Samsung Gear S3

Samsung to unveil new smartwatch. Marie Brewis reports

Samsung is holding an IFA press conference on 31 August 2016. It’s here that we expect it to announce the new Gear S3 smartwatch.

Price

The Gear S3 will most likely follow the pricing model for the Gear S2, which has an RRP of £249

but is available online from £219. A premium model with a leather strap and grooved bezel that looks more like a traditional wristwatch costs an extra £50. Given the various codenames that are reported to be in use for the Gear S3 (SM-R760, SM-R765, SM-R770, SM-R765V and SM-R765S, with the latter two carrier variants) it’s likely we’ll see standard- and premium versions of the Gear S3. A luxury model has also been tipped, with jewellers de Grisogono (which made a £15,000 diamond-studded version of the Gear S2) having revealed that it is working with Samsung on a high-end version of the S3.

Features

Following the Samsung Gear S2 ‘Orbis’ the new Gear S3 is reportedly codenamed ‘Solis’ (‘sun’ in Spanish). It comes as no surprise then that it’s expected to be a round smartwatch with a very similar design to the Gear S2, but running Tizen rather than Android Wear. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since Tizen now talks to all Android smartphones and not just those made by Samsung.

Samsung is reported to be adding activity tracking technology to the rumoured smartwatch, and the Gear S3 may even be able to monitor altitude. Rumours suggest it will feature GPS, a speedometer, a barometer and an altimeter.

Something not likely to change is the rotating bezel that is used to navigate the Tizen OS. Neither have we seen any rumours concerning a larger screen or a thinner body. We would hope to see a more powerful chipset than the 1GHz Eyxnos dual-core inside the Gear S2