Despite having a parade of cool new features bundled up in a single watch, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear is a poor choice for consumers, a leading U.S. newspaper said Wednesday.

“Nobody will buy this watch, and nobody should,” David Pogue, a tech columnist for the New York Times wrote in his review. He added that the Gear is “a human-interface train wreck,” from its software design, user guide, to its English translation and design consistency.

While the smart watch by South Korea’s tech behemoth boasts a heap of features befitting its futuristic looks, Pogue pointed out that it is not easy to navigate through the watch’s functions.

Since its release last month, the highly anticipated gadget has got mixed reviews. While its high resolution photo-taking function and the ability to make and take phone calls were generally well accepted, many took issues with the fact that the watch was not so handy.

Many of its features of the watch require a compatible device, which there are only two as of this point: the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Vlad Savov at The Verge said that the Gear has “the utterly infantile dependency” on its connected Galaxy device. For instance, when a user wishes to add a new app to the Gear, he or she must go through installation process via the Gear Manager app on the connected device.

Savov said that Samsung described the Gear as a companion device but it never left him “feeling like it was a helpful companion,” which seemed to sum up the general reception of the device: it is has many aspects that catch the eye of the beholder, but it simply lacks handiness that a person purchasing a smart watch would expect.



By Yoon Min-sik
(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)