Samsung goes bigger with the Gear S3 smartwatch

The Samsung Gear S2 was a pretty looking thing and they are turning things up a notch with its new Gear S3. Similar to last year, the Gear S3 comes in 2 flavours – the Gear S3 classic and the Gear S3 frontier.

The Gear S3 classic gets a minimalist style with the rotating bezel having a reeded pattern. Mimicking a luxury watch, it gets rounded buttons for an elegant look.

The Gear S3 frontier on the other hand, features a chunkier design for a more sporty outlook. It gets square and rugged texture buttons while the rotating bezels have etched lines with more prominent 5 minute markers.

Compared to the previous model, the Gear S3 sports a slightly bigger 1.3″ display (Gear S2: 1.2″) that pushes the same 320×320 pixels on an AMOLED screen. Using the same technology as the Galaxy S7 edge and Note7, it gets a full colour always on display and the screen is toughened with Gorilla Glass SR+.

The Gear S3 also includes additional features that were missing on the Gear S2. It now gets built-in GPS and a loudspeaker to make and receive calls. The Gear S3 frontier also has an LTE edition where you can make standalone phone calls and stream Spotify directly to your wrist. It still runs on Tizen Wearable OS and it comes equipped with 768MB RAM and 4GB of internal storage.

One of the biggest gripe for smartwatches is battery life. The Gear S3 has double of that with 3-4 days of usage on a single charge. This is made possible with a larger 380mAh battery versus a 250mAh unit on the Gear S2.

Like the previous version, it charges wirelessly with a provided dock. In terms of sensors, it has an accelerometer, gyro, barometer, heart rate monitoring and an ambient light sensor.

For payments, the Gear S3 gets more extensive SamsungPay usage with Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) and Near Field Communication (NFC) support. This enables you to make electronic payments even with traditional magnetic strip machines. The watch bands are interchangeable on both variants and it also gets IP68 dust and water resistance. The Gear S3 frontier however, gets additional MIL-STD-810G certification for greater peace of mind.

For more info, head over to the Gear S3 product page.

Gear S3 classic

Gear S3 frontier