Samsung Gear S preview: What’s it like to type emails on a 2-inch screen?

Six. That’s how many smartwatches Samsung has unveiled in the past 12 months. If these devices were Friends episodes, there’d be the original Gear 2 (“The one with fewer bugs”), the Gear 2 Neo (“The one that didn’t cost as much”) and the Gear S: the one that can run without a smartphone. Thanks to its very own nano-SIM card, the Gear S can make calls, as well as show you emails in full, with the option to reply directly from the device using a tiny on-screen keyboard. To Samsung’s credit, it’s unlike any other device it’s made before. But the age-old question still remains: Was anybody asking for this?

Gallery: Samsung Gear S hands-on | 23 Photos

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Gallery: Samsung Gear S hands-on | 23 Photos

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In addition to being the first of the company’s watches that you can use without a smartphone, this is also Samsung’s biggest wearable to date. With a curved screen that measures two inches diagonally, it absolutely dwarfs my (admittedly dainty) wrist, as you can see in the above hands-on photos. Even so, some of my bigger-boned male colleagues also tried on the watch, and they too found it rather bulky. Not that style was a top priority here. The key selling points — making calls and responding to emails — require extra space, and frankly, even two inches is pushing it. The kind of 1.63-inch display used on the Gear 2 and Gear Live (a big, honking watch face in its own right) wouldn’t have cut it here.

Other than the fact that it’s quite conspicuous, the design isn’t what I’d call fancy. Certainly, it’s no Moto 360. True, it’s marked by metal accents around the clasp and edges, but my guess is that you’re more likely to notice the removable plastic band, available in white and black. It’s comfortable on the wrists, no doubt thanks to the curved screen shape, but ultimately, it feels more functional than it does stylish. When you’re ready to swap bands, for instance, you basically just pop out the watch face like a piece of Galaxy S5, Gear Fit and Gear 2 had similar capabilities, and none of them gave particularly accurate readouts. So I don’t have super-high hopes for the Gear S when we eventually try out a more polished unit, but I’m ever hopeful that Samsung has continued to tweak its algorithm.

As you can see, there are all sorts of things we can’t fairly test until we take home a final unit, like the kind you’d buy in stores. That won’t happen until sometime in October, when the Gear S becomes available. No word on price yet, or whether any mobile carriers will be selling it, but all will be revealed eventually. For now, check out our video walk-through if you haven’t already — it might be the closest you get to the device for a couple months yet.

Ben Gilbert and Zach Honig contributed to this report.