The good ship Galaxy Gear smartwatch is springing multiple leaks ahead of its official reveal this Wednesday, Sept. 4, and there are even leaks about previous leaks vying for attention. That said, there’s a lot about the device we can reliably say we know at this point, although what the device looks like probably isn’t one of those things. Here’s a quick breakdown of the latest rumors about Samsung’s foray into wearable computing, for those of you keeping score at home.
Not Just A Shrunk-Down Galaxy S4
The Internet cried out in horror at leaks this past weekend that claimed to show the Galaxy Gear in the flesh on a person’s wrist, effectively taking the shape of a shrunk down Galaxy phone that’s still looking might unwieldy when worn. But that’s apparently not what the shipping hardware does in fact look like, according to Om Malik, who appears to have solid sources providing lots of information about the upcoming device.
Malik wrote on GigaOM that Samsung will present a “different, more finished product” at an event taking place in Berlin ahead of the annual IFA consumer tech show, claiming the version leaked to VentureBeat was actually an early developer prototype. It isn’t uncommon for major smartphone OEMs to seed early hardware to developer partners to help them build software; BlackBerry’s BB10 development devices are perhaps the most public example in recent memory.
More Powerful Than Many Budget Smartphones
Rumored specs for the Galaxy Gear, according to both GigaOM’s sources and SamMobile’s, paint a picture of a device that has the guts of a decent mid-range phone, with a smaller display best-suited to a wristtop computer form factor. In short, the Gear is said to offer:
- A Samsung Exynos 4212 dual-core 1.5GHz processor
- An AMR Mali-400 MP4 GPU (the same found in the Galaxy SII)
- 1GB of RAM
- 2.5-inch, 320
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