IT News Head Lines (Techradar) 12/22/2014

IN DEPTH: 10 best travel apps for iPhone, iPad and Android over the holidays

Apps for getting ready and going up, up and away

It's a wonderful time of the year—well, unless you're traveling. If long lines and crowded roadways are not your idea of a vacation, then make sure you prepared, because it's going to be one of the busiest travel seasons. Pack light, take some emergency cash, but just don't leave your smartphone behind, those apps will come in handy.
To ease your holiday headaches, we have come up with a list of 10 iPhone, iPad and Android apps that no traveler should leave home without.
From packing for your getaway to exchanging currency to finding an authentic restaurant, these are the apps to use and improve your overall travel experience. In fact, we're willing to bet that after one trip you'll start to wonder how you ever managed to travel without them.

1. Hipmunk

Hipmunk also includes non-traditional lodging, such as listings from Airbnb and HomeAway. (Those two services connect people who have rooms, apartments, and homes to let with travelers who want to rent them.)
For the lowest round-trip fares over a 90-day timeframe, be sure to search Hipmunk's pricegraph, too.

2. TripIt

Organizing travel just got automagical. Whether you're a planner or the spontaneous type, TripIt helps transform your travel and booking confirmation emails into a master day-by-day itinerary, with all your plans in one place, via the web or your phone.
Along with creating your vacation itinerary, TripIt also suggests attractions and activities according to your schedule, and even looks up all the information we seem to forget like weather updates, local maps, and directions.
Its free-to use service is great for casual travelers, but high-powered features like flight status, text-message alerts and fare refund notifications can make Tripit's pro-level service pay for itself.

3. PackPoint

Users answer a few basic questions, such as: Are you a man or woman? Are you traveling on business or leisure? How many days are you going for? And where exactly are you going? Then PackPoint creates a custom packing list to account for all of your travel needs based on weather, location and your travel activity. Not only will you thank us for packing light, you will also save yourself the $25 checked bag fee.

4. Entrain

Plug in your sleeping habit data and the time zone you're traveling to, and the app calculates a schedule specifying when you should stay in bright light, low light or be in the dark. The app then helps you gradually shift your sleeping schedule to lessen the impact of skipping across all those time zones to help you get the most out of your travel.

More travel apps for smooth sailing

5. MiFlight

The app includes information for 54 airports at the most-traveled hubs around the world. But you'll want to have your gate info handy to use the app and input your airport, terminal and gate to get your estimated wait time in the security line.
Ready to spread the cheer to other travelers? Just click on the timer, input your minutes and share your info using Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, email, text or Instagram.

6. Wi-Fi Finder

If you prefer certain providers such as Comcast, you'll be able to see which hotspots are served by those providers. The app works in more than 100 countries, including the United States, Japan and Italy, and allows you to star favorites so you can easily find them again. Best of all, the offline mode means you can download maps before you go, thereby dodging a massive bill.

7. Tipulator

8. Foodspotting

Before you end up eating a meal in the Times Square of India, or any other tourist trap, make sure you download the Foodspotting app to find good eats and authentic dishes available in restaurants around the world.

9. XE Currency

How much is the dollar worth these days? If you have asked yourself this question before, then XE Currency is a useful tool for you to download before you say, si to a bad or inaccurate rate. The app converts money from all over the world, and helps users to better understand what they should expect to receive after an exchange (before fees).
Since it makes use of your smartphone's internet connection, exchange rates throughout the app are also updated as new information becomes available, ensuring your exchange calculations stay up to date with the changes in the international currency markets.

10. GasBuddy

Hitting the open road instead of the air? Sure, gas prices have been dropping in the last few weeks, to $3 or below in some places, but you'll still want to shop around for the best prices on the road.
Don't forget to show your fellow travelers some holiday love, and share the low-price gas station you discover within the app.









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Roundup: We played with the worst apps in the world, so you don't have to: Christmas edition

Worst apps in the world: Christmas edition

There's something magical about opening that new tablet or smartphone on Christmas morning, plugging it in, and then opening the app store for the first time. Wonderful, isn't it? Like a toy store that never ends, filled with promises of fun and delight. Then you download some of the apps on our list and the magic is instantly asphyxiated. Santa's dead. The tree's on fire. Grandma's in tears.
Yes, as a special Christmas treat we've brought back our worst apps list for a one-off festive edition. If you want a Merry Christmas this year, you're best avoiding this lot.

