It could be said that Samsung is handling the rollout of its Gear S3 smartwatch in a rather unconventional manner. After announcing the wearable on August 31st, the South Korean tech giant has been rather tight-lipped regarding official release dates and only dropped one so far – November 4th. However, it soon became apparent that the said date won’t mark the global release of Samsung’s latest smartwatch. That situation became all the more confusing when the Gear S3 became available for pre-orders in the UK a few days ago, only to promptly go out of stock with an expected release date of November 11th. Looking at the other side of the pond, the device is yet to debut in the US. None of the retailers in the country are currently offering pre-orders though Best Buy did finally list the Gear S3 on its website.
The listing states that Best Buy will soon start taking orders for the Gear S3, but doesn’t elaborate on how quickly can we expect that to happen. On the brighter side, Samsung recently confirmed that its new Tizen-powered smartwatch will launch in the US during November, so we won’t have to wait much longer to get our hands on it, or better said, get it on our hands. While this hasn’t been officially confirmed, Best Buy’s listing could indicate that the Minnesota-based company will be the first US retailer to start shipping the Gear S3.
As for the specifics of this offering, ordering Samsung’s latest smartwatch from Best Buy will set you back $349.99. That price applies to both version of the watch, i.e. the Gear S3 Classic and the Gear S3 Frontier. Both models boast a circular 1.3-inch display protected with Corning Gorilla Glass SR+ and featuring a resolution of 360 by 360 pixels. Other than that, they’re both powered by the dual-core Exynos 7270 CPU clocked at 1GHz, 768MB RAM, and a 380mAh battery in addition to offering 4GB of internal storage. There are a few differences, though; the Gear S3 Frontier will be a tad bit heavier at 62g and come equipped with an LTE/3G adapter in some territories. With a price tag of $350, the Gear S3 doesn’t come close to being the most expensive Android smartwatch ever, but it’s still aimed at people who want more than just a simple notification display for their wrist.