Final verdict
With the Gear S2, Samsung has produced a really compelling alternative to the current crop of Android Wear smartwatches. In many ways the Gear S2 is the most appealing smartwatch we've yet seen but it has a few major issues.
The first is the availability of apps. If the apps you live with aren't available on Tizen, this is not the watch for you. At least not right now. Connection stability is the other, huge issue. Both Gear S2 watches in the AndroidPIT office repeatedly dropped the connection to the paired phone (neither were Galaxy devices though). Mine wouldn't reconnect without a factory reset whereas the other would reconnect itself eventually. We spoke to Samsung and it is aware of the problem but as yet can't offer a solution.
Barring this issue, Samsung has produced a technically outstanding watch. It is stable, responsive and has the best wearable interface I've come across. The combination of two buttons and a rotating bezel to control it works marvelously. Despite technically being the first of its kind for Samsung, the Gear S2 feels surprisingly accomplished.
The Gear S2 has numerous excellent qualities, but deciding whether it's for you will come down to whether you're happy to use Tizen apps rather than the Google apps you may be more familiar with.
A price of US$300-350 is pretty standard for a smartwatch of this caliber, but Samsung really needs to fix the connection stability problems before I'd consider buying one. It's a great watch, but I'd recommend waiting till a software patch and more apps arrive before pulling the trigger.