Samsung Galaxy Gear S3

Samsung GALAXY Gear S3: Review

        Smartwatches are experiments. For a taste of the future, you've got to live with compromise on your wrist. But for a lot of people, connected watches are best kept simple. Battery life wins out over tons of features, and ease of use over feature bloat. After all, that's what phones are for. Watches are where we check things quickly.

The problem is that the Gear S3 still feels like an experiment, when, in its second iteration (the S2 was the first major redesign), it should really start feeling like a more mature, polished product. If you're looking to see where watches will go next, Samsung's exploring the ideas now. Stand-alone cellular LTE connection without a phone? Check. Spotify on-wrist? Check. Use-anywhere wrist payments that are even more versatile than Apple Pay? Yes.

The Gear S3 is an insanely feature-rich smartwatch with a big, bold design. But unlike the latest Apple Watch and Android's upcoming 2.0 software update, Samsung's Tizen-based Gear S3 doesn't do enough to improve the experience or support more apps. And few of those apps actually use the Gear S3's standalone LTE. In terms of hardware, it's a better watch than last year's bold, clever Gear S2. And yet, it fails to take enough leaps forward in its software. Last year's S2 was innovative, but it needed polishing. And it really, really needed more apps.

       I used the Gear S3 for over a month paired to a Samsung Galaxy S7 (read my initial impressions here) and then recently via the iPhone 7, using Samsung's new iOS smartwatch-pairing app. Read on for everything that Gear S3 does right, and where it stumbles.

Basically, know this: For $300 (the basic cost of the Classic or Frontier models of the watch, which both look sleek and classy), you're getting a solid and complex watch. But it's really not any better, in terms of software, than last year. Meanwhile, the LTE-equipped Frontier model I reviewed has full cellular and phone functions, but probably isn't worth the cost. It's roughly $350, £350 or AU$589, but US carriers are offering a discount of $100 on a two-year data contract, which I probably wouldn't do. It also requires adding an extra monthly data charge to your phone plan.

Android Wear 2.0 is just around the corner, and new Android watches could be everywhere. Samsung's concept makes some successful executions, and some notable hardware improvements, but not enough of them to be the ultimate watch for everyone. And it hasn't gotten any easier to use.

PROS

• Classy design
• Swift performance
• High-quality display
• Battery life

CONS

• Size and weight
• Lack of apps
• Comfort during exercise

    

KEY FEATURES :

• 1.3-inch 360 x 360 always-on display
• Dual-core 1GHz
• 768MB of RAM
• 4GB storage
• Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi B/G/N, NFC, MST, GPS/Glonass
• Accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer, HRM, ambient light sensor
• 380mAh battery and wireless charging
• IP68 rating
• Manufacturer: Samsung
• Review Price: £349.00
• 
  

Gear S3: Design :

         The Gear S3 is actually available in two models – the Gear S3 Classic and the Gear S3 Frontier – although there’s no difference in the smart functionality of the two models. I was sent the Frontier model to review.

The Frontier is targeted towards those with more active lifestyles and comes with a more weather-resistant silicone band. The Classic errs more towards classic timepiece styling, with its traditional-style crowns and leather strap

Both Gear S3 variants are compatible with standard 22mm watch bands, however, so you’re free to customise as you see fit.

What I didn’t like about the standard Gear S2’s bezel was how slippery it felt. It meant rotating could be difficult. The one on the Gear S2 Classic had distinct ridges along its edge, much like on a diver's watch, which alleviated the issue. Fortunately, the Gear S3 improves on that further.

This bezel control was one of my favourite elements of the S2 and is by far the most natural way of interacting with a circular smartwatch. It means your fingers don’t obstruct the screen.

If you’re planning on wearing the Samsung Gear S3 to run, you'll definitely notice it on your wrist. It felt as heavy as two separate trackers I wore simultaneously on my other wrist during testing.

Two buttons on the side provide a way to access the menu and go back, just like on the S2, and it's where you’ll find the microphone. New with the Gear S3 is a built-in speaker, so you can actually use it to make and receive phone calls – although you’re going to look rather silly doing so.

You can even use it to play music, but that’s not advisable. Better to pair some headphones or a Bluetooth speaker.

The silicone strap of the Frontier model is well built, and there are two loops for taking up the excess slack. It does pick up some lint and fluff, but it's not as bad as the Polar M600 that looked incredibly scruffy almost immediately out of the box.

In part, the size of the Gear S3 can be excused considering it has a raft of sensors that make it more like a dedicated sports watch. Inside are an altimeter, barometer, accelerometer and GPS, then there's an optical heart rate monitor on the back.

All of these make the Gear S3 a tantalising prospect for fans of exercise or the outdoors, but I’ll discuss this more later.

SAMSUNG GEAR S3 – DISPLAY

Beyond the more obvious analogue watch styling, the Gear S3’s larger size is dominated by a 1.3-inch display – a bump in size from the Gear S2’s 1.2-inch screen. It has the same resolution as the Gear S2, however, at 360 x 360.

While the resolution remains the same, Samsung says it has done extra work around anti-aliasing to avoid jagged edges. That seems to have paid off, as the Gear S3’s AMOLED screen is one of its best features. It’s big and bright with vibrant colours. The colour palette has been doubled to 16 million from the Gear S2 and looks all the more exciting for it.

