Samsung’s Galaxy Watch will be available for pre-order in Malaysia next week

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch is finally up for pre-order in Malaysia and the best part about it is that the smartwatch is actually more affordable than we thought. In fact, you can get one for even less than the current Gear Sport.

The brand new Galaxy Watch will officially go on sale locally from the 5th of October onward and is priced at RM1,199 for the 42mm variant (Midnight Black & Rose Gold) while the larger 46mm watch (Silver) will retail for RM1,299. Before that, Samsung Malaysia will be having a special pre-order promotion from the 1st to 4th of October 2018 exclusively on the Samsung E-Store.

If you pick up a Galaxy Watch during this pre-order promo period, you will receive a free watch strap worth RM109. If you pre-order the 46mm case, you can choose between Brown or Navy Blue colourways for your free strap. On the other hand, 42mm pre-order customers will receive a Tan coloured strap if they pick up the Midnight Black Galaxy Watch and a Phonebox coloured strap for the Rose Gold Galaxy Watch.

Despite the name change, the Galaxy Watch still looks a lot like the Gear S3 it succeeds. It has that same watch-like round case and clicky rotating bezel which is easily one of the best ways to navigate the smartwatch’s Tizen OS interface. The Galaxy Watch comes with a Super AMOLED display that’s protected by Corning’s Gorilla DX+ glass.

It also retains its MIL-STD-810G military-grade durability but adds water resistance down to 50m (5ATM) so you can now swim with this device too — much like you could with the Gear Sport. But, the most interesting thing about this smartwatch is its claimed battery life of “several days”. Unfortunately, we won’t be getting an LTE version of this watch as both variants are Wi-Fi only.

You can check out our announcement post for more details on the Galaxy Watch.

It’s interesting to see Samsung price their brand new smartwatch this affordably. In the States, this watch retails for USD329.99 for the 42mm version and USD349.99 for the 46mm version. Converted directly, that’s about RM1,365 and RM1,447 respectively.

I would like to say that this could be a move by Samsung to entice iPhone users away from the Apple’s brand new Watch Series 4, but I’m not sure that this is a fair fight. Apple made big strides in updating their smartwatch which, even before Series 4, I already considered the best smartwatch money can buy. Add all the improvements Series 4 made — especially that sweet slim bezel — and it becomes really hard for Samsung to steal iPhone users away from the Apple Watch. Especially considering how well the iPhone works with the Apple Watch.

But that’s what I think. I’d love to hear your thoughts too. If you’re an iPhone user, would you buy a smartwatch that wasn’t an Apple Watch? Why? Let me know in the comments below.