Iron Desert

Platform: (iOS and Android)
Price: Free
Nothing says Christmas like military strategy and in-app purchases. Iron Desert: Christmas Edition gets you in the festive spirit as you fight to free the continent from the oppressive despot, Iron Dragon. We're not saying the game is bad, but this is one of the most shameless bits of Christmas shoehorning that we've ever seen. Ah but look, they put tinsel on a tank. We take it all back.

Christmas Dentist Office

Plaftorm: (iOS and Android)
Price: Free
We've played with some atrocious apps in our time, but none that have bombarded us with as many adverts as Christmas Dentist Office. Not just that, most of them are for 'John Edwards Funerals', diminishing the Christmas magic just a tad.

Then we come onto the locked content, which turns out to be most of the game. Even once you've waded through the copious death-related pop-ups and you're faced with Santa's decaying molars, a number of the tools are unusable without further purchases. You literally cannot succeed in this game without coughing up money to drill Santa's face. Happy Christmas everybody!

Christmas Greetings

Platform: Android
Price: Free
We don't know where to begin. While it's meant to be an app for sending cheerful Christmas pictures to loved ones, the images are small and crappy, the app barely works, and, frankly, if we received any of these in an email we'd disown our families. "Touch here for 100 more cards for free", it tells us as we start roasting our smartphones on an open fire.

Christmas Photo Frames

Platform: Android
Price: Free
Christmas is cancelled.

1. The ten worst apps in the world

There are now over 1,300,000 apps on the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store is home to around the same number of Android apps right now. What we're trying to say is - there are a lot of apps out there, and unsurprisingly, a lot of them are crap.
We're sure you've stumbled on some stinkers yourself, but we hope you've not come across any as bad of these. You see, at TechRadar we're making it our mission to scour the underbelly of both app stores to find the truly terrible, the truly disgusting, and the truly WTF, all in the name of technology.
Each week we'll be nominating an app that deserves the crown of "worst of the worst", with an aim to complete a list of the ten truly most terrible apps we've ever seen.
So let us begin our dangerous journey through the bowels of humanity's ideas. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

1. I Am Important

Platform: iOS
Price: Free
"The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand." - Vince Lombardi
The price of success in 2014 is jack all. All you need is an iPhone and a sense of deep, penetrating loneliness.
I Am Important is a fake diary organiser designed to make you look like, in the words of the app itself, a "top-flying shaker". For example, it'll generate made-up contacts in the app and put them in your address book. Those contacts aren't just low-life nobodies though - they're "highly important and highly paid business people". You know, better people.
Even more deplorably, the app will create fake events and insert them into your calendar. This is "to make you look busy and important as important people are involved in many events", as the app helpfully informs us. These important people sound really busy and interesting.
But of course, none of this is any good if no one is checking your phone, and as you're so "unimportant", chances are that they won't be. That's why the app lets you post your "success" to Facebook to make your friends green with envy. That's assuming you have any friends, which is unlikely if it's reached this point.

"Sometimes, when you feel like nobody cares, I Am Important will ask you about your day and what happened that day," notes the app description. Sure enough, there's a box at the bottom for you to write how you're feeling. Appropriately, ours suggested "self-condemning".
That last part might not quite match the criteria of the app's mission statement: "I Am Important does two things: 1. Shows the world how important you are. 2. Makes you feel more important."
But here's the best bit: you can pay to remove the app's adverts using a three-tier pricing system dependant on how "Important" you think you are. By clicking "Kind of important" and paying a minimal 69p, you'll get the ads removed but nothing else, while paying more will earn you bonus features, such as a colourful background. And if you fancy coughing up £6.99 for "Head of State/CEO" - importance then: "You're important - big time. You need a crazy, moving background to show everyone that your level of importance is [something undisclosed]."
There's a scene in the The Office (US version) where boss Michael Scott finds a video-recorded TV appearance from when he was a child. In it, a cat puppet asks Michael what he wants to be when he grows up. Michael replies: "I want to be married and have 100 kids so I can have 100 friends. And no one can say no to being my friend." It's a surprisingly sad moment in an otherwise funny scene. I Am Important is that moment embodied in an app. In a word: tragic.

2. Funny Hand Dryer

2. Funny Hand Dryer

Platform: Android
Price: Free
This week's app is called Funny Hand Dryer but there is literally NOTHING funny about it. In any way at all. It's just a pretend, crappy, low-res picture of a hand dryer that makes a noise. If you've ever laughed at this, you're a moron.

