As a Gear 2 Neo and Gear S2 3G owner I've appreciated the direction Samsung has taken with their smartwatches. Having listed my "wish list" for the Gear S3 almost a year ago on this forum, I was excited to see most of the boxes checked and figured I'd chime in here with my excitement and also what I think are a few let downs regarding the recent reveal of the Gear S3. I've listed below what I believe are it's biggest upsides and downsides.
I'll start with the downsides because it's more interesting...
Downsides
1) S-Voice - Sigh. Oh Samsung. Why must you continue to force us to use this. Does it work? Sorta. But the Android Wear and Apple Watch alternatives are SOOOOOO much better. What happens unfortunately with a feature that doesn't work that great is it doesn't add to the experience so users inevitably leave it alone and make due comfortably without it justifying it as a fringe feature that you don't really NEED. But, if it does work better than expected then its adopted quickly, used often, and eventually considered a "must have" feature. Think about how well Google Now dictates voice to text for text messages, etc and how people adopted that functionality which I believe was because it DID work so well. If anyone needs a quick example of how much worse SVoice is on these watches than the Google Equivalent...watch this...
2) Size OPTIONS - I actually like the new size of the Gear S3. I'm a guy. My wife? She'd laugh if I tried to put it on her. Samsung has apparently forgotten about half the world. No one watch will ever work for all men and women and personal styles vary greatly. But why not offer a second size for smaller wrists, or more importantly for women? Apple is bound to do this with their upcoming Apple Watch 2 and that's smart. Yes, there will be some women who want this 46mm watch, but I'd bet most won't. So they've left open the sales of the Gear S2 for those and announced they will update the software of the Gear S2 alongside the Gear S3 release. Okay. Fine. You covered your bases, Samsung...I guess.
3) Left handed people - Most people wear their watches on their left hand, but many left handed people wear their watches on their right wrist. Apple addressed this with a simple option in the settings that allowed the user to simply flip the watch and select "left handed" in the settings so that everything works as it should only on the left hand. I feel like this is a simple software addition that, if it's not included on Samsung's newest Gear S3 lineup, is a big oversight. Why does Samsung not care about women and left handed people? I kid of course, but you get my point.
4) Notification Customization - This might end up moving over to the "Upsides" section if the Gear S3 proves to be more customizeable than previous versions. A smart watch is just now finally starting to become more than just an optional, hard-to-define-why-I-need-one extension of the phone in your pocket or purse. The fact that we can now seemingly download apps and watch faces from the watch without the phone is a huge step in the right direction. But can the user customize the subtle yet practical things like how long a notification displays for when it comes in is yet to be seen. Hopefully we're able to fully customize the notification experience.
5) iOS support - While this may come, it's too bad it wasn't included out of the gate. Tizen is a smooth wearable OS and this design is bound to be very different than the Apple Watch. There are millions and millions of potential customers that would hear about this IF it worked on an iPhone. I'll be most Apple Watch owners don't know that Samsung even announced the Gear S3. But if it did and it worked on an iPhone, suddenly all the Apple related sites would be writing articles on it and many of those users would inevitably hear about it because when they read about the upcoming Apple Watch 2 the article just might mention the other equally feature rich option they have. Now I'm sure it's both a conflict of interest, and probably difficult to make enough of the watch fully functional on an iPhone for it to be comparable to what Apple is bound to offer, but I just wonder how much better app support and overall sales the Gear lineup would get if iPhone users had a choice between square and circle, crown and bezel, etc. Apple is bound to release a great watch next week. And no doubt they'll find new fancy ways to describe the same features other watches have (like they'll include GPS but call it something like Trans-Dimensional-Tracking or some word that makes the crowd go "oooohhh" and applause thinking they've now got something others don't have). They are masters at that. Genius actually. But short of including Facetime on their watch which would be a real game changer in terms of getting non-users to adopt wearing tech on their wrists, I'd imagine the specs will be similar to the Gear S3 (minus the incredible MST tech that Samsung owns). It would just be cool for all those iPhone owners to have a 2nd option.
