Samsung was so excited about its new Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches that the company couldn’t even wait for its Mobile World Congress press conference on Monday to unveil them. Instead, Samsung announced the new wearable computing devices early Sunday morning. To be honest, you can’t blame Samsung for being overly eager to announce the devices so that the company could begin to help us forget the original Galaxy Gear smartwatch.
While the Galaxy S5 was easily the most important thing announced at Samsung’s Mobile World Congress press event, the company also showed off three new smart watches. Samsung demoed the Gear 2, the Gear 2 Neo, and the Gear Fit. The “Galaxy” branding is gone because the watches no longer run Android—they’ve switched to Samsung’s Tizen OS. The Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo are very similar. The main difference between the two is that the Gear 2 has a metal watch body and a camera, and the Gear 2 Neo is plastic with no camera. The no camera version is a great sign, as the camera on the Gear was widely panned. It looked awkward, it was awkward to use, and it was (understandably) a terrible camera.