No longer confined to the cheap Chinese electronic novelty perception that such watches usually earn, Samsung has pushed ahead with a US launch of its 3G powered Gear S smartwatch powered by Tizen.
AT&T and Sprint will offer the device starting November 7, but T-Mobile will delay its launch until November 9th. Pricing for the watch varies by carrier, with the full retail price set at $349.99. AT&T will sell the watch for $200 with a two-year agreement and $10 monthly service plan. Sprint will offer the watch with $0 down followed by 24 monthly payments of $16 at a $384 retail price instead of offering a conventional service agreement and its Gear S plan also costs $10 per month. T-Mobile will sell the Gear S for $0 down followed by payments of $14.58 for 24 months and its Gear S service plan costs $5 per month. Verizon will launch the watch for $349.99 on a 2 year agreement. The Sprint and T-Mobile plans feature unlimited voice and messaging, while the AT&T and Verizon plans feature a fixed amount of voice messages and data access per month.
The Gear S features a 2-inch Super AMOLED display at 360 x 480 resolution and includes Bluetooth and Wi-Fi alongside the 3G radio for messaging and voice calls as well as a GPS radio. The watch also includes Samsung’s S Voice service for voice commands, and even fits an on-screen keyboard for composing text messages. Other key features include Samsung’s S Health and fitness apps, music player, gallery, and the ability to receive notifications from third-party services. The Gear S is powered by a dual-core 1.0GHz processor with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage with a 300mAh battery, which Samsung claims is good for two days of usage per charge.
