be one to watch!  





Related Reports:

VENDOR SHARE: Global Smartwatch Market by Region: Q2 2015

Global Smartwatch OS Marketshare: Q2 2015

Global Wearable Cellular Device Sales Forecast by Type by Protocol: 2012-2020