Samsung announces its Gear S3 smartwatch, a more capable iteration on last year’s model

Samsung has today announced the Gear S3 Frontier and Gear S3 Classic, two watches which succeed the Gear S2 smartwatches that the Korean company announced last year. The new watch is an iterative improvement on the previous, not a groundbreaking step forward. And by that I mean it’s still a smartwatch, it still has a high-quality build with a rotating bezel, there’s still an LTE model, and it still runs Samsung’s own Tizen operating system…

In many ways the watch is familiar, but with improvements all around. One big change this year is that even the non-LTE Gear S3 Classic will have many of the same features as its  more capable sibling, the S3 Frontier.  The S3 has GPS regardless of model, Samsung Pay with support for MST like the S7 and Note 7 (instead of just NFC like previous years), a larger 380 mAh battery, and Gorilla Glass SR+ (which was just announced) covering a 1.3-inch circular AMOLED display.

Like the previous model, however, both models of the Gear S3 have Bluetooth and WiFi b/g/n, an accelerometer, gyro, a barometer, a heart rate monitor, and an ambient light sensor. These new smartwatches have dual-core 1.0 GHz processors, 4GB of internal memory, 768MB of RAM, wireless charging, and IP68 water and dust resistance. They’ll work with Android phones running KitKat or later.

Samsung is also launching a new version of its Tizen smartwatch operating system with this watch, alongside some cool new partnerships for apps on the platform. Spotify has a Gear S3 app, and there’s also an app for your Nest thermostat available soon. The new Tizen software will also work with last year’s Gear S2 and Gear S2 Classic.

We will have more details for you as the watch nears release, and be sure to keep an eye out for our hands-on video later this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynTB211p1PQ

Updating…