When it comes to wearable smart technology there is a lot of brands and variety. When you hear people talk about “Smartwatches” the first thing that comes to mind is probably the Apple watch. The second thing that comes to mind is probably the Gear S3. There are other brands out there such as Garmin, Fitbit, and many more generic brands. The one I want to give my review on today is the Samsung Gear S3.
I started off wearing one of the Garmin vivofits. Although it did what I wanted it to do at the time I didn’t really like how it handles some stuff and it didn’t have other stuff I really wanted like text notification, ability to answer incoming calls, and a heartbeat monitor. So after I did a lot of research I finally decided to settle for the Samsung Gear S3. When I say settle for I really mean settle on tossing a lot of money at a smartwatch in hopes to not ever needing to buy another one again. That said let’s start.
Design and Quality
The design and quality of this watch are probably up there with the apple watch and in some peoples, opinion is better. I would say that you won’t go wrong if you have an android phone and want to use this watch with it. If you have a Samsung S# phone then I highly recommend this watch to go along with the phone for it kinda completes each other! I feel it gives the elegant feel of high-end users and although the price for me was a little high I feel that the money was well spent after I have used it for a few months. I definitely don’t have buyers remorse from this watch and if I had to do it again I still would buy it.
The quality also is top notch. The watch itself it tough and well built. Although the band that came with it was of a great quality I decided to buy a nylon band for it because the rubber band wore my skin a lot which made it sore. The nylon band has been on since the end of December and I haven’t had any issues with the skin on my wrist getting worse/torn and no pain at all. It is very durable and so far it has withstood a lot of hits.
Charging
The first thing you notice with the Samsung Gear S3 watch when you open the box is its elegant look with the rotating bezel and rubber wristband. Right away I was excited to get the thing out of the box and wear it. The first thing I did, I took it out of the box and lay it on the charging station that came with the watch so it could get fully charge before I started playing with it. I have to say that the slick charging station is an added bonus because there is no need to plug the watch in to charge it. You simply lay it on the dock and it starts charging using the wireless charging technology that seems to be Samsung’s new thing with their newest mobile devices.
Software and Phone Sync
Once I got it charged I went through the process of getting it set up and hooked to my Samsung S7 and I got to say that it was a very easy process to do. Just download and install the Samsung Gear app if you don’t already have it on your phone and away you go. Once you have it synced to your phone it will download any updates that are currently available and then your watch is ready to use.
The really nice thing about the Gear software is that it will tell you the Battery life, Storage, and used ram of the watch. It also will allow you to set up or update your Samsung pay information which is nice, more on that later. If you want new watch faces or an app on your phone you do that from inside the gear software as well. The software is “central command” for your watch.
Samsung Pay
Samsung Pay is one of the most convenient parts of the watch. The ability to set up your watch with one of your payment options (credit cards/debit cards) and then to be able to wake through the checkout and wave your watch over the card reader at the store, once you open the pay app on the phone, is very convenient. What is even nicer is that you don’t need to have your phone with you to do this. You get up to a certain amount of uses to use the pay feature but you need to put in a passcode if you don’t have your phone with you.
Features
The watch comes with a lot of features that can be very helpful for you when doing daily activities. Some of the top ones I have been using to date include:
- Sleep Tracker
- This will know when you have fallen asleep and registers once you are up and going and then will give you your results. You can view the basic details on your watch which include restless, motionless, awake. More details can be viewed in the health software on your phone.
- Heart-beat monitor
- This is a very cool feature when you are doing exercises or if you just want to see what your current heart rate is.
- Incoming call answering
- The ability to be able to answer a call on your phone can be very helpful if you are away from your phone and need to take the call or if you are talking with someone and just need to decline to send them to voicemail!
- Notifications
- Text notification is the best feature by far. The ability to see who is texting or sending an email helps you. You can also respond if you like but I find sending long texts from the watch isn’t user-friendly but the feature is there if you need it.
- Reminders
- To be able to set different reminders on your watch helps if you want one to wake you up, one to take medications, and one to tell you when your show is about to start that you don’t want to miss! The reminder feature is nice.
- Faceplate customization
- The ability to change your faceplate to represent your mood any given day, your interest, or just finding cool and unique faceplates that make you feel good is a great benefit to a smartwatch like this. I recommend looking at as many as you can. There are a lot of both free and paid ones you can choose from.
- Other widget/apps
- There is just way too many widget and apps that you can put on this watch for me to go into detail about them all. I recommend playing with a lot of them but for the most part, if there is something you need on your phone to help you in your daily life there is a chance the watch has an app for it.
Final Verdict
Pro: Text Notification, Answer incoming calls, tracks sleep habits, lots of software and widgets, and it’s look
Cons: High price tag, some bad software, and widgets (not knowing till you install it), rubber wristband.
I would have to say that my overall satisfaction with this smartwatch is very positive. If I had to give it a score between 1 and 10 I would say 8.5 out of 10. The reason for this is because I feel that the price of $350 is to high for the average person to be able to take advantage of the elegance and simplicity it brings to one’s daily life. If you have the money or are planning on saving up the money to get yourself a really nice smartwatch. I would say give this one a lot of consideration. I don’t think you will be wrong if this was your final choice. I also feel that the wristband isn’t the greatest choice when it comes to texture/material used. That said it’s a great smartwatch that has made a lot of things in my life easier!
Thanks for reading my very first product review. I know that it isn’t long and probably lacks some things you might be wondering about. If I didn’t mention something about this watch and you would like to know something about it feel free to comment or send me an email. Please keep the comments clean. Till next time!