Cost for 4G Connectivity?

[Jimmy Bernstein]

I'm an S2 Bluetooth owner considering an upgrade. It's not clear to me how 4G connectivity works on the S3 and would appreciate a brief summary.
- Do you pay a separate monthly fee for the watch or some sort of supplement to your smart phone bill? (I'm on T-Mobile)
- Can you not pay and still use the watch as a stand-alone / Bluetooth?

Thx,
J

 

[Matty]

Hey Jimmy, great question!

The Samsung Gear S3 comes with 2 models (Bluetooth and 4G) the LTE version comes with an embedded SIM card that cannot be removed. So i would think you pay a separate bill for the device. To view the SIM card number, follow these steps:

From the Home screen, tap Settings.
Tap Gear info.
Tap About device.
View the ICCID. This is the SIM card number.

I personally would take the Blue-tooth only device since i would never take a phone call on my watch. Hope this helps in some way?

 

[Ntchwaidumela]

I'm an S2 Bluetooth owner considering an upgrade. It's not clear to me how 4G connectivity works on the S3 and would appreciate a brief summary.
- Do you pay a separate monthly fee for the watch or some sort of supplement to your smart phone bill? (I'm on T-Mobile)
- Can you not pay and still use the watch as a stand-alone / Bluetooth?

Thx,
Jon

On TMO, with a qualifying phone plan, the actual cost is $5/month (after the $10 discount). This includes unlimited calling and text, and 500MB data. (If you opt into the DIGITS beta, your usage actually comes out of your phone plan, which is especially useful if you plan on using a lot of data on your watch.) When you have your phone with you, you can connect your watch to the phone via bluetooth (which you will need to do when you use the Gear app). Otherwise, you can leave your phone at home and use your phone's LTE for standalone capabilities, including having calls to your phone forwarded to the S3. Your watch will have its own number. TMO will show your separate plans/billing for both devices, but you'll be charged all in one. You won't be able to use the watch as a standalone without having the watch plan. But for $5/month, it's worth it. You can also use your watch via wifi. So you can connect your watch via bluetooth, LTE or wifi. BTW, call quality over the watch is excellent. People I talk to using my S3 can't tell I'm not using my phone.

 

[ehosey2]

The cost for having 4G....using last years Gear S2 3G model or LTE....the current Gear S3 Frontier equipped with the e-SIM varies from $5.00 to $10.00 a month extra when tied into a shared data plan or much higher if using the watch with a separate voice/data plan.

The argument of whether it is worth the cost has been discussed in other threads and that value should be determined at the time of purchase.

To me at least if the bluetooth only version cost the same as the LTE version then I personally would choose the LTE version....which I have. The battery drain does not differ much and getting the LTE version provides the ability to use the watch when away from the phone or in the case of some users a true stand alone option.

Keep in mind that currently only the Frontier has the LTE option. The Classic is bluetooth only.

 

[Ntchwaidumela]

The difference in plan cost depends on the data you want. With DIGITS, the data is shared with your phone plan. My watch plan is for 500MB of data (the minimum data), so I just kept that since my phone plan will cover whatever data I use. But calling and text is unlimited.

 

[jlczl]

Since you're with T-Mobile I would suggest possibly waiting until they have another promotion for free monthly service like they did on magenta Friday or possibly calling up their customer service and telling them that you missed out on that deal and would like to see if they could offer you that as an exchange for keeping a loyal customer. I'm don't know how long you've been a T-Mobile customer but I find their customer service to be especially helpful if you have several lines and have been with them for many years. I have the LTE version and pay zero dollars monthly for the privilege of having standalone connectivity.

 

[PookiePrancer]

Since you're with T-Mobile I would suggest possibly waiting until they have another promotion for free monthly service like they did on magenta Friday or possibly calling up their customer service and telling them that you missed out on that deal and would like to see if they could offer you that as an exchange for keeping a loyal customer. I'm don't know how long you've been a T-Mobile customer but I find their customer service to be especially helpful if you have several lines and have been with them for many years. I have the LTE version and pay zero dollars monthly for the privilege of having standalone connectivity.

I jumped on that deal as well. Free!

 

[Jaycemiskel]

I just activated my S3 on t-mobile since Verizon never got it. I'm paying 15 a month. That's really not bad in my opinion. 500mb of high speed data and Spotify doesn't count in that because of Music Freedom.

 

[Blumini06]

5.00 for me with unlimited data. I'm on Simple Choice and I don't think they offer this anymore.

 

[dshrum84]

I have the Simple Choice phone plan but they have my watch on the One wearable plan with a $10 discount for $5 charged. The first setup they did was just wearable data but that didn't allow the watch to make and receive calls.