Samsung Gear S3 Frontier review: A better all-rounder

Smartwatches don’t do enough for me. They’ve always been this thing that costs as much as a smartphone but can’t do as much as a smartphone. I guess the benefit is that it lives on your wrist which makes it really portable, but is that enough to justify dropping thousands on one of these things? No, not to me at least.

But, I understand that there’s a demand for a smartwatch. Partly because it can come in handy, but mostly because people think it’s really cool. Well, if you cool is what you’re after and you don’t want to break your bank, Samsung’s new Gear S3 is definitely a device you should consider.

Why? Well, first off, it looks gorgeous. It looks like something really expensive which I think is a far fetch from some of the more comically designed smartwatches in the market right now. The model I have here is called the Frontier edition and it sports a more rugged look than its counterpart, the Classic.

For that ruggedness, you get a slightly chunkier bezel and flat textured buttons that are easy to press and have a great feel to them. Even the straps seem incredibly robust and well-built and I’m willing to bet that they’ll last longer than those on the Moto 360 Sport which started to peel after about two weeks of use.

I also like that Samsung has decided to include standard 22mm bands for this watch so you can simply swap them out when they start showing signs of wear. Build quality is really top notch, but then again that’s kind of expected especially after we’ve seen what they can do with their flagship smartphones.

The second awesome thing you’d probably notice about this watch is the crisp 1.3-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 360×360 pixels. It’s also got a full colour Always On Display (AOD) which is an upgrade over the Gear S2’s monochrome AOD.

Despite that, its battery life is also marginally better. I got about one and a three quarter days on a single charge of its 380 mAh battery with the AOD left on. With it off, the battery life gets a small boost to about a little more than two days. Still, that’s far from Samsung’s quoted 3-4 day battery life. Keep in mind that the Gear S3’s built-in GPS was off the entire time and the screen was at about 50% brightness with “Auto Low Brightness” left on.

With the built-in GPS, though, the Gear S3 becomes much more competent fitness tracker. It’s got auto workout detection too — a feature I loved on my Fitbits because I tend to forget to start a workout. That said, this feels a little less accurate than my Fitbit Blaze at knowing when I’ve started a workout and when I’ve ended one, which is probably because it doesn’t check my heart rate as often when left on auto.

Something else that’s new is the watch’s speaker which was something only found on the 3G version of the Gear S2. With this, you can make calls with the built-in microphone, listen to music and the S Voice assistant.

Call quality was also surprisingly good on both ends with respectable volume and noise cancellation from the Gear S3. Though, because of the tiny speaker I wouldn’t advise usage in noisy areas. Besides, using your speakerphone in public is just rude.

Another piece of good news is that the Gear S3 comes equipped with IP68 water resistance so it’ll theoretically survive for up to 30 minutes submerged in 1.5 metres of water. This Frontier edition I have with me also comes with a MIL-STD-810G temperature, dust and shock resistance. That’s military grade, by the way, so it can probably take a hit…though I wouldn’t recommend testing this theory out.

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Unfortunately, this premium and robust build also comes with a big downside. Samsung’s Gear S3 only comes in one size and that size is enormous. It measures 46 x 49 x 12.9 mm (weighing 63g without the band for the Frontier edition), which, to put in more practical terms, is chunky.

Unlike the featherweight Fitbit Blaze or Charge 2 I usually wear, this Gear S3 was definitely a noticeable burden on my wrist. The weight is even more apparent when you exercise because unless you tighten it fully on your wrist, it will flop around a lot.

Despite all that military-grade protection, Samsung’s Gear S3 isn’t protected from the constrained software that is Tizen. In addition to the poor app support, Samsung sometimes also requires that you install a companion application on your phone. In the case of Uber, the companion app is not the Uber app, so I now have two Uber apps on my phone. To make matters worse, the Uber app on the watch itself doesn’t seem able to show me the map.

Still, the software isn’t all that bad. Notifications are handled well, and navigation is far more intuitive on this software with the Gear S3’s rotating bezel than something like Android Wear. Plus, you can add more widgets to your home screen than you will ever need and just scroll from end to end with the rotating bezel. Yes, I love the rotating bezel. It’s awesome. If I had one complaint about Tizen’s looks, it would be the fact that you can’t individually customise the elements on the watch faces like you can with Android Wear 2.0 and watchOS.

Then we come to the watch’s final flaw: Samsung Pay. Or rather, a lack of Samsung Pay. Although the Gear S3 has magnetic secure transmission (MST) and near-field communication (NFC) which allows the device to support Samsung Pay, because Malaysia doesn’t have this payment service yet, we can’t access this feature. Once we do, however, you’ll be able to pay with your wrist at almost any credit card terminal. Now that would be awesome.

Sadly because of the limited app and feature support, the Gear S3 still hasn’t convinced me that a smartwatch is a necessary addition to one’s daily life. At best, I think a smartwatch is still a luxury item you get when you’ve got money to burn but already own the most powerful Android flagship smartphone.

If that’s the case then, with a price RM1,399, the Gear S3 is a pretty solid choice because you’re getting a lot of smartwatch for your money. And if you’ve held off on the Gear S2 for whatever reason, I think that this new one is definitely a significant enough improvement to warrant your reconsideration.