UPSIDES
1) Always-on. One of the most annoying parts of owning a smartwatch is the "pouring coffee" arm maneuver you have to do just to see the time. I'm over that. It works great and is responsive when done correctly. But sometimes you can't pour that coffee because you're holding something or whatever, and you suddenly realize this smart watch is more dumb than smart at times. I was carrying a big box recently and someone asked me the time, I glanced at my watch and it was a blank screen. But I couldn't do the maneuver. So I pathetically said, I don't know what time it is. If this "always-on" feature that they touted so heavily was turned off when they talked about their battery life, that'd be a bummer. But if the watch can actually get a couple full days of use with Always-On on ... that's a huge PRACTICAL step in the right direction. This is after all, a watch.
2) Battery life - 3-4 days would be nice. Is that realistic? I'd assume so. I get pretty good life out of the Gear S2 so I'm hoping as I mentioned in the above upside that this battery life is estimated WITH the always-on feature enabled.
3) IP68 - Up to 5ft deep in water for 30 minutes? Awesome.
4) Speaker on ALL models! - Having a speaker phone to take/make calls is one of those "must have features" for me. Why? Because it works well and while I don't use it all that much, I appreciate that I can do that when I do need it. I don't use it to make calls (probably would do it more if SVoice wasn't so crappy) but for those times when a call comes and I'm away from my phone and need to answer, it's been great. I'd hope the call quality and loudness will only improve with each iteration of this feature. The fact that it wasn't on the Gear S2 or Gear S2 Classic is such a bummer. Yes, it's on the Gear S2 3G which is why I got that version (even though I don't use the 3G part) but it's a bummer the older Gear models had it then they took it away in the Gear S2 regular and classic. You may or may not use it a lot, but because it's done well, it's great to have.
5) MST - Woohoo!! Samsung Pay without MST is "meh". But toss in MST and this watch suddenly becomes incredibly practical. And if we can really supposedly use it a handful of times without the watch on both the LET and non-LTE version, that's awesome! Although Samsung had a big commercial blitz on this feature, I'd say most people still all think it's just like Apple Pay or Android Pay. Ask 10 iPhone users and they'll all say "I can do that too" until you explain to them what MST is and how it enables you to pay at almost all credit card terminals without the need for that NFC terminal that you'll find in places like Starbucks, etc. and they'll look at you like "I don't get it". Until you show them how mobile payments "should be".
6) Grooves on the rotating bezel. - The Gear S2 classic had small grooves around the edges of the bezel and while the regular Gear S2 did not and looked more "sporty", those grooves are really helpful in day to day life. As an owner of the Gear S2 3G I can attest that the rotating bezel is great, but sometimes it's a pain to turn. Greasy, sweaty or even slightly wet hands? Forget it. The Frontier version of this watch is arguably less "sporty" than the Gear S2, but it's still got an "active" feel to it vs. the more "classy" Classic version but the fact that they both now have those little notches is a small, but very practical upside to this new watch.
7) Ambient light Sensor - It's interesting how Samsung doesn't really advertise this feature and yet you have Motorola leaving their infamous "flat tire" on their watches just so they can have that same feature. For a watch, this feature is an essential and practical feature that a surprising number of smartwatches don't have. It's a small feature, but makes the user experience better and I think worth noting here. I hope it works well on the upcoming Gear S3.
8) GPS for all. LTE if you want - About time. The ability for one to be independent of their phones is a luxury that is only improved with the addition of faster LTE speeds. Streaming Spotify music or whatever you wanna do with that faster data independent of your phone and the inclusion of GPS on all models makes these smartwatches much more than just a notification display on your wrist. Although I'd be shocked if GPS and Always-On mode were enabled when they did their battery life estimation, it'd be great to get a full day or two with these features on. Hopefully the GPS will help the new Gear S3 lineup be a more accurate fitness tracker than their sometimes "hit and miss" trackers of the past where distance and step counts would often be inconsistent.
9) Size - Just as it's a downside for some, I think the size that they did land on is larger but a step in the right direction for these watches. And if you consider that it's 5mm thinner than last years S2 3G model, but includes all those same features and a battery that's much bigger, one could say this is an improvement. Yes, they should have a 2nd smaller (Maybe 40mm) version for women and men with smaller wrists, but this larger size might look large at first, but then again...if you recall...how giant/absurd did the original Samsung Galaxy Note phone look when it came out? Many made fun of it's size. It looked goofy. Now, it's the norm. I don't hope these watches get any bigger in this form factor, but I'm okay with 46mm and think its an appropriate size for most men...even if it takes some getting use to.
