Samsung has made a conscious choice to run the Gear S2 on its in-house Tizen operating system. You can go the entire 360 degrees with the bezel, which you can’t do very easily when you’re wearing the Apple Watch. When you’re wearing the watch, rotating a bezel is simpler than rotating a crown.
The Crown on the Apple Watch offered a way to operate a watch that we’re already familiar with, and while the Gear S2 may bring something new, it’s better, simply because it’s more intuitive. While the Crown on the Apple Watch was a step up from the touch-screen operation on watches like the Moto 360 and others, the bezel is perhaps the next step. Why is it better than Apple’s Crown? Because watch crowns were never really intuitive any way. Perhaps a good way to make it even more intuitive would be to allow the user to press down on the bezel to select a particular app or perform other actions. When you place your index finger on the display, your thumb and middle finger almost always rest on the bezel, making it really simple to navigate around the watch.
The rotating bezel on the watch is really the most intuitive way to operate a smartwatch. This is where the Samsung Gear S2 surpasses all others in the market right now. Perhaps, other colours will make it look better, but as far as my black variant goes, there’s still some work to be done. It’s got a toy-ish feel about it, which gets in the way of the premiumness, even though it is made of metal and has a seamless design. Of course, looks are subjective and you may like it still, but to me, the Gear S2 looks better in pictures than in person. It’s made of metal and has a leather strap, which makes the Samsung Gear S2 feel more premium than the LG Watch Urbane, but it still lacks the really premium look when compared to an Apple Watch, or those by Huawei and Motorola.