Android operating system and ‘Galaxy’ brand name dumped by Samsung

MWC 2014: Samsung Gear 2 first wearable tech powered by Tizen

Samsung has announced two new smartwatches ahead of its Unpacked 5 event at Mobile World Congress 2014.

The Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo have dumped the Android OS in favour of Tizen, and they’re the first wearable devices to feature the open source platform.

The two smartwatches also no longer carry the Galaxy name, but Samsung insists that they are actually compatible with more Galaxy handsets than the previous Galaxy Gear.

The Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo are both slimmer than the previous model. Both feature standalone music players and support Bluetooth 4.0, but only the Gear 2 has a camera, which has moved from the strap of the device to just above the display. This also makes the Gear 2 slightly heavier than the Gear 2 Neo.

While the Galaxy Gear had an 800MHz setup, the Gear 2 comes with a dual-core 1GHz chipset, as well as 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage.

The 300mAh battery can last up to three days from a single charge.

The devices come with the usual smartwatch features of heart rate sensor, pedometer and sleep monitoring, as well as being able to receive notifications and control music.

The Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo will both be available globally from April. Samsung has not yet confirmed pricing.

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