I'll start with the downsides because it's more interesting...
Downsides
1) S-Voice - Sigh. Oh Samsung. Why must you continue to force us to use this. Does it work? Sorta. But the Android Wear and Apple Watch alternatives are SOOOOOO much better. What happens unfortunately with a feature that doesn't work that great is it doesn't add to the experience so users inevitably leave it alone and make due comfortably without it justifying it as a fringe feature that you don't really NEED. But, if it does work better than expected then its adopted quickly, used often, and eventually considered a "must have" feature. Think about how well Google Now dictates voice to text for text messages, etc and how people adopted that functionality which I believe was because it DID work so well. If anyone needs a quick example of how much worse SVoice is on these watches than the Google Equivalent...watch this...
2) Size OPTIONS - I actually like the new size of the Gear S3. I'm a guy. My wife? She'd laugh if I tried to put it on her. Samsung has apparently forgotten about half the world. No one watch will ever work for all men and women and personal styles vary greatly. But why not offer a second size for smaller wrists, or more importantly for women? Apple is bound to do this with their upcoming Apple Watch 2 and that's smart. Yes, there will be some women who want this 46mm watch, but I'd bet most won't. So they've left open the sales of the Gear S2 for those and announced they will update the software of the Gear S2 alongside the Gear S3 release. Okay. Fine. You covered your bases, Samsung...I guess.
3) Left handed people - Most people wear their watches on their left hand, but many left handed people wear their watches on their right wrist. Apple addressed this with a simple option in the settings that allowed the user to simply flip the watch and select "left handed" in the settings so that everything works as it should only on the left hand. I feel like this is a simple software addition that, if it's not included on Samsung's newest Gear S3 lineup, is a big oversight. Why does Samsung not care about women and left handed people? I kid of course, but you get my point.
4) Notification Customization - This might end up moving over to the "Upsides" section if the Gear S3 proves to be more customizeable than previous versions. A smart watch is just now finally starting to become more than just an optional, hard-to-define-why-I-need-one extension of the phone in your pocket or purse. The fact that we can now seemingly download apps and watch faces from the watch without the phone is a huge step in the right direction. But can the user customize the subtle yet practical things like how long a notification displays for when it comes in is yet to be seen. Hopefully we're able to fully customize the notification experience.
5) iOS support - While this may come, it's too bad it wasn't included out of the gate. Tizen is a smooth wearable OS and this design is bound to be very different than the Apple Watch. There are millions and millions of potential customers that would hear about this IF it worked on an iPhone. I'll be most Apple Watch owners don't know that Samsung even announced the Gear S3. But if it did and it worked on an iPhone, suddenly all the Apple related sites would be writing articles on it and many of those users would inevitably hear about it because when they read about the upcoming Apple Watch 2 the article just might mention the other equally feature rich option they have. Now I'm sure it's both a conflict of interest, and probably difficult to make enough of the watch fully functional on an iPhone for it to be comparable to what Apple is bound to offer, but I just wonder how much better app support and overall sales the Gear lineup would get if iPhone users had a choice between square and circle, crown and bezel, etc. Apple is bound to release a great watch next week. And no doubt they'll find new fancy ways to describe the same features other watches have (like they'll include GPS but call it something like Trans-Dimensional-Tracking or some word that makes the crowd go "oooohhh" and applause thinking they've now got something others don't have). They are masters at that. Genius actually. But short of including Facetime on their watch which would be a real game changer in terms of getting non-users to adopt wearing tech on their wrists, I'd imagine the specs will be similar to the Gear S3 (minus the incredible MST tech that Samsung owns). It would just be cool for all those iPhone owners to have a 2nd option.
UPSIDES
1) Always-on. One of the most annoying parts of owning a smartwatch is the "pouring coffee" arm maneuver you have to do just to see the time. I'm over that. It works great and is responsive when done correctly. But sometimes you can't pour that coffee because you're holding something or whatever, and you suddenly realize this smart watch is more dumb than smart at times. I was carrying a big box recently and someone asked me the time, I glanced at my watch and it was a blank screen. But I couldn't do the maneuver. So I pathetically said, I don't know what time it is. If this "always-on" feature that they touted so heavily was turned off when they talked about their battery life, that'd be a bummer. But if the watch can actually get a couple full days of use with Always-On on ... that's a huge PRACTICAL step in the right direction. This is after all, a watch.
