A NEW TWIST ON SMARTWATCH
Will Samsung’s offering shake things up?
The smartwatch business has stuttered along since they became widely available three years ago. Those who bought the first model found they were fun but not for long. Lack of functionality, waterproofing and useful apps made them little more than expensive extensions to our smartphones.
For Apple iPhone users the choice of a smartwatch has been a simple one, the Apple Watch but for Android users the market has been scrappy. But Korean tech giant Samsung may be on the verge of shaking things up.
The Gear S3 is Samsung’s next generation smartwatch. It arrives packaged with just a wireless charging stand and USB power cable. As soon as you take it out of the box, you realise this is a premium product. It feels like a conventional watch and deliberately so. The stainless steel body weighs in at 63 grams without a strap and has a rotating bezel and dual crowns help convey the style and elegance of a classically designed luxury watch.
I downloaded the Samsung Gear app, and paired the watch to my Android phone. A seamless process, the Gear app allows you to see the status of the watch’s battery, and lets you change the watch face, set notifications and various other functions. One of the key features is its own Wi-Fi connectivity. This allows it to run in a ‘standalone’ mode, when your phone’s flat or out of Bluetooth range.
The screen is remarkably crisp and clear. It’s a 1.3 inch AMOLED display and is beautifully sharp. The watch I used was the Classic version, but there’s also a more utilitarian Frontier version for outdoor types but both are built to withstand everyday use, including using them as fitness watches and the watch has decent water-resistance so you can wear it in the shower.
I have found using most smart watches a fiddly affair. Samsung have ingeniously changed how we interact with the watch by using the watch’s bezel like a PC’s trackpad. You can swipe and tap the screen to open apps by way of the watch’s ridge. It’s so simple it could be the feature that defines this watch.
The wireless charger is perfect for bedtime charging, but you won’t have to use it much. The battery life of this watch is another standout and you can get up to four days’ battery life from a full charge. To get that battery life you’ll probably turn off the constant heartbeat monitoring or the optional always on display, but having them on, is half the fun.
The S3 uses Samsung’s Tizen OS and while there are thousands of apps available, the choice is not as broad as iOS apps for Apple Watch. That said, the S3 has apps to do all the crucial things, as well as plenty of fun stuff.
Apple users have had their choice in smartwatch made easy for them and Samsung’s complete reimagining of what a smartwatch can be with the outstanding Gear S3 has made the choice just as easy for Android users.