Samsung Unveils the Gear S3 Smartwatch at IFA 2016

It’s raining smartwatches at IFA 2016. First, ASUS took the wraps off the ZenWatch 3, and now its Samsung’s turn to do the same for its smartwatch.

Meet the new Samsung Gear S3.

With the Gear S3, Samsung took the best parts of the Gear S2 and thankfully, left them largely untouched. So you still have a smartwatch with a circular display, and the bezel still rotates, and you still use this method to navigate around on the smartwatch. What has changed though, is the size of the smartwatch. The Gear S3 is a tad bit bigger than its predecessor, 46mm casing compared to the 44mm, though you can peruse standard 22mm bands on the watch. The bigger watch body gives us a bigger screen, with the display receiving a small bump up to 1.3″ AMOLED 360×360 resolution display with 278ppi. The display will be always on, and will be protected by Gorilla Glass SR+.

There are actually two variants of the watch: the Gear S3 Classic and the Gear S3 Frontier. As the name would imply, the Classic has a more muted, polished silver look. The Frontier has a matte black finish, along with markings for the minutes and hours. The internals of the variants are the same, except for the presence of LTE on the Frontier.

On the inside, the Samsung Gear S3 sports a dual core Exynos SoC, with 786MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. The Gear S3 also sports standalone GPS radios, NFC and MST and built-in speakers. The battery is of 380mAh capacity, which Samsung claims can last between three to four days, but we find hard to process such a life considering the slew of sensors. The watch is also IP68 water resistant.

The rotating bezel on the watch has been given a functionality boost. Users can now use it to accept and reject calls, and to snooze alarms.

The Samsung Gear S3, which runs on Tizen and not on Android Wear, also integrates BMW’s mobility companion app. The focus is on a connected automobile experience, and you can use the Gear S3 to interact with your car like unlocking the car and checking its fuel level. Further on the Tizen agenda, Samsung will make the Knox Tizen Wearable SDK available to third-parties, which will allow development of apps for Samsung’s wearable ecosystem. The Knox Security Platform will also help the Gear S3 to “enable broader enterprise business opportunities”.

There has been no word regarding the availability and pricing of the Gear S3, but the smartwatch is expected to be available towards the year end, right around the holiday season. Samsung does have a unique product at hand with the Gear S3, and this might just put it ahead of the pack in the smartwatch race.

What are your thoughts on the Samsung Gear S3? Let us know in the comments below!

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