14 DAY TRIAL // The Samsung Gear S is one atypical smartwatch. Unlike most of the intelligent timepieces on the market today, the Gear S can act as a standalone device, meaning it takes advantage of 3G connectivity so users can place phones calls from it, without a smartphone being involved in the story.
The watch is the first to come out from the Samsung garden with a curved display and is offered with straps of different colors and materials. This sounds like enough to get customers interested, but the problem is the Gear S doesn’t come cheap at all.
Actually, the unit is comparable price-wise with the reputed Apple Watch, which will actually go on sale for the same price-tag of $350 / €281.
The Samsung Gear S is quite popular in South Korea
Well, it appears this hefty price hasn’t scared off customers in Samsung’s own country, South Korea where the device went on sale on November 5.
A few days later, Samsung is reporting that 10,000 units of the Gear S were sold on the first days of launch. The smartwatch was made available to customers six days ago, from carriers like SK Telecom and KT.
It’s quite possible that Samsung has been able to double the numbers in the last week, but we’re not being given a confirmation for this information.
Samsung’s latest smartwatch has also made it into the US and is currently available with all major carriers in the country.
AT&T: $199.99 with a two-year contract and $10 per month on a Mobile Share plan
T-Mobile: $0 outright with 24-payment installment set at $14.58 a month ($349.92 total) or on a standalone plan for $5 per month for unlimited talk and text and 500MB of data.
Sprint: $0 down with 24 payments of $16 per month ($384 total). There’s also a plan pricing of $10 per month on a Family Share Pack.
Verizon: $349.99 outright with no additional payment plan involved.
Samsung Gear S specs roundup
For those who don’t know what the Gear S is all about, here’s a quick memory refresh. The Gear S comes with a 2-inch Super AMOLED display with a dual-core Exynos processor from Samsung’s own garden, fitted with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage.
The watch has a 300mAh battery running things and takes advantage of Tizen OS. It also has built-in Wi-Fi, GPS chips and a SIM card slot that supports 3G networks, heart rate, UV sensors, barometer and a compass.
It can be paired up with a Samsung smartphone running on Android 4.3 or above and supports Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy.
