The Samsung Gear S3: A Smartwatch with Ruggedized Style and Unique Features
It's Josh RAR from Android Authority, what's going on everybody and this is the Samsung Gear S3. Larger than the gear S2, this smartwatch is actually a little bit hard to recommend for people with smaller wrists. Said however, this 46 mm body casing is one of the best looking smartwatches in the market right now. Its stainless steel construction is backed by an IP certification and military grade protection to add to that ruggedization.
The Gear S3 comes with a con band that can be easily changed, two buttons on the right side help navigate among the screens and the various apps that can be installed via the Gear Manager. Moving around in the interface can be done via the full touchscreen however it takes a back seat to the rotating clicky bezel. Very little effort is required to rotate it and it Scrolls accurately and wonderfully through all of the different ties and elements, it's one of the most unique and best tactile experiences in smart wearables today.
The Gear S3 Frontier Edition which we are sporting in this review is actually able able to fit in with formal casual and fitness attire alike though it pushes the boundary with some streamlined exercise outfits. The 1.3 inch OLED display is covered in Gorilla Glass SR plus and provides great colors and brightness making it accessible and easy on the eyes. Turning the always on display toggle on allows for the selected watch face to change to a darker less busy version when the watch is in standby this does cut into the battery life a little bit but not so much thanks to the OLED screen there's simply no getting around it.
This is the best way to look at and read notifications on any Smartwatch today not just because of the good display but because the rotating bezel makes it a breeze to scroll down the larger blocks of text or even some pictures that come through in Messengers like Hangouts. Powers the device and despite some bugs that we noticed in mostly third party applications downloaded in the Gear Manager, performance on the Gears 3 has been Snappy and reliable. There's also 4 GB of onboard storage so you can put some music into the watch itself and use Bluetooth headsets in order to listen to it locally.
The battery in the gears 3 frontier is a 380 Mah unit that can go for up to 2 days but with enough rigorous usage you can get more to the territory of a day and a half. The included wireless charger is magnetic making it easy to dock the watch at least once a day which plenty of heavy users will probably have to do. We got to use a 4G enabled version of the gears 3 frontier which requires a $10 Smartwatch Wireless plan on AT&T or T-Mobile though we're not big fans of paying more monthly it does add a few more functions, it's a lot like having a walkie-talkie STP on your wrist as the watch is able to take calls via the speaker and microphone combo but even in semi loud environments it can be a bit tough to hear the call and at that point you're just yelling at your wrist.
Otherwise setting up the gears 3 and the Gear Manager properly allows for sinking of notifications between the two devices whether or not you're on Wi-Fi somewhere else with the gears 3 or using the Wireless plan that you buy every month Samsung pay is a big addition to the gears 3 and essentially it takes the setup from the phone and transfers the data over to the watch which is enabled for payments at various stations across major stores. It works well enough and is a nice conversation starter.
Finally we have Tizen OS which has grown since the gear S2 and now there are a lot of applications available in the Gear manager however full third party support for apps that you might use on let's say Android Wear are still missing here some apps that are in there uh happen to have some bugs like for example Sleep as Android which was not able to track a few nights of sleep.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's Josh RAR from Android authority what's going on everybody and this is the Samsung Gear S3 larger than the gear S2 this is a smartwatch that is actually a little bit hard to recommend for people with smaller risks that said however this 46 mm body casing is one of the best looking smart watches in the market right now and its stainless steel construction is backed by an IP certification and military grade protection to add to that ruggedization the Gears 3 comes with a con band that can be easily changed two buttons on the right side help navigate among the screens and the various apps that can be installed via the Gear Manager moving around in the interface can be done via the full touchcreen however it takes a back seat to the rotating clicky bezel very little effort is required to rotate it and it Scrolls accurately and wonderfully through all of the different ties and elements it's one of the most unique and best tactile experiences in smart wearables today the gear S3 Frontier Edition which we are sporting in this review is actually able able to fit in with formal casual and fitness attire alike though it pushes the boundary with some streamlined exercise outfits the 1.3 in OLED display is covered in Gorilla Glass SR plus and provides great colors and brightness making taen accessible and easy on the eyes turning the always on display toggle on allows for the selected watch face to change to a darker less busy version when the watch is in standby this does cut into the battery life a little bit but not so much thanks to the OLED screen there's simply no getting around it this is the best way to look at and read notifications on any Smartwatch today not just because of the good display but because the rotating bezel makes it a breeze to scr down the larger blocks of text or even some pictures that come through in Messengers like Hangouts n XO 7270 Powers the device and despite some bugs that we noticed in mostly thirdparty applications downloaded in the Gear Manager performance on the Gears 3 has been Snappy and reliable there's also 4 GB of onboard storage so you can put some music into the watch itself and use Bluetooth headsets in order to listen to to it locally the battery in the gears3 frontier is a 380 Mah unit that can go for up to 2 days but with enough rigorous usage you can get more to the territory of a day and a half the included wireless charger is magnetic making it easy to dock the watch at least once a day which plenty of heavy users will probably have to do we got to use a 4G enabled version of the gears3 frontier which requires a $10 Smartwatch Wireless plan on AT&T or T-Mobile though we're not big fans of paying more monthly it does add a few more functions it's a lot like having a walkie-talkie STP on your wrist as the watch is able to take calls via the speaker and microphone combo but even in semi loud environments it can be a bit tough to hear the call and at that point you're just yelling at your wrist otherwise setting up the gears3 and the Gear Manager properly allows for sinking of notifications between the two devices whether or not you're on Wi-Fi somewhere else with the gears3 or using the Wireless plan that you buy every month Samsung pay is a big addition to the gears3 and essentially it takes the setup from the phone and transfers the data over to the watch which is enabled for payments at various stations across major stores it works well enough and is a nice conversation starter finally we have tyon OS which has grown since the gear S2 and now there are a lot of applications available in the Gear manager however full third party support for apps that you might use on let's say Android Weare are still missing here some apps that are in there uh happen to have some bugs like for example Sleep as Android which was not able to track a few nights of sleep the core experience on the other hand has been optimized and given some functionality you can use the rotating bezel to accept or to dismiss certain parts of the tyen OS and this will be made available to the Gear S2 through software updates S Health still gets a good amount of focus in the gear S3 and the added tools of a barometer and an ultimeter are available for those who might go hiking or climb stairs for Fitness sth is still quite robust using the heart rate sensor and GPS tracking to record a merad of exercises Fitness enthusiasts will find plenty to like with the gears3 even for small metrics like tracking water or caffeine intake for each fault that we would find with the gears3 there were a few great aspects that made up for it the gears3 is some of the best fun we've had on a smartwatch in a while and most of it goes to that great display and the unique rotating bezel but the best part about Samsung's new smartwatch is that it tries to wear a lot of hats at once Smartwatch notification center health monitor payment system GPS tracker audio player voice caller and more and actually manages to be at least decent at basically every role there are a ton of choices in terms of style for Android Weare devices and the Gears 3 has to fall back on the smaller and less inclined to gears 2 but Samsung is still successfully Drawing the Line in the Sand between it and Google's take on SmartWatches head on over to Android authority.com for the full written review on the gear S3 and keep it tuned to androidauthority.com and our YouTube channel And subscribe if you haven't already because we are your source for all things Android\n"