To get the "funny" started, you touch beneath the vent as if you were sticking your hands out to dry, and the familiar blowing sound starts blurting out of your phone or tablet speakers. We have literally just described the function of Funny Hand Dryer as exhaustively as possible.
Now, perhaps we're missing the big joke that the rest of you are all in on, but as far as we can tell hand dryers have never quite been a source of 'banter'. Never have we heard a good joke involving a hand dryer and we highly doubt the "funny" is going to start with this app.
But who are we to argue with ten thousand downloads? And the app's creator is obviously keen to maintain the quality their fans have come to expect. The 1.1 update makes sure the app is now installed to any inserted SD card, so you can rest assured that you're never too far from a good bathroom facility-based joke. Just imagine the look on your friends' faces when you whip this one out. You don't deserve friends.
We'd say that iOS users are lucky to have dodged this bullet but the app Electric Razor is almost as harrowingly crap, though we guess you could at least rub the phone all over your face to help imitate the act of shaving. The 21st century is great, isn't it?
Needless to say, the reviews for Funny Hand Dryer are less than complimentary, although one person wrote: "It's alright not the best game in the app store,"
Not the best... but not the worst apparently. You mean you've played worse games than this, anonymous Google user? That may also be the most liberal use of the word "game" we've ever heard.
Luke Stanbridge gives the most in-depth analysis of the bunch, however: "Too basic, you can't change any settings of this app, when you take your hand off the screen the sound effect just cuts out unrealistically."
Yeah, because up until that point it had us utterly hornswoggled.

3. Floating Miley Cyrus

3. Floating Miley Cyrus

Platform: Android
Price: Free

We'll begin this week's worst app review by paying it the one compliment it deserves: Floating Miley Cyrus does exactly what its name promises. That's more than we can say for a few others on this list.
The app drops a tiny version of the titular pop star on your screen, who will dance while you catch up on the day's news, watch a film, or simply brush up on some Marxist critique of capitalism. Whatever it is you people do on your tablets these days.

You can drag her around the screen, but beyond quitting the app, deleting it and moving on with your life, you have no other control. Miley is going to dance and she's going to make you watch. There's no variation either, she just does the same move again, and again, and again, and again.
This being the classy piece of software that it is, a nice little advert will also appear every time you boot up Miley, and because its close icon is so damn small, you're probably going to accidentally open it. Sorry about that.
It's pointless and no one is ever going to open this more than once, but we did discover our own fun game to play. We call it 'Where can you put Miley that's really funny?'. Turns out, quite a lot of places.

On 'researching' this week's app, we discovered a surprising number of Miley-related games in the Play Store, all of an unsurprisingly low quality. So we're also giving an honourable mention to the 'Miley Cyrus Game', in which the player earns points by dragging many Miley faces off the screen. We've experienced fun before. This is not it.

4. Beef War

4. Beef War

Platform: Android/iOS
Price: Free on Android/ $0.99 (69p) on iOS
Imagine an alternate version of history where America fought the Nazis not with guns or Buccaneer bombers, but with beef. No, in fact, stop imagining - you can live that very scenario right now.
Beef War is precisely what its name suggests. It's a war where your only ammunition is cuts of cow. The description doesn't give much away beyond the fact we can expect "48 unique cuts of beef, seven types of panzers, and 'intense strategies'."
Enemy tanks will blast different bovine parts in the middle of the screen, and it's your job to fling meat at them. Yes, meat beats Panzer. What do you mean you've never played Beef, Bayonet, Blitzkrieg before?

Every piece of meat is labeled on an Angus Beef Chart, which unhelpfully uses the world's smallest font size. You'll soon know your chuck pot roast from your flank steak, assuming you have superhero vision.
Ok, so there's some underlying message about American beef farmers being undermined by foreign trade. However, any awareness of the issue is offset by Herbert the Pervert seductively calling out the names of the beef types as you annihilate the enemy, like we're living in some war-meat fetishist's kinky sex fantasy.
And none of this is helped by the absence of any explanation from the app developer whatsoever beyond "BEEEF WAAAAAR" being screamed at you every time you start the game.
And while there's some strategy to it, we'd hardly call it "intense". Though we'll give it this: it's the most realistic war simulator with beef cuts you can play right now, down to the constant and not-at-all-annoying sounds of distress as cowzilla is slowly Panzer'd to death.
Sometimes at night, we can still hear the mooing.

5. Will you marry me?

5. Will you marry me?

Platform: Android
Price: Free
By this point, we've already dug up some some pretty atrocious apps - really, truly awful things. But just when you think you've scraped the bottom of the barrel, someone lifts that barrel up and out squirms a monstrosity that defies imagination.

