Samsung has just announced that its latest wearable device offering, the Gear S3, will be hitting store shelves everywhere this coming November 18th. Just to be clear, both the LTE connected and Bluetooth only versions will be launching on that date. For those who want to purchase the smartwatch in advance, they can start preordering on November 6th. As indicated in the press release from the South Korean tech giant, the Gear S3 will be made available in retail outlets such as Best Buy, Amazon, Macy’s, and Samsung’s own online store, as well as other participating mobile operator partners.
The Gear S3 (the Classic and the Frontier) was formally unveiled by Samsung towards the later part of August earlier this year. The newest smartwatch from the company is decidedly bigger than its predecessor, the Gear S2. Indeed, the Gear S3 comes in at a diameter of 46 millimeters, compared to the 43 millimeter diameter size sported by the previous model. Moreover, the size of its display has also been upgraded to 1.3 inches (with a resolution of 360 by 360 pixels). Samsung is said to have opted to increase the size of its latest wearable device based on a trend that male users are significantly buying more smartwatch devices than their female counterparts. The company found that about four fifths of those who purchase smartwatches are men. And besides, making the Gear S3 bigger also allowed Samsung to put more features to the wearable device.
Compared to the Gear S2, the newer Gear S3 also promises to be more sturdily built, which means hopefully that it should work longer, and comes with an LTE cellular radio, which means that users will not need to pair the device with a smartphone. With regards to durability, the Gear S3 is equipped with Corning’s new Gorilla Glass SR+, which according to Corning is specifically built to be used for smartwatch devices. Corning claims that because of the Gorilla Glass SR+’s enhanced scratch resistance capabilities, it should be able to achieve 70 percent better damage protection, especially against all sorts of impacts, and 25 percent better surface reflection compared to other luxury cover materials such as sapphire.
As far as specifications are concerned, the Gear S3 is looking to impress, with a double core 1 GigaHertz Exynos chip, supported by 786 megabytes of random access memory (RAM) plus 4 gigabytes of built in storage. The smartwatch is also equipped with a 380 mAh battery, and comes with an IP68 rating for water proofing and dust proofing. Other features include magnetic secure transmission technology to help facilitate payment transactions completed via Samsung Pay, a speaker and microphone for taking phone calls, global positioning system, Wi-Fi, and a barometer.
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