Samsung Electronics introduced two new smartwatches on Sunday, the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo, and dropped the popular Galaxy branding from its first smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear. Also, unlike Samsung’s first smartwatch, the new products use Tizen, an operating system that Samsung developed with several partners, instead of Google’s Android.
The new Gears have a battery life of two to three days, Samsung said, an improvement over the Galaxy Gear, which got one day of battery life.
Like the first watch, the Gear 2 watches are meant as companions to a smartphone. Notifications show up on the watch screen when a smartphone receives e-mail or text messages, for instance.
The biggest difference between the new watches and the first one may well be how they were introduced. Last year, when Samsung introduced the Galaxy Gear, it held a big, flashy news conference in Berlin, along with a satellite conference in New York. For the Gear 2 devices, the company issued a news release.
This was a bit anticlimactic, especially for products that are part of a new category of wearable computers that Samsung is trying to dominate before Apple and other competitors release their own smartwatches. But it may be part of a broader tightening of the belt of Samsung’s colossal marketing budget.
Samsung told analysts last month that it planned to reduce marketing spending for mobile products this year, after sales of its high-end smartphones were weaker than expected last quarter.
Samsung is also expected to introduce an upgrade for its flagship Galaxy S smartphone this week in a relatively low-key event during Mobile World Congress, a trade show in Barcelona.