That monster is Will you marry me?, an app that wants to do the job of proposing to your most beloved one for you.
"Have you ever tried tell your feelings for your girlfriend, or boyfriend?" asks the blurb in broken English. "Want you to make it with your phone? Can't you say it yourself? You can't speak in these situations? You are not alone! But... You can do it with your phone!"
No. No you can't.
Let's start with the design. The app is a single landing page that can only be described as 'my first Powerpoint'. You don't read the text so much as decipher it from a font that, for good reason, we've never seen used before in our lives.
Thankfully the adverts at the bottom are completely legible, directing you to apps that will help you "meet flirty single women" and other entirely inappropriate dating sites. This really helps the romantic mood.

The background displays two giant wedding rings with "Will you marry me?" scrawled across the top, while your significant other has the choice of selecting either "Yes" or "I need more time".
If your soon-to-be-ex taps the latter, "Think it through again, please, I LOVE YOU!" appears on the screen, suggesting that this relationship has turned into some hellish multiple-choice RPG that they cannot win.
But that button's so unreadable that they'll probably just hit "Yes" to just make the nightmare end. Then the shrill organ music starts to play and they realise that the real nightmare has just begun: they're about to spend the rest of their life with a person who thought that this app was a good idea.

6. Ethan

6. Ethan

Platform: iOS
Price: Free

Who is Ethan? How is Ethan? Why is Ethan? In some ways, aren't we all Ethan?
These are the inevitable musings that come with downloading Ethan, a conversation app that lets you speak to one person and one person only: Ethan.
Ethan is an ordinary guy, apparently. We don't know much about him but we wish we did. So far he's not responded to any of our messages. Oh sure, he'll speak to TimParker. "What a great chap, highly recommended," so goes his review on the App Store. Why won't he message us? We feel really quite left out.
Put simply, Ethan is a real-life Siri. Want advice on what to watch on Netflix tonight? Ask Ethan (we're told he'll always recommend The Room). Stuck for a date idea? Ask Ethan. Which season of Grey's Anatomy is the best? Ethan may have an opinion (we think season 6, hopefully Ethan agrees).

But the way we see it, Ethan is just a guy with access to Google and more free time on his hands than he knows what to do with. "Don't ask if I'm real (I am)" he says. But who are we to believe him when Siri is just as evasive with such questions? We also find his preference for multiple choice questions highly suspicious.
Siri is a robot parading as a human, Ethan Gliechtenstein is a so-called human in our smartphones. This is Philip K Dick's existential nightmare. We are Ethan and Ethan is all of us.

7. Got Juice?

7. Got Juice?

Platform: iOS
Price: Free
From the very the people who created Hold On comes another smash hit app you never thought you needed: Got Juice?
"What's Got Juice?" you ask? Well let us answer your question with another question: ever wondered how much battery you've got left but had no easy way of seeing it? Us neither! Luckily that's not what Got Juice? does, which is just why you need it! This is an app that inaccurately tells you your battery status with a crappy graphic. On our first try Got Juice? told us we had 80% of battery left, the iPhone battery indicator reckoned it was 86%.

Wait, you mean Got Juice? wasn't meant to get the percentage wrong? Well that explains why it's in this list doesn't it.
But then again, who are we to argue with the real critics? sonydog123 said: "This app is free and great, very simple to check your battery status and highly recommended - great job on it!"
While the one and only reviewman57364 really dug deep for his analysis. "Great app! - liked how it goes up to your percentage. Very nice feature."
"Looks cool - I'm shocked there are no ads!" said mriphoneaddict. We'll be more shocked if this is a legitimate review.
But it's allytheangel who really nails it with Roger Ebert-esque insight: "You'll always know exactly how low your battery is! Makes me wonder why it isn't included as a standard."
Yeah, us too...

8. Hold On

8. Hold On

Platform: iOS
Price: 69p

The past few years have seen smartphones completely transform the gaming industry, with some notable titans helping to blow the medium wide open.
Angry Birds defined mobile gaming from the off. Infinity Blade showed us that smartphone games could go toe-to-toe with consoles. Monument Valley proved they could be thoughtful and beautiful. Hold On, which costs 69p, shows us that the app store really needs to sort itself out.
Here's the premise: hold the button for as long as you can. If you let go, the game is over. Then try to beat your previous record. When will the fun end!?
"Develop your perseverance and improve your concentration skills to make you more productive!" reads the app store description. We'll cast some doubt on that. This app is more likely to aggravate any underlying anger issues when you realise you wasted ACTUAL MONEY on it. But perhaps we're too quick to judge, so let's take a closer look.
We've covered the central tenet more extensively than it deserves, but there's plenty more to do. Say, for example, you want to submit your high score, just tap 'submit' and enter your name like it tells you to. What's that? Oh, you can't actually enter your name because there's no working keyboard. Just tap OK then, we guess.

