الغريب: Galaxy Watch 3 now official: Oh physical bezel, how we’ve missed you

الأربعاء، 5 أغسطس 2020

Galaxy Watch 3 now official: Oh physical bezel, how we’ve missed you

The latest Galaxy smartwatch has finally gone official, and it brings what is arguably the main reason why Samsung’s smartwatches attracted so many customers ever since the company took the circular watch design language to heart: A physical rotating bezel ring. It was back in 2018 that we last saw a Galaxy smartwatch with a physical bezel, and it has made a comeback with the Galaxy Watch 3.

In fact, if the physical bezel ring is ignored, the Galaxy Watch 3 is more or less a Galaxy Watch Active 2 with pretty much the same specs, including 8 pulse-reading photodiodes and an electrocardiogram sensor. However, it’s got a few new health-related features, including fall detection that alerts up to four contacts if the watch detects a fall and the ability to measure oxygen saturation levels in the blood.

Sadly, while ECG and blood pressure monitoring support is included, the two features aren’t enabled out of the box because Samsung is still working on getting the necessary regulatory approvals in most countries.

Larger displays, smaller overall footprint compared to original Galaxy Watch

The Galaxy Watch 3 comes in two sizes: 41mm and 45mm, with 1.2-inch and 1.4-inch displays respectively. The physical bezel has been slimmed down to allow larger screens despite a smaller overall footprint compared to the original Galaxy Watch, and the home and back buttons on the side have been redesigned to resemble buttons of an actual watch, which is a change that has been a long time coming.

The battery capacities of the 41mm and 45mm variants are 247 mAh and 340 mAh respectively. Both have a stainless steel casing, though a considerably costlier titanium variant will arrive in the near future. As expected, full water resistance and military-grade ruggedness are part of the package. The displays are protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass DX.

Under the hood, there’s the Exynos 9110 processor accompanied by 1GB of RAM for both the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth and LTE models. What’s changed is the amount of storage: The Galaxy Watch 3 is the first Samsung smartwatch to feature 8GB of built-in storage, which should come as good news for those who store and listen to music on their watch and leave their phone at home when going out for a run.

The Galaxy Watch 3 runs Tizen OS version 5.5, and one of the main highlights is the addition of hand gestures that allow you to, for example, receive calls by clenching and unclenching your fist or mute alarms and incoming calls by rotating your wrist. New watch faces are obviously included as well, and we can expect them to be released for older Galaxy smartwatches by way of software updates in the near future.

Color options include Mystic Bronze, Mystic Black, and Mystic Silver

The Galaxy Watch 3 will go on sale from August 21, with the titanium variant coming sometime later this year. Both LTE and Bluetooth variants will be available; the 41mm variant will be offered in Mystic Bronze and Mystic Silver while the 45mm will come in Mystic Black and Mystic Silver.