Samsung Galaxy Gear: A 1.63-inch AMOLED smartwatch launching with 70 apps for $299

Samsung is the first major company to release a smartwatch, revealing the Galaxy Gear during today's Unpacked event. The rumor mill was quite a ways off from what was presented today. The Gear sports a 1.63-inch 320 x 320 Super AMOLED display, with a 1.9-megapixel BSI auto-focus camera on the outside wrist strap (used to capture low-resolution images and 10-second video clips at 720p,) and a speaker on the inner wrist strap.

Galaxy Gear is also a platform unto itself, and it will have 70 apps on deck for launch, including familiar names like RunKeeper, Path, Evernote, TripIt, MyFitnessPal, eBay, and many others. That sounds great, but the device will ship with limited smartphone and tablet compatibility, working with only the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Note 10.1 at launch, although Galaxy S 4 and Galaxy S III integration will be coming in October. With a compatible device, the Galaxy Gear will be your companion, allowing you access to Find My Device, S Voice, pedometer, call answering, and more.

Under the hood, the Galaxy Gear includes an 800 MHz processor, 4 GB of storage, and 512 MB RAM. The 315 mAh battery is non-removeable, and Samsung says it will provide 25 hours of use, although early reports indicate that this number is very optimistic. Bluetooth 4.0, built-in noise-canceling mics, gyroscope, and an accelerometer are also part of Gear, but it remains to be seen if Samsung and third-party developers can make it a must-have. The Galaxy Gear starts shipping in select countries on September 25th, but if you're in the US or Japan, you'll have to wait until October to get your hands on the $299 smartwatch.