In recent weeks, there has been increased talk of Samsung’s expected follow-up to last year’s Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch. We’ve heard that the new smartwatch will bear almost no resemblance to the original Gear, and there have been rumours that the device won’t be running Android, instead making use of Samsung’s other software project, the Tizen OS. If the latest leak from evleaks is anything to go by, that might not just be a device, but devices; a tweet from evleaks today has shown a picture of two very similar smartwatch devices accompanied by the label “Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 and Galaxy Gear 2 Neo”.
Probably more intriguing is the fact that only a few hours later, evleaks redacted part of his tweet saying:
I misspoke. Those watches are not Galaxy-branded.
— @evleaks (@evleaks) February 22, 2014
This might just be the strongest evidence that Samsung’s smartwatches are in fact running Tizen and not Android as the ‘Galaxy’ nomenclature is typically reserved for its Android products. We can only assume that Samsung is offer two tiers of wearable devices, probably along the lines of the Note 3 and Note 3 Neo with the Neo providing slightly less performance, though if they aren’t Galaxy branded, this might suggest Samsung will be making this a completely new line of smartwatches. And if these photos are the real deal, it does look like Samsung has completely revamped their watch design, even bringing their almost patented ‘Home’ button to the device. There haven’t been any specifics leaked about the device yet, but then again we only have a few days to wait before we get the official word at the Samsung Unpacked event at MWC 2014.
UPDATE: The Samsung Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo have been officially announced; check out this article here for the details.
What do you think of the design of these Samsung smartwatches? Would you be interested in one if they were running Tizen instead of Android? Let us know your opinion in the comments.
Source: Twitter (1), (2), (3) via Phone Arena
