Jason Powell
Note: I have a Samsung Note 5, and that is the phone this watch was used with.I did a ton of research before buying my first smart watch about 6 months ago. Before I purchased this, I did some cursory research and found the Gear S3 was still pretty great, despite newcomers to the market, so I purchased it.When I first got the watch, I was so excited. I put it on and paired it and was super impressed with the exceptionally well designed and responsive UI. Using the bezel to control the watch is a stroke of pure genius, honestly. Despite the small area of the physical face of the watch, and how very tiny the icons on it are, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was able to easily and without error interact with the small icons.Then came the disappointment.The app store for the Gear is exceptionally anemic, primarily consisting of watch faces and applications that are very niche. There is no Gear support for Pandora, or Audible. Absolutely no Google apps are available for it. No Google Now. No Google Maps (although there is a well-designed app available in the store that uses Google Maps for like $2). No Android Pay. No Gmail. Nothing. The Spotify app is pretty nice, but for some reason I can't select Spotify Radio stations in it, only playlists. I was exceptionally disappointed as I have based everything in Google. Pretty much, the only apps that are really any good are from Samsung. This was a further disappointment as Samsung apps are usually fat and offensively slow.I contemplated returning it in favor of a Huwaii or a LG Watch Sport, but I figured I'd give it a few days. The interface is just SO well made. It is very responsive. The Samsung apps actually aren't crap this time, and they covered most of the use cases I have for my watch. So I gave it a few days.This is the part where the 5 stars come in.After using it for a few days and acquainting myself with it's various idiosyncrasies, I began to realize that all I actually need for it are the Samsung apps. It *would* be nice if there were apps from Pandora and Audible and CityMapper and Moovit and it supported Google Now, but it doesn't and that is actually a very workable scenario.The watch allows me to control my phone, basically, without taking it out of my pocket. So while I'm on the bus, if I swipe down on the watch face and hit the music note icon, I can control all aspects of the playback on my phone from the watch. Rewind, fast forward, pause, change the volume, change tracks, all of it. The altimeter is very accurate. I can create reminders and appointments right on the watch face. It displays the weather and my agenda using very will designed UIs. With a tap, I can zoom in on the weather and agenda to get more information, and I can plot the route to an appointment, if I included location information in the calendar item (although you have to open the phone to see the route). There is an Uber app for the watch that makes it very easy to call a cab.Finally, the watchfaces. Yes, they do get their own section because they are varied and amazing. Personally, I love the PipBoy Fallout 4 watch face. It displays an amazing amount of information using the interface of one of my favorite games. This watch face displays the following information, but you can find probably another 100 that do the same in zany and creative ways: Time, Date, Heartrate, Water Consumption, Coffee Consumption, Battery Level, Step Count, plus shortcuts to Music and Pictures, Samsung Health Daily Review, Alarms and Calendar. I wish the PipBoy interface showed the temperature, because if it did it would be on there too.Now, for the downsides, and there are some doozies.1) Samsung Pay does not work on my phone because I enabled the Samsung-provided Knox feature. I later disabled it because I didn't like it. But you know what that did? It flipped flag on my phone that disables Samsung Pay. The Gear only works with Samsung Pay. Let me repeat that - A Samsung supplied feature, Knox, disables Samsung Pay, because it flips the flag that says the device has been rooted. You are probably thinking "OK, so I contact Samsung support and they fix it, right?" Nope. Samsung has no way to flip this flag back. They designed Knox in such a way that it makes your phone think it has been rooted, and they have no way to fix it if Knox is later disabled. That is exceptionally stupid. I am an engineer. I am aghast to think of the internal processes at Samsung that allowed a feature to be released into the wild that breaks your phone and does not supply a fix. It requires a monumental level of dysfunction for that to happen.2) You are limited to the Samsung ecosystem. So if you don't like Samsung mail, too bad. No other mail client available. Don't like Samsung Pay? Too bad. No other option available. Etc.3) If Samsung Mail is enabled, and it is connected to a company mail server that requires the watch to be encrypted to view mail, you will have to type in a pin just to check the time. Yup, you read that right. Want to just check the time really quick? Nope! You gotta type in your password first. Again, as an engineer, how does that get through focus testing without any developer hearing a customer say "that is amazingly stupid". How does a developer, in their OWN DEVELOPMENT of the software, not get tired of typing in their password to check the time? It's amazing.4) When you make the motion typical of checking the time on a watch, the watch face is supposed to light up automatically. I've found this to be rather untrue. I've found that it pretty much doesn't work unless you are moving your hand from a stationary position, such as standing at a bus stop or sitting at your desk. If your hand is in motion it doesn't seem to recognize the motion to look at it, despite the rather unique motion of rotating the wrist. That is a very unique movement, and I noticed that this does not happen to a friend who has the Apple watch. It seems to actually be keyed on the wrist flip to turn on, as it turns on in a movie theatre when you place your hands behind your head.In summary, great watch despite the lack of app support

