The smartwatch field is starting to heat up. In the past few months, we’ve seen the launch of two Android Wear-based entries: the Samsung Gear Live and the LG G Watch. The Motorola Moto 360 should be upon us sometime this summer while Apple is widely expected to announce its own smartwatch offering at an October event.
Meanwhile, Samsung is also readying the new Gear Solo smartwatch that will join the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo. While the new Gear Solo will run Tizen like the two aforementioned smartwatches, it will actually be able to make and receive calls as well. The Gear Solo features a SIM slot and will operate on 3G networks instead of new, faster LTE networks.
Given that this will be a smartwatch capable of operating like a cell phone, the first question that we must ask is “How long will the battery last?” The Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo are rated at “2 to 3 days” of typical use, but we’re more the certain that having a cellular radio onboard will cut heavily into the rated battery life.
The Gear Solo will reportedly launch next month at IFA 2014 with the Galaxy Note 4.