Is there an international sim-lock free version? Does country of purchase matter?

[petercohen]

Hello, for normal Samsung phones, there is an international sim lock free version which could be used in any country. What about the Gear S?

I want to be able to use the watch in many countries that I will travel. I can buy the watch in HK now or buy it in Japan later. For normal phones, those purchased in Japan can only be used in Japan due to the sim-lock restriction. What about the Gear S sold in Japan? To be able to use in many different countries, is it better to buy it in HK?

 

[foxbat121]

Gear S is a dual-band phone only. As far as I know, Japan is 2100MHz WCDMA only. Europe, HK, China etc. are 900/1800MHz In North America, we use 850/1900 bands. So, yeah, it does matter as to which Gear S model you buy which dictates which frequency bands it will support. Most modern smartphones, on the other hand, supports at least quad-bands.

Gear S is not an international phone by any means. So, if you buy from HK, you maybe fine with a lot of countries but definitely not Japan, US or Canada. And vice versa.

 

[petercohen]

Thanks. I bought my Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 LTE international version in Hong Kong. When I took it to Japan to use, I had a hard time in getting them to sell me a sim card. Anyway, I managed to get it at the end and I have been using it as my phone for months without problem. As you know, the size of this device is very large and I sometimes prefer not to use it as a phone in public to allow other people to hear the conversations. I also missed some important calls/messages as the Pro was in my bag. That is why I consider the Gear S due to its phone ability and the ability to display notifications when incoming messages/phone calls come to my phone (the Galaxy Note PRO).

So, if I don't use the 3G feature of the Gear S in Japan and just connect it to my phone via bluetooth, will there be a problem? Similarly, if I buy it in Japan and later move to other places (again connect to my LTE international Note PRO phone via bluetooth), will there be a problem?

There has been a long back order in Gear S in Japan for weeks. I am considering to buy it in Hong Kong but I do not know if I can change the language to Japanese. I changed the locale of my Note PRO 12.2 to Japanese. All my messages are in Japanese. If I buy the Gear S in HK and it cannot display and I cannot type in Japanese, that would be a problem. Any idea?

 

[foxbat121]

Don't know. There is a language selection for keyboards (and you can download additional keyboard languages from the app market. However, I'm not sure if the Note Pro 12.2 is even on the device compatibility list (none of the tablets are as far as I know). If the Gear Manager won't recognize your tablet as phones, you will more than likely not able to use BT for phone calls and SMS. And very likely that the Gear S you bought from HK won't work with Japan cellular networks, you can't even use its own radio.

 

[petercohen]

Is there a quick and easy way to check in a store if the Gear Manager can recognize my tablet as a phone without syncing or giving out personal info stored in my tablet phone?

 

[xendula]

Yes, I did that myself. Just go to gear manager on the tablets ( you may have to install it), and search for new devices. Make your device discoverable.
The Tab 4 8 inch and Note Pro 12 inch they had at BestBuy both did not even see my device.

Also, the Gear s lets you install the keyboards you need, then you can swipe on the space bar to switch between your predefined input languages, so you are not stuck with one keyboard and one language. That's pretty nifty - I had not even tried that, until I saw your question!
Keyboards available seem to be of all the major languages of this world, including Chinese and Japanese.