After going up for pre-sale at JB HiFi last night, Samsung Australia has today opened up pre-orders from their Australian website – though you won’t get a $50 JB Gift Card from Samsung.
Samsung Australia is offering the full range of Galaxy Watches in both 42mm and 46mm sizes, and various colours as well as both Bluetooth and Cellular models. Pricing starts at $499 for the 42mm sized Bluetooth model available in Rose Gold or Midnight Black, and goes right up to $649 for the 46mm sized Cellular model in Silver.
The Cellular models are only able to be used on the Telstra network – as confirmed by Samsung this morning, however Telstra and Samsung have yet to announce any pricing or plans for the watches.
The watches are officially available as of the 4th of October, and Samsung advises they will begin shipping the watches out on the 3rd of October – so you’d better hope the mail isn’t delayed.
To check out the range you can head over to the Samsung Australia website to put your pre-order in.
If you pre-register the watch via Samsung, you receive a voucher code to redeem a wireless charging pad that will charge both a phone and the galaxy watch when you pre-order before 3rd