After giving us a peek at its ‘huge’ Gear S3 smartwatch at IFA Berlin a couple months ago, Samsung has today finally shared all the specifics about the pricing and the release date via an official press release. This would be the Korean giant’s first market release since the unfortunate Galaxy Note 7 debacle — but that’s in the past now.
The Gear S3 will be available for pre-order starting November 6th, while the smartwatch will up for grabs in the United States just in time for the holiday season i.e two weeks from now. Samsung is making the humongous Gear S3 available in all major retailers including Best Buy, Amazon, Macy’s on November 18th. You will even have the option to order the smartwatch from Samsung’s own website or any of its partner wireless service providers — AT&T or T-Mobile.
As for the Gear S3 itself, the smartwatch will be released in two distinct design variants — ‘frontier’ and ‘classic.’The smartwatch sports a distinctive rotating bezel around the 1.3-inch always on AMOLED display. The Gear S3, as said before, is a huge smartwatch with a 42mm diameter which packs in a home-brewed Exynos chip, 768 MB of RAM, 4 GB of internal storage and a 380 mAh battery. The Gear S3 is also IP68 dust and water resistant.
The highlight of the Gear S3 will, however, have to be the cohort of connectivity features that are tucked away within the confines of this huge smartwatch. The heftier ‘frontier’ variant not only packs in an NFC chip with MST payment capabilities but also features LTE connectivity — to enable 4G services without the need of the smartphone.
Both these gorgeous smartwatches will start retailing at $349.99. The pricing and release schedule for the 4G variant will be announced by individual carriers themselves. Gary Riding, Samsung’s senior VP of Product Marketing, shares his views on the launch of their latest smartwatch offering:
Consumers are increasingly recognizing the benefits of a smartwatch that operates even without their phone. With the LTE capability of Gear S3 it is easy to make or receive phone calls and read or reply to texts and notifications, so they can stay connected while leaving their phone behind.