Now that you've anonymously entered your score to the global rankings, better go see how you're faring. Oh look, that just brings up a load of code. This is paying for itself already.
But wait, we forgot the biggest feature of all: you can connect to a friend via Bluetooth and enjoy the shoddiness together! Of course we haven't been able to test this feature because we couldn't persuade anyone to spend their money on it.

9. 99 Bottles!

9. 99 Bottles!

Platform: iOS
Price: Free
Let us set the scene: You're having '99 Bottles of Beer' sung to you by Stephen Hawking. We just described the entirety of the 99 Bottles app.
No, that's not fair, you can also pause the song or choose to start it over. There are also some crap bottle animations that twitch along with the "music". Ok, now we've described it.

Yes, it's the slow, awkward rendition of 99 Bottles you never asked for but you're sure as hell going to get anyway. And what happens if, God forbid, you last the whole 19 minutes and 48 seconds? No spoilers here, but we can confirm that time is accurate because we sat through the whole damn thing ourselves.

Actually, we got a text message at just over 50 bottles down the first time and accidentally hit 'start again', so we basically sat through it twice for this column. You're welcome.
You'll hear all the greats: 87, 64, 50, 42… And if your phone goes to sleep just as bottle 93 has been taken from the wall, does it start exactly where it left off? Course not, it starts number 93 ALL OVER AGAIN.
We really can't think of any useful applications for this other than torture, and Amnesty would be all over this in a heartbeat.
To its creator's credit he at least acknowledges how ridiculous the app is. We just don't know why anyone would use it, let alone make it. Then again we did play it for the whole 20 minutes so we're hardly in a position to judge. No wait, make that 29 minutes and 42 seconds. Again, you're welcome.

10. Pet Baby

10. Pet Baby

Platform: iOS
Price: Free
Here's how I imagine the meeting at Trashicon HQ happened the day the idea for Pet Baby was born.
"Hey guys, people like sharing pictures of their pets. I think I've spotted what they call a 'market opportunity'."
"You sure have, Jerry. But our app budget is focused on babies right now. Babies are funny, remember?!"
"But wait, why don't we combine the two?"
*The room falls deadly silent. A single bead of sweat runs down Jerry's forehead. He's eyeing up his desk across the room, mentally packing up his belongings*
"Careful Jerry, that's the sort of thinking that'll get you a… PROMOTION."
*Everyone claps*

And thus, Pet Baby was born. An app that asks the question that's been on the collective lips of humanity since the dawn of man: "What would your pet look like… as a human baby?" Given that most babies look the same, the answer is probably 'just like every other baby ever', right?
WRONG. Your pet baby is a mutant child that will devour your soul.
You see, rather than making any effort whatsoever to morph your dog's face into some sort of funny canine-baby mashup, the app lazily hacks the two together with an opacity tool to create what can only be described as a pure evil.
But does the fun stop there? Oh no. No, once your rabid demon child has been conceived, you can expose your friends and family to the horror via Facebook and Twitter.
Just look at some of the beauties we came up with:


And God forbid the app ever does produce anything looking mildly sentient, you can expect something like the following:

This app had zero reviews at the time of publishing.









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Review: Samsung Gear S

Introduction and display

Samsung has jumped into the wearables war with gusto and launched quite a lot of smartwatches and fitness trackers in 2014. Aside from odd features here and there - like the camera on the Gear 2 which it thankfully got rid of with the Gear 2 Neo - Samsung looks like its slowly but surely improving its wearables selection.
The Gear S for instance, is the first from the company that acts as a standalone mobile phone - but that doesn't mean there aren't some caveats - you still need a compatible Samsung phone for the smartwatch to work. More on that later.
Regardless it's definitely a leap forward in functionality and can potentially make Samsung mobile devices the go-to for wearable fans who want to carry around one device. Granted, the Gear S isn't exactly there yet but it's one of the closest independent smartwatches out now.
However, cooler features means a higher price tag and the Gear S isn't cheap at $350 (£329, AU$449). That said, it's not much more than a LG G Watch R and seems to do more. But is the standalone smartwatch option enough to make the Gear S a standout smartwatch?

