Samsung Unveils Gear S3 Classic and Frontier Smartwatches Powered By Tizen

MojoKid quotes a report from HotHardware: Samsung just wrapped up an event at the IFA expo in Berlin, where the company unveiled two new Gear S3 branded smartwatches. The new Samsung Gear S3 Classic and Gear S3 Frontier leverage many of the design elements from last-year's Gear S2 -- like their Tizen OS, rotating control dial, round display, and fast wireless charging. However, other aspects of the Gear S3 have received significant upgrades. Although they are internally similar, there are a few external differences between the Gear S3 Classic and Frontier. The Gear S3 Classic is the sleeker, more streamlined version of the two. The Classic has a polished finish, with round buttons at the 2 and 4 o'clock positions and no addition protrusions on its chassis. The Gear S3 Frontier is more rugged and has a darker, brushed finish, with flat, rectangular textured buttons and protrusions on either side of the body to shield the buttons from accidental presses. Both the Gear S3 Classic and Frontier are also outfitted with Gorilla Glass SR to protect their circular, Super AMOLED displays, and they're both compatible with industry standard 22mm watch bands too. They are also IP68 rated, so they're able to withstand dust and dirt, and water resistant for up to 30 minutes under 1.5 meters of water. Depending on how heavily these devices are used, Samsung claims they can last roughly 3 -- 4 days on a single charge. They also have support for NFC (compatible with Samsung Pay), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and have built-in heart rate monitors, altimeter/barometer, and GPS as well.

Native Advertising

[negRo_slim]

Sure do love it.

Re:

[Tough Love]

Only seems like advertising to you because of your lack of background knowledge. Tizen[*] is a topic of general interest to geeks, as are smartwatches. I would suggest handing in your geek card, except that there still may be hope for you because you know how to type.

[*] To find out why, read the wikipedia article.

I'd pay good money for

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

...an editor who knew how to summarize shit like this.

Re:

[lakeland]

Samsung is going to be releasing a new smartwatch sometime this year.

It looks much the same as the old one but addresses all of the common complaints from previous models: cellular, GPS, battery life. The most obvious issue is that it is still really big (46x42x12mm) and heavy (62g).

Pot calling Kettle!

[unrtst]

I'm hoping I simply missed the whoooosh of sarcasm flying over my head, but I suspect you're just one of those people that don't know what the word "subject" means.
It's crazy that you're complaining about editors not doing summaries right when you can't even be bothered to give your message a proper subject line, which is damn near the same skill set.

Android or Tizen?

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

Why is the article tagged android if the watch runs Tizen? Both Linux-based OS, sure, but fairly different systems.

Re:

[dbIII]

Did you do that to the non-android Kindles too?

Re:

[unixisc]

So Tizen doesn't have Wayland on it as yet? They probably need to rebuild from Fedora 25, which we were discussing yesterday

Re:

[Tough Love]

Tagged Android because Tizen is a (longshot, theoretical) competitor to Android. Is there even a Tizen tag? Not sure if Tizen is enough of a thing to have a tag.

Camera !

[denisbergeron]

I find it sad that they remove the camera from they watch. I love my old Gear, but I won't "upgrade" to a watch with less feature.

Re:

[SolemnLord]

I find it sad that they remove the camera from they watch. I love my old Gear, but I won't "upgrade" to a watch with less feature.

Having a feature isn't the same as having a feature worth having. Getting rid of a low-quality, poorly-placed camera gives Samsung the space to add features like NFC and LTE. These offer immediate, tangible benefits to the user by enabling a greater number of features and options through software, and by improving the Gear's independence. Smartwatches have to sacrifice some features to be more useful overall, and Samsung absolutely made the right call.

Re:

[unixisc]

A wrist is a bad place for a camera. All you can take is selfies - or you'd have to remove the watch to take proper pics of things surrounding you

Weak ecosystem

[kuzb]

Tizen is going to wind up like Windows phone. Virtually nobody will develop for it so the ecosystem will never reach the critical mass required to become a serious player.

Companies don't seem to get it. Developers have to love your platform, or the only thing you'll attract is crickets.

Re:

[iampiti]

Using a widely used system like Android has obvious advantadges but not everything is good: You're at the mercy of the OS maker and thus your business depends a lot on another company.
Also, the smartwatch maket is not as mature as the smartphone's so there's a better chance of a new OS gaining a good share of the pie.

I'd pass

[wkwilley2]

Meh, I'm still waiting on my Pebble Time 2.....only 2 more months now.

Software support from Samsung

[It's the tripnaut!]

Don't expect Samsung's support of Tizen to be similar to how Google supports/develops Android and Nexus devices. As a former user of Bada (which Tizen supposedly evolved from), support for an OS by Samsung will be similar to how they support firmware for their phones and TV's at the moment: you will get one major update (two if you're lucky) and that's about it.

When the next Tizen release arrives, expect your device to be incompatible to it and, hence, not be supported anymore.