2) Battery life - 3-4 days would be nice. Is that realistic? I'd assume so. I get pretty good life out of the Gear S2 so I'm hoping as I mentioned in the above upside that this battery life is estimated WITH the always-on feature enabled.
3) IP68 - Up to 5ft deep in water for 30 minutes? Awesome.
4) Speaker on ALL models! - Having a speaker phone to take/make calls is one of those "must have features" for me. Why? Because it works well and while I don't use it all that much, I appreciate that I can do that when I do need it. I don't use it to make calls (probably would do it more if SVoice wasn't so crappy) but for those times when a call comes and I'm away from my phone and need to answer, it's been great. I'd hope the call quality and loudness will only improve with each iteration of this feature. The fact that it wasn't on the Gear S2 or Gear S2 Classic is such a bummer. Yes, it's on the Gear S2 3G which is why I got that version (even though I don't use the 3G part) but it's a bummer the older Gear models had it then they took it away in the Gear S2 regular and classic. You may or may not use it a lot, but because it's done well, it's great to have.
5) MST - Woohoo!! Samsung Pay without MST is "meh". But toss in MST and this watch suddenly becomes incredibly practical. And if we can really supposedly use it a handful of times without the watch on both the LET and non-LTE version, that's awesome! Although Samsung had a big commercial blitz on this feature, I'd say most people still all think it's just like Apple Pay or Android Pay. Ask 10 iPhone users and they'll all say "I can do that too" until you explain to them what MST is and how it enables you to pay at almost all credit card terminals without the need for that NFC terminal that you'll find in places like Starbucks, etc. and they'll look at you like "I don't get it". Until you show them how mobile payments "should be".
6) Grooves on the rotating bezel. - The Gear S2 classic had small grooves around the edges of the bezel and while the regular Gear S2 did not and looked more "sporty", those grooves are really helpful in day to day life. As an owner of the Gear S2 3G I can attest that the rotating bezel is great, but sometimes it's a pain to turn. Greasy, sweaty or even slightly wet hands? Forget it. The Frontier version of this watch is arguably less "sporty" than the Gear S2, but it's still got an "active" feel to it vs. the more "classy" Classic version but the fact that they both now have those little notches is a small, but very practical upside to this new watch.
7) Ambient light Sensor - It's interesting how Samsung doesn't really advertise this feature and yet you have Motorola leaving their infamous "flat tire" on their watches just so they can have that same feature. For a watch, this feature is an essential and practical feature that a surprising number of smartwatches don't have. It's a small feature, but makes the user experience better and I think worth noting here. I hope it works well on the upcoming Gear S3.
8) GPS for all. LTE if you want - About time. The ability for one to be independent of their phones is a luxury that is only improved with the addition of faster LTE speeds. Streaming Spotify music or whatever you wanna do with that faster data independent of your phone and the inclusion of GPS on all models makes these smartwatches much more than just a notification display on your wrist. Although I'd be shocked if GPS and Always-On mode were enabled when they did their battery life estimation, it'd be great to get a full day or two with these features on. Hopefully the GPS will help the new Gear S3 lineup be a more accurate fitness tracker than their sometimes "hit and miss" trackers of the past where distance and step counts would often be inconsistent.
9) Size - Just as it's a downside for some, I think the size that they did land on is larger but a step in the right direction for these watches. And if you consider that it's 5mm thinner than last years S2 3G model, but includes all those same features and a battery that's much bigger, one could say this is an improvement. Yes, they should have a 2nd smaller (Maybe 40mm) version for women and men with smaller wrists, but this larger size might look large at first, but then again...if you recall...how giant/absurd did the original Samsung Galaxy Note phone look when it came out? Many made fun of it's size. It looked goofy. Now, it's the norm. I don't hope these watches get any bigger in this form factor, but I'm okay with 46mm and think its an appropriate size for most men...even if it takes some getting use to.
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