Display

The first thing you'll notice on the Gear S is its 2.0-inch curved AMOLED (360 x 480) screen. The AMOLED display has a higher pixel count than other Android Wear watches and previous Samsung Gears.
Like the Gear Fit, the screen is curved to better sit on the wrist. It really is quite lovely and drew a lot of eyes whenever I wore it out. But it's also gigantic - which also probably caught a lot of eyeballs. In comparison, I thought the the circular LG G Watch R (1.3-inches in diameter) was massive but it seems like Samsung thinks bigger is better and went a full inch larger. In some ways, it is nice and makes sense since you can use the watch to make calls and text - but it doesn't make it very comfortable.
With the ambient light sensor, the display will also automatically brighten when you're outside. Even though the curved glass fits your wrist better, it doesn't help the glare. At its peak brightness, the screen is still difficult to see.
The bezel itself takes up a lot of real estate and is part of why the watch face is so large. Perhaps Samsung should consider cutting down the bezel on future iterations to allow more screen space.

Design and comfort

The Gear S band (245 x 23.8 x 1 mm) is made from a surprisingly comfy, semi-flexible rubber (Urethane) that stretches around the face and meets up with a metal clasp. I also should emphasize "semi-flexible;" the band is able to bend like rubber but it retains a curled form most of the time. The strap is adjustable up to 10 different sizes and is able to fit a wide variety of beefy wrists, or in my case, tiny baby wrists.
There are also five different proprietary Samsung straps you can choose from: Cobalt Blue, Blue Black, White, Mocha Grey and Supreme Red. However, only black and white are available in the US right now. If you do plan on several switches, the watch body pops out and snaps on to the strap.
The band isn't like the faded leather of the Moto 360, but it's also not an uncomfortable plastic either. It's more sporty and seems pretty durable though the rubbery look makes the watch feel less premium.
Luckily the body of the watch makes up for that. As mentioned before, there's a curved screen along with a curved body that cradles your wrist. It's definitely meant for larger wrists but fit mine decently. Though it was hard to see the full face of the watch because it was angled further away - meaning I had to tilt the watch towards my face a bit more than say, the smaller, flat Pebble Steel.
There is one physical home button on the Gear S that sits on the bottom of the watch face. Pressing it takes you to the main watch face. On the left of the watch, you'll find a microphone, placed there for making phone calls and voice activated actions. There's a small speaker on the right for sound output.
On the rear of the watch, you'll find a centralized heart rate monitor and five gold connector pins on the bottom which connect to the charging dock. The back is made of a hard plastic matching the feel of the rubbery strap. It doesn't seem like it would get easily scratched.

The watch is IP67 dust and water-resistant but you can't hop in a pool with it on. It just means you can gently submerge a device in a tank of still tap water up to a depth of one meter at room temperature for about 30 minutes. You can also get a bit of sweat or rain on both the face and strap without lasting damage - which is good news since it's a watch you can't easily hide, bringing us to the next topic.

Comfort

Again it must be mentioned: the Gear S is a big smartwatch. Coupled with my small wrist, it's positively massive. I can't figure out who it would look "normal" on - maybe someone who's over six feet tall with wrestler sized wrists? It also makes taking coats on and off a pain. The watch tends to get caught on sleeves often. I even had to roll up my longer sleeved shirts because the Gear S wouldn't fit.
I can also feel all of the Gear S's 2.3 ounces when wearing it. Like the LG G Watch R, both could gain a lot by shedding some weight.
The Gear S is probably one of the most uncomfortable watches I've worn. The strap makes turning my wrist inward - or just using my hand to do anything - feel awkward, like I have an ankle bracelet slapped on my arm.
If you're used to big, unwieldy bracelets or analog watches, then it may not be a problem for you. But for someone who doesn't wear jewelry or giant watches daily, it's not very comfortable.

Specs and performance

The Gear S has 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal memory. That lines up with its smartwatch brethren: the Moto 360, along with other Samsung and LG watches also come with 512MB and 4GB of internal storage.
There are a whopping seven sensors in the Gear S: Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Heart Rate, Ambient Light, UV and Barometer. That's quite a lot more than both the Moto 360 and LG G Watch R, though it's not as many as the Microsoft Band (which has 10 sensors).
On the connectivity side, the Gear S has Bluetooth 4.1 to connect up with supported Samsung phones. But it also has standalone Wi-Fi (b/g/n) and a Micro SIM slot for use with 2G and 3G networks when you're out of Bluetooth range.