David King
One week ago, I would have rated this with 5-stars. However, for some unknown reason, the battery life, which was 3+ days, has gone down to about 8 hours. I haven't downloaded any apps or changed the settings I have been using for the past month; the only change has been some sort of software update.I'm giving a temporary 3-stars in hopes that I can figure out a solution. If I can, I'll bring this up to 5-stars. If I can't, I'll lower this to 1-star and return it. Either way, once I figure out what I'm going to do, I'll provide better feedback with what I like and dislike, etc....====Update: So, after the watch completely discharged its battery, and I let it fully charge again, I'm back to a full 3 days of use. The only setting I changed after it charged was turning the 'connections -> wifi' from 'auto' to 'off'. I figure I almost always have my phone, and if I don't, I'm probably not near an open access point WITHOUT a captive portal (requiring browser-based login). That doesn't necessarily explain the battery drain because this was how I had the setting previously.This is a great watch, based on what I was looking for. I previously had an LG G watch, one of those goofy-ass rectangular smartwatches, and other than the style, i really liked the functionality. I like the style of many new round smartwatches, but they were either prohibitively expensive (Tag Heuer), or the battery life was crap (most smartwatches), or, in the case of the LG Watch Sport and Style, you either got more than you wanted and paid for it, or not enough.My criteria:Looks (subjective, but essentially, a round smartwatch that wasn't too bulky, but with a screen big enough to use)Functionality (had to work with a non-Samsung Android smartwatch, show notifications from hangouts, SMS, calendar, etc)Battery Life (had to very easily make it through 24 hours)Non-LTE versionI think the watch looks great. I'm a bigger dude, so the watch doesn't look out of place and huge on my wrist like some of the other photos I've seen. If you have svelte features, maybe the size would be problematic. I'm using the standard band that comes with the watch, which looks good, but I like that I can easily switch bands if I want to.Functionally, the watch is great. I get notifications from SMS and Hangouts, as well as from Google calendar, which I use at work for upcoming meetings. Initially, as I was researching the watch, I wasn't sure if a non-Samsung watch would pair well with this, since it doesn't run Android Wear (it runs Samsung's Tizen OS). The only issue with regard to Tizen is the lack of apps, but I don't really care about extending the capabilities beyond what it already does (wihch is what I need/want). The watch has decent sensors for 'exercise', though I suspect there are superior watches for that. I don't exercise that much and don't care about measuring my heart-rate anyway. I can feel my heart about to explode out of my chest when I play hockey, which is a good enough indicator that I'm getting some exercise.Battery life is awesome. I'm currently on my third day since its last charge, and other than the weird drain issue I first wrote about, the watch has been solid. I do currently have wifi off, as well as location, since I usually have my cell phone nearby; the watch gets that info from the phone. Knowing I can turn either of those on, if I needed to, is nice. I also have my watch face set to only turn on when I move my wrist or push a button. I've read that keeping the display always-on would reduce battery quite a bit. Good thing I'm not always looking at the watch face.Bonus features!Samsung Pay. I never used Android pay (NFC) for purchases. I was sort of waiting until it was more ubiquitous and expected, as opposed to everyone looking at you like 'one of those types'. That's just my own insecurity though. But with this watch, I just press a button, select a card, and then hold the watch near the card-paying-thingie (NFC terminal) at the store. That's great and all, but what's really super great is that it doesn't have to be an NFC terminal. As long as it's got the magnetic strip, this watch will work! I tried it at a local liquor store and the woman said, "this device is really old and doesn't have that fancy technology." I replied, "this watch is magic, check this out!". We were both pretty impressed.Another feature I really like is how you can reply to messages. There is an old phone style keyboard, with 2-3 letter per number, which is just terrible. There is the ability to speak into the watch, which I don't use because nothing comes close to Google's speech recognition, in my option. And the other option is to draw the letters on the screen. I wasn't sure how well that would work; it works great! Just draw each letter, quickly, if you want, with an underscore for a 'space', and then send. Love it.Finally, Dick Tracy, you can answer phone calls through your watch. Just speak into it. I haven't really used this, and figure I will never use it unless I'm tied to a shark, which is tied to a missile, or maybe if I'm driving (I don't have Bluetooth in my car). But it's cool.Anyway, this is a good watch.