Review on 💪 SAMSUNG Gear S3 Frontier Smartwatch (Bluetooth) - Powerful and Stylish Wearable Technology by Charlie Powell

I've had my GS3 Frontier watch for 3 days now so I'm ready to update some of my first observations. Contrary to the review I recently read, I didn't expect unboxing to be an experience in itself; Needless to say, the Frontier is not a Rolex. Here are the positives I found: 1) As with the Gear S2, setup was easy. The Samsung Gear app in my Galaxy Note 5 picked up the S3 right away and set it up with ease. It was nice to see that I can switch between S2 and S3 settings by simply selecting the watch model from the dropdown list in the top left corner of the app. 2) Although the watch is quite large - 46mm - larger than my 42mm. Movado Series 800 - They didn't feel big on my wrist. Maybe I was just ready for the size, but watch features like a rotating bezel, buttons, and screen are well balanced. Maybe the dark color helps, but it didn't feel big on my thin wrist. BTW, that rotating bezel is great. I bet Apple wants them to think differently! 3) The watch faces that came with it were pretty good compared to the fancy ones that the S2 had. I felt less compelled to buy replacements, although there are a few good ones that are more functional than standard dials if you pay a few bucks. 4) The speaker on the clock is amazing! I left the default volume setting of 4 and I can hear calls perfectly. The maximum volume of the call is 6. My lady called me from the phone. She is very quiet and I can hear her perfectly. You don't have to hold the watch to your mouth to be heard. For all other tones like Ringtone, Media, Notifications and System I left it at 7. The maximum volume for these is 15. Again, the speaker is quite loud for such a small device. 5) Answering or rejecting calls with your voice works very well. I travel frequently to California, where stricter cell phone laws will come into force in January 2017. I will happily wear this baby on my wrist so I can avoid fines with my Inspector Gadget outfit! a chance to test the altimeter but the speedometer and gps work very well. I checked them using the free app "Tacho" and the speed matched the speed on my car's dashboard. I love hiking so it will be interesting to see how well the technology works and if the app ecosystem can grow from these features. 7) The screen looks really sharp and bright. I set the brightness to 6 and the screen is perfectly legible indoors and in direct sunlight. 8) I also tried the "Sleep As" Android app to test S3 biometric sensors. Aside from a brief period when my phone was unable to receive data, the app was able to collect sleep-related data throughout the night. I don't think I'll be tracking my sleep with the watch every night given its size, although I bought a replacement strap for it which is very flexible and didn't feel overly uncomfortable while sleeping. 9) With S3 you can control your favorite music app on your phone (music will play through the phone speakers) or listen to tracks recorded on the watch itself (music will play through the watch speakers or connected Bluetooth headphones). Check out Spotify. The S3 now has its own Spotify app, freeing you from interacting with your phone. If you set up WiFi access and sign up for Spotify Premium on your watch, you can stream music directly to your watch without your phone being on or switched on. This feature shows how the S3 itself is becoming an increasingly reliable device. Now for the reasons I gave it 4 stars: a) Maybe it's because of the size of the rotating bezel on that big dial, but it feels loose. There's a slight wobble on the S2, but if you touch the rotating bezel on the S3 you'll actually hear the audio as if it were muffled. Maybe they can make it a bit stiffer on the next model. b) The S Voice assistant is very primitive. In the age of Siri, Alexa and even Cortana, Samsung needs to catch up fast by incorporating artificial intelligence into such a feature-rich watch! What's the point of cramming so much computing power when all you're left with is a glorified dialer? SVoice needs to get smarter. A few things that improved my experience with the S3: - I have a comfortable watch strap with perforations for breathability. The watch is quite big so I tried to make it as comfortable as possible. The comfortable stretch material strap also helps the watch fit around your wrist while you sleep without feeling uncomfortable. Biometric sensors on watches work best when they are closest to your skin. Speaking of biometrics, try the Sleep As app for Android if you're worried about sleep quality. It collects quite a lot of data, but for me the "deep sleep" periods were the most important. Spotify for S3 frees you from using your phone, but you'll need to subscribe to both available WiFi and Premium to make your S3 fully self-sufficient. Note that I wasn't complaining about the lack of good apps. That's because a great app market doesn't happen overnight. Apple dominates this space, but the Samsung Gear S3 has plenty of features that you can use creatively. Spotify is an example of native apps that can be hits. I've even heard that the video chip on it can drive a 720p display! Imagine being able to screencast pictures or even watch videos one day! (By the way, the S3 currently only lets you sync pictures and songs, not videos.) If I find anything else related to this, I'll come back and provide an update. I hope you found this information useful.