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Review: Samsung Gear S3 Frontier

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Samsung’s new Gear S3 smartwatch is the  successor to its Gear S2 smartwatch. The new smartwatches comes in two variants – Frontier and Classic. Samsung sent the Frontier variant for review at Review Central Labs and after spending a couple of weeks with them, I am very impressed.

The Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch was initially launched at IFA 2016. The smartwatch runs the company’s very own Tizen OS instead of Android Wear by Google. The Frontier model of Gear S3 sports a rugged design with a MIL-STD-810G rating, while the Classic variant has a more refined look.

Both sport cases made out of high-end watch grade 316L steel, and the company is touting the rotating bezel that enables user to pick up calls or snooze  alarms without even having to touch the display. Notably, the Frontier model of Gear S3 comes with a cellular radio chip that allows the smartwatch to connect to high speed 4G mobile networks.

This essentially means that the Frontier variant of the Gear S3, does not require to be tethered to your smartphone in order to connect to the Internet or make calls. This is a feature that is currently not existent even in Apple’s current generation of smartwatches. Extra points to Samsung for having achieved that feat.

The Samsung Gear S3 Frontier features a 1.3-inch circular super AMOLED display with an Always-On-Display (AOD) feature. Under the hood, the smartwatch runs on a 1.0GHz dual-core processor coupled with 768MB of RAM and 4GB of built-in memory.

The smartwatch also comes with a built-in GPS and a built-in speaker plus microphone. So essentially you can answer to incoming calls through the smartwatch. The smartwatch also sports Bluetooth v4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, and NFC/MST. The Gear S3 Frontier is powered by a 380mAh battery.

The build quality of the Frontier is superb. It’s made of stainless steel and as mentioned earlier, carries the same IP68 waterproof rating. That means you can take it up to 1 meter underwater for 30 minutes. Samsung also uses Gorilla Glass SR+ on the Gear S3, a new glass variant from Corning that’s said to be more damage resistant.

Connecting the Frontier to your smartphone is quite easy. We used a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge to test the watch out. All you need to do is download the Samsung Gear app from either Google Play Store or the Apple App Store (for iOS devices), fire up the app, and follow the onscreen instructions.

The smartwatch connects to your phone in a jiffy. We found the overall experience to be quite awesome. The Gear S3 ran buttery smooth and we didn’t come across any glitches or hiccups.

Since this watch support LTE, you can literally leave your phone behind. The 4GB of internal storage is good enough for most purposes, and you can also make calls, respond to texts, or navigate, thanks to the built-in GPS. There’s also Wi-Fi so you can connect the device to your home or work network.

In terms of battery life, we clocked over a day’s worth of juice on a single charge, which is quite good. The Gear S3 Frontier’s selling point is its rugged and tough exterior. So if you are on the market for a very good smartwatch that plays well with both Android and iOS devices, the Samsung Gear S3 Frontier could be one of the options you could look at.

[highlight color=”yellow”]Price: AED 1199[/highlight]

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