Calling and texting

While driving and using the Gear S as a phone, friends could hear me very well with my hands on the steering wheel - about a foot away, give or take. It ended up being pretty handy going hands free. I even used it to make calls while typing with no huge audible issues on either end.
While doing chores around the house like decorating for Christmas or doing laundry, I would call people to get a sense of how well they could hear me. Background noise wasn't too loud and when my arm was at my side while walking, it sounded like I was just on speakerphone - a little far but not inaudible.
I can also see it being useful when I'm cooking, though I'd be afraid of getting the watch dirty. However I can't see myself using the watch to call people in public since it's pretty much a speakerphone on your wrist - meaning everyone can hear your conversation. You can connect a Bluetooth headset which will pair up with your Gear S, but what's the point of adding another awkward device to your body when you already have one?
Texting is also a nice feature. Though the keyboard is an itty bitty thing, it's very intuitive. Aside from "how now Beyonce cow," the auto-correct was helpful making the texting process quicker. Ultimately, I can't see texting on a small smartwatch being that great. After all, you're typing away with one finger which makes the process pretty tedious. I will say, it is nice for quick little messages.
It's almost like Samsung knew this because there's a character cap for each text message. You can use your voice to dictate messages but it cuts off around 10-15 seconds depending on how fast you're talking. There are quick pre-written responses you can choose from though, if you're in a rush.

Interface, apps and fitness

The first thing you'll see on the Gear S face is the clock, which can be switched out from a selection of pre-loaded faces - or you can download more from the Galaxy Apps store. A swipe left will take you through the following seven customizable widgets: S Health, news reader, calendar agenda, contacts, weather, a music player and settings. The order can be changed up however you want, though you can only pin five widgets.
Since these are basically shortcuts, you can still access the other widgets as apps if you swipe up from the bottom. Swiping right from the clock will show a list of notifications. Emails, fitness goals, calendar reminders, phone calls and text messages can be found swiping right where you can dismiss them - but they also pop up on the home screen with short vibrations. If you keep swiping that direction, you'll get more details like reading and responding to your mail or text messages.
Swiping from the top also takes you to information about sound and vibration preferences plus the battery state and connection when you're on the home screen; if you're on another screen, swiping from the top takes you back to previous screens - or the home screen if you're perusing the widgets.
Despite the familiar Samsung and Android pairing, the Gear S runs on Tizen OS - Samsung's own Linux-based operating system - instead of Android Wear. There's even a separate Gear app that's needed to get the watch to work. There's a lot more going on with Tizen OS - to a point where the interface feels a little cluttered - but it's not hard to figure out.
Specifically, you'll need a lot of patience to fiddle around with the different settings because there's quite a lot. If you feel inclined, home button shortcuts, motion controls, power saving modes, privacy locks, sound profiles, connection preferences, brightness and interface colors are all customizable. And that's on top of the widgets you can customize. I've actually liked using Tizen a little more than Android Wear because of this.

Apps

Before you can download any apps, you need to pair the Gear S with a compatible Samsung phone running Android 4.3 or higher. In fact the first thing you have to do in order to even turn on the the watch is download the Samsung Gear app. Only then will your smartwatch officially turn on and allow app downloads. Future app additions will require you to peruse the app store on your phone first which will sync your downloads with the watch. The same process is required for app deletions.
It kind of defeats the purpose of having a smartwatch if you need a phone to do all of this. I didn't exactly need to download any apps when I didn't have my phone but several pre-loaded options - like Milk or Running - on the Gear S still required installations through the phone which I hadn't done yet.
There are several things you can do without the phone like customizing the watch's display and wallpapers but you'll need the Gear Manager app to transfer images, audio, transfer contacts and sync fitness information to the S Health app. The Milk app can also be a standalone radio but there are those pesky data charges you'll have to deal with.
There are pre-loaded apps like S Health, Schedule, Email, Weather, Music Player, News Briefing, S Voice and Find My Device but in general, the Gear S app selection is a bit lacking compared to the growing choices of Android Wear. Dedicated apps for Facebook, Twitter or Google+ are missing in action despite the popularity of the social media apps on other smartwatches.
If you have the apps on your phone, you'll be able to get the notifications but it's not really the same since you can't respond. It does however let you store other apps on your watch without worrying about taking up memory which is a better perk than none. If only there were apps worth downloading … one day, Samsung, one day.

