Gadgetory

I'm on something of a mission looking to replace my favorite SmartWatch in the comments of our recent videos and podcasts the most recommended replacement was this gadget here and I've finally been able to take Samsung's gear s3 frontier for a spin Samsung Smart Watch evolution has been interesting to observe watching experiments with cameras and home buttons to outright putting a mini phone on your wrist the frontier takes what we liked about the gear s2 and refines it this gear wears a lot more like a traditional timepiece and will be appreciated by folks who enjoy a larger bolder watch body another personal aspect of this review I'm not currently using a Samsung phone as my daily driver now the setup process for the frontier isn't painful but there are several apps necessary to install before you can use the watch on a different manufacturers phone this is a lot more involved than setting up an Android wear or Pebble watch for instance as you'll be tight in the Samsung services like s health the construction on the frontier is fantastic excellent build quality this is maybe the best wearable hardware I've ever handled mind you I'm coming from a plastic pebble is my daily timepiece but often using a Huawei watch to check out Android wear the frontier feels a lot less like a gadget it doesn't broadcast its geekery nearly as much as past Samsung efforts and this is the best AMOLED screen I've personally used on a watch it doesn't handle direct Sun as well as ePaper or digital ink solutions but it's well readable in bright conditions it almost passes the SoCal driving test we're at an angle reflections can still be troublesome though the battery saving option of disabling the screen means you'll have to move your hand off the steering wheel to see content but more on that later getting into the watch operation two buttons on the side are used as a back and a home button the latter also doubles as the app drawer shortcut went on the main watch phase the diol around the screen turns to navigate through pinned applets to the right and notifications to the left and then the touchscreen can be used to swipe or pull down a status shade the gear s3 is refined but it still very much continues the notion that a SmartWatch should perform like a mini phone on your wrist I'd prefer Samsung move to a three button layout giving us a selection button there's a tactile disconnect between using this great clicky wheel and then smudging up the screen to make a selection or hitting these small three menus wedged to the side of a circle the ability to navigate fully through hardware would be appreciated maybe even disabling the touchscreen at times like when my baby daughter gets her hands on it the frontier is running Tizen Samsung's in-house software and performance is terrific the watch easily slides through applets and notifications I can't recall any instances of lag or unresponsiveness which is critical as there's a lot going on navigation isn't difficult but it takes a while to program the muscle memory for where every feature setting an option live a checking heart rate for example from the main watch face you hit the bottom button and click wheel to s-health where you touch the screen to activate then click wheel five menus over to the heartrate section and then it'll take a reading this is phone grade software and the gear routinely rides that line between functionality and time it's impressive that we can do this much from a watch but many of these interactions would be faster from your phone further complicating matters Samsung doesn't really fully support other phones notifications are delivered and calls are alerted but any action or reply you take will be sent back to your phone want to reply to a message using speech to text nope can't do that on my mate nine throughout my week using it I continually had the sense that I was missing notifications that they were delayed somehow glancing down at the watch only to see that five alerts had arrived that I either didn't feel the vibrations or that they were all sent in one batch that also seemed to hold true for the Bluetooth alert one of my biggest frustrations with Android wear it doesn't notify when it loses the Bluetooth connection the gear will but it could sometimes take well over a minute just enough time for example to accidentally leave my phone somewhere and make it to my car not the most consistent leash function lastly Samsung advertises an always-on display and up to three days of battery life you just can't have both at the same time individually each statement is true but if you want that runtime you need to disable the screen the frustrating aspect of having to perform a gesture to see the time somewhat defeats the convenience of wearing a watch that said with the screen auto-dimming we easily reached three full days with moderate use notifications and a couple workouts so let's wrap this up where does that leave us with the Samsung gear s three frontier man I love this hardware but the recommendation on this watch requires two critical issues be discussed first this is a tough recommendation if you don't own a Samsung phone the experience is hamstrung when tackling notifications and calls and you pay for features you won't get to use for how good speech-to-text is on a cheap pebble or Android wear it's a shame that Samsung couldn't really translate the gear experience over to other devices it's a walled garden approach I don't appreciate don't punish me for not owning a Samsung phone instead impress me with how good this accessory is and maybe I'll consider a Samsung phone in the future the second issue was a little more philosophical if your idea of what a SmartWatch should be is migrating as much smartphone functionality as you can to a small screen then the frontier is hands down the best SmartWatch on the market full stop however if your idea of a SmartWatch is targeting at a glance information in the most streamlined way possible that a watch should complement a phone and not replace it then the gear can feel downright cumbersome as this review is tempered by my personal quest to replace my pebble I'll have to keep searching which is a shame as I absolutely love this hardware as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more reviews like these and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for pocket now I'm one Carlos bag now so I'm gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next review you