In part, the size of the Gear S3 can be excused considering it has a raft of sensors that make it more like a dedicated sports watch. Inside are an altimeter, barometer, accelerometer and GPS, then there's an optical heart rate monitor on the back.

All of these make the Gear S3 a tantalising prospect for fans of exercise or the outdoors, but I’ll discuss this more later.

SAMSUNG GEAR S3 – PERFORMANCE AND SOFTWARE

The Gear S3 runs on Samsung’s Tizen OS 2.3.1 and has a dual-core 1GHz processor. There’s 768MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. Beyond that there’s Bluetooth 4.2, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and NFC built-in with support for Samsung Pay.

While the specs have received a healthy upgrade over the Gear S2, the older model never felt slow or unresponsive. So it came as no surprise that the Gear S3 felt swift too.

Jumping between menus and apps, there’s never any sign of slowdown. That’s whether you’re using the touchscreen to swipe around or the rotary bezel to navigate. It all feels really responsive and seamless.

All this said, the Tizen operating system remains the roadblock to smartwatch greatness.

There are things it does well, though. It makes great use of the rotary bezel interface, there are plenty of watch face customisations, and the widgets approach is good. You can move the widgets around so you have quicker access to your more regularly used apps and information, such as S Health.

Notifications are well handled, letting you respond easily either through your voice, pre-canned replies or a slightly fiddly on-screen keyboard. They’re still a little slow to actually buzz on your wrist, though.

Clearing notifications at least feels intuitive and natural, and Tizen bundles multiple notifications together from the same app in a logical way, which isn’t always the case – as was seen with the Pebble watches.

But where Tizen shows its shortcomings is around the app catalogue, and that’s something rather important. There’s really a dearth of must-download apps. Where Android Wear and Apple's watchOS have plenty of convenient options around smart home and navigation, there’s a distinct scarcity of all that here.

Uber has been added, but there’s no Google Maps, Citymapper or anything else that makes a lot of sense on a watch. There are a few throwaway games if you need something to pass the time, but nothing that will really hold your attention.

Samsung showed off a Spotify app when the Gear S3 was first shown at IFA, but that wasn't ready at launch. Fortunately, the app has now been released and lets you navigate your playlists and browse music directly from the watch. You can then play music completely independently of your smartphone, either through the watch's speaker or better through a Bluetooth connection to headphones or a portable speaker. Unfortunately, there's no option of offline playlists, so you'll still need to have Wi-Fi access or an LTE model.

Samsung Pay is at least a useful addition that supposedly doesn’t actually require a paired Samsung phone for contactless payments. Some are reporting difficulties getting certain smartphones to work, such as the Google Pixel. A double press of the top button will bring up Samsung Pay ready to be used at a terminal.

SAMSUNG GEAR S3 – S HEALTH AND FITNESS TRACKING

The Gear S3 comes with the S Health app for the watch and the companion app for Android. This is responsible for keeping tabs on all of the usual activity-tracking metrics, such as steps and sleep, and all of this is done automatically.

There’s even exercise tracking on certain bodyweight movements such as squats. I found the actual rep counting a little hit-and-miss, however. You really need to exaggerate the movement to get some reps to count.

As for the step counting, this was a typical affair. You can set a target in the app and you get update prompts on your progress. You also get reminders to move if you’re sat for too long but, in a novel move, you also get prompts to stretch as well. So I could be sat there, typing away, and I’d get a buzz telling me to do a few side-to-side rotations, and the watch would count each rep on the display

The sleep tracking was accurate on the whole, but it’s a little strange in that the notification you get on the watch when you wake up can be just one small segment of your sleep.

So say you woke up an hour or two before your alarm and went back to sleep, the notification might show your sleep time as being only an hour, rather than the total. Diving into the companion smartphone app shows the full night’s kip at least, and you get a breakdown of motionless, light and restless sleep.

Strangely, when I left the watch in my gym locker during a workout on one occasion, it decided I’d taken an early afternoon siesta and given me some additional sleep time. Fortunately this didn’t happen again, but I would've thought the watch could recognise being completely stationary compared with me being asleep.

The barometer and altimeter are also used to more accurately track floors climbed, so there’s a specific target for taking the stairs. Again, you get progress updates and little reward notifications to say when you beat a record or hit your goal. It’s actually all very motivating and well implemented.

All of those sensors I mentioned earlier are what will really appeal to fitness enthusiasts, though – much like how the Apple Watch Series 2 found its footing as a fitness wearable alongside its original smartwatch smarts.

The GPS is going to be great for more accurately tracking your distance and speed during runs or bike rides, and the barometer and altimeter are going to be popular with hikers and for other outdoor exploits. This is all topped off with the returning optical HRM, as seen on the Gear S2.

Unfortunately, while the GPS was pretty much right on the button when it came to distance compared to the TomTom Spark 3, Samsung Gear Fit2 and Wahoo Fitness Tickr X I wore at the same time, the optical HRM threw up some very inaccurate readings.

VERDICT

The Samsung Gear S3 flirts with greatness, but it ultimately falls short due its gargantuan size and weight, as well as its Tizen OS.

Overall Rating : ★★★★⭐

                                  Written & Published By Ali Ahmad ND

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