Samsung Gear S3 Frontier, Classic Launched In South Korea, US Launch on Nov. 18

Samsung Electronics on Friday announced the launch of the Gear S3 Frontier and Classic versions for the South Korean market. The device will have a global rollout on Nov. 18. While both the versions are designed to look like regular watches, the Frontier model espouses a more modern design, while the Classic has the traditional watch design.

“A significant addition to our smartwatch portfolio, we drew inspiration from classic watch manufacturers to offer consumers a premium timepiece,” said Younghee Lee, executive vice president, global marketing and wearable business, mobile communications business, Samsung Electronics.

In terms of specs, both watches are pretty much the same, except that the Gear S3 Frontier comes with Bluetooth LTE and 3G support. The common features include:

• 1.3-inch circular AMOLED display with 360x360p resolution and 278ppi display density
• Always On feature to keep the voice awake — instead of fading to black, it will keep showing a traditional watch face
• Corning Gorilla Glass SR
• 4GB Internal memory, 768MB RAM
• Accelerometer, Gyro, Barometer, HRM, Ambient light
• Wireless charging
• IP68 water & dust resistance — Samsung claims that the watch has "military-grade durability"
• 380 mAh Battery with up to 4 days of standby time on a single charge
• Built-in GPS, S Health, barometer and speedometer apps to track daily activity and outside conditions, such as altitude, atmospheric pressure, weather
• Samsung Pay compatibility — the Gear S3 is the first wearable with MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) which will let customers swipe their debit or credit cards on their smartwatches to make digital payments. The service will be available at launch in the U.S., Australia and Singapore
• Wi-Fi based features: Ability to receive texts, emails and alerts even if the phone is around if both the devices are connected on the same network.

The Gear S3 Frontier will get LTE support in the U.S. South Korea and select countries. Samsung' official announcement states that the company will roll out the changeable watch band promotions globally.