It is an embedded SIM. It is not accessible.

Based on my experience, this would not last for the duration of an Ironman if it was used in its standalone capacity.

It would last no problem tethered to a phone over Bluetooth, but that largely defeats the purpose.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a bummer that the standard S2 lacks a speaker. You should be able to use the 3G model over just Bluetooth, provided the carrier will sell it to you without activating service.

Kind of funny, I recall when Samsung introduced the first Gear years ago, its speaker was mocked by a lot of people (including myself, I’m sure). Who would want to yell at their wrist for a phone call? Turns out that’s fairly handy every once in a while!

I’ve seen this phenomenon on other Samsung smartphones, such as the Note 5 – the "Pro" mode has much less aggressive noise reduction (that’s what’s causing the softness and smearing effects you describe).

I have some ideas as to why this is the case (Samsung might think that people who want to use the Pro mode want less noise reduction and will zoom in all the way to see the difference, while those that just use the standard Auto mode never zoom in to details and just appreciate an overall cleaner image), but Samsung’s never really explained it in full.

I agree with you that it drives me nuts that the camera app reverts back to the default auto mode every time I open it, instead of preserving the last mode I was using when I closed it.

$15/GB is competitive with other pay-as-you-go services (such as Karma), but when you are using this with a phone and don’t have to pay $20+/mo for voice service, the scale can tip in your favor.

Right now, I think it’s most useful for tablets — I currently pay $10/mo to AT&T for my iPad, but I don’t use that much data on it. 3GB would last me six months, putting me ahead pretty quickly.

All fixed!