Fitness

There are two built in apps you can use for fitness - Nike+ Running and S Health - which both require you to log in and create profiles. You can also download MapMyRun if the bloatware isn't up to your standards for exercise. However the S Health app is pretty detailed and can be found on other Gear watches or Samsung phones.
I couldn't say "OK Google" like with Google Fit on Android Wear devices and ask for the Gear S to automatically check my heart rate - not even S Voice could recognize my request - but the S Health app is a widget option. As for actual measurements, it's hard to say just how accurate the Gear S is. The numbers varied immensely when I used my Note 4 to take my heart rate then immediately trying it with the Gear S, then the Asus ZenWatch. I tried it out several times with each producing numbers at least 15 bpm off each time making it difficult to discern which one was the accurate device.
The pedometers seemed just as off with the numbers barely matching up; I reset both the Gear S and Asus ZenWatch to zero then walked around my house (with one smartwatch on each wrist) several times. After the first bout, the Gear S had told me I walked 70 steps versus the ZenWatch's 51 for a difference of 19 steps. How did the Zenwatch miss 19 steps, or the Gear S add 19? I have no clue. My own estimate was around 65 however, which leads me to believe the Gear S pedometer sensor might be more sensitive, especially after resetting both watches and walking around a couple more times.
The same issue came up when I walked nine blocks to a beach by my house - the numbers were all over the place. I walked back with the watches on one arm to see if there would be a difference and interestingly, the Gear S numbers were far lower than the Asus. Clearly, these sensors aren't as good as they've been hyped up to be and results must be taken with a grain of salt. But I suppose what really matters is that you're actually out and about fiddling with your smartwatch exercising opposed to sitting at home sinking further into your couch.

Compatibility and battery life

As I mentioned before, the Gear S won't work without a Samsung Galaxy running Android 4.3 or higher. This also means the watch is a picky beast and will only pair up with Samsung phones. It's a strange move for the company to lock in the Gear S.
On top of sneakily tethering the watch's calling and texting abilities, you'll need a data plan to even use the SIM card - which is another chunk of change you're giving up. In the US, Verizon and T-Mobile both charge an additional $5 per month while AT&T and Sprint want $10 a month. Though Sprint will waive the fee through December 2015 if your plan has 20GB of data or more.
The Gear S can remotely connect via Wi-Fi as well but only for certain notifications. If it's not set up with a SIM card, you won't get call and text forwarding if you've left your phone at home.

Battery life

At 300mAh, the Gear S has a significantly lower battery capacity than the 360's 320mAh and the G Watch R's 410mAh but I was able to get almost two days of usage before needing to charge up again. Usage here means having the pedometer on, getting notifications, messing around with apps, texting, checking emails and of course, using the phone. The main battery suck is using the Gear S over Wi-Fi or 3G. It lasted slightly longer over Bluetooth - by a couple of hours, specifically.

The charging cradle is similar to that of other smartwatches. The cradle itself can be charged then unplugged to clip on and juice up the Gear S without being tethered. Essentially, you can take the cradle with you, pop it on on the back of the smartwatch and charge on the go. Then when both run out of battery life, you can plug the cradle in with a micro-USB cord and charge both simultaneously. The length of time to charge up to 100% isn't terrible - about two hours if completely dead and much less if the battery is at half. The cradle can also hold a charge for several days before needing to be plugged in.

Verdict

The Gear S is definitely a premium looking smartwatch but rather large. Instead of opting for a classic analog style like the Moto 360 or sporty analog look like the LG G Watch R, Samsung has made a rather futuristic beast putting the Gear S in its own unique place.

We liked

The biggest draw of the Gear S is definitely the lovely AMOLED screen. The colors are always vibrant - not as much as the Note 4 of course - but very reminiscent of how Samsung displays always seem to pop. The curved body is also a neat design choice that while I thought was weird at first, I came to appreciate because it sat well on my wrist.
Battery life on other watches has also been atrocious so the Gear S has impressed me by managing to stay alive longer than most. The calling function was also surprisingly handy when I wanted to type or use both my hands for other tasks.

We disliked

Frankly, the Gear S is super uncomfortable. I like how the band is able to fit my tiny wrist but it seems to restrict movement and mostly feels unwieldy. I've also been wearing the Gear S for quite some time now and I thought I would get used to it, but because it's so cumbersome, I never forget it's there - like wearing a billboard on my wrist.
The massive body also gets in the way of everything. Whether it's putting on a jacket or any long sleeved shirt, I'd have to take the Gear S off first. Sometimes, I wouldn't even be able to put it back on because the sleeve wouldn't cover it.

Verdict

The Samsung Gear S is two steps forward and one step back for smartwatches as a whole. The promise of standalone calling and texting is an amazing and needed feature for smartwatches to really feel useful - but not great in practice if it requires a smartphone. It's sad to say but the Gear S is not a truly independent smartwatch.
It's also not looking good value-wise. You're buying the Gear S for $350 (£329, AU$449), then shelling out another chunk of change for a higher end smartphone, like the unlocked $879 (£600, AU$960) Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Then to take advantage of the Gear S's most touted features - texting and calling - you'll have to pay an additional amount for a data plan.
At this point, the Gear S is simply not better than your run of the mill smartphone. In fact, you're just better off getting the Samsung Note 4 by itself.

Hands on Samsung Gear S gallery

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