The Apple Watch may be rising to the top of the smartwatch heap, but a number of Android Wear devices have recently entered the market, ready to take it on. However, since Apple and Samsung have always been fierce competitors, the Apple device's main competitor could turn out to be the Tizen powered Gear S2. Here is how these two smartwatches compare.

Design

The Apple Watch leads in design as it has a rectangular body and comes in two sizes, a 38 mm version and a larger 42 mm version. There are also three lines for customers to choose from: the Apple Watch Sport that has an aluminum body, the Apple Watch that has a stainless steel body and the expensive Apple Watch Edition made of solid gold. As for the body, it comes in gray, silver, steel, black yellow gold and rose gold. There are numerous straps for the Apple Watch available including stainless steel, leather and Fluoroelastomer. It only has an IPX7 rating, therefore it cannot be submerged in water.

The Gear S2 has a round body and has two versions, the Gear S2 which comes with a sporty look and the Gear S2 Classic which looks like a traditional watch. Its cases are made from stainless steel and it comes in dark gray and silver. The Gear S2 Classic only comes in black, which is paired with a black leather band. There are also a number of alternate bands available for the device on the Samsung website. It has an IP68 rating and can be submerged in up to 1.5 meter of water for 30 minutes. There is a rotating bezel on the Samsung device which can be used to navigate between apps and zoom into objects on the screen — these are almost the same features present in the digital crown of the Apple Watch.

The Gear S2 runs Tizen and can only be paired with Android devices while the Apple Watch runs the Watch OS 2 and can only be paired with those running iOS.

Display

The smaller Apple Watch has a 1.32-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 272 x 340 pixels and a density of 290 pixels per inch while its bigger version has a 1.5-inch display with a resolution of 312 x 390 pixels and a density of 302 pixels per inch. The Gear S2 has a full circle 1.2-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 360 x 360 pixels and a density of 302 pixels per inch.

Specs

There is an S1 system on chip in the Apple Watch along with 8 GB of storage but only 2 GB is available to users for storing music and other data. The Gear S2 comes with an Exynos processor and a CPU with two cores clocked at 1.0 GHz, along with 4 GB of onboard storage and 512 MB of RAM.

Sensors

Each device has a heart rate sensor, ambient light sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope. The Gear S2 also has a barometer.

Price

The Samsung Gear S2 is expected to have a starting price tag of $350. The lowest priced Apple Watch costs $350 but it goes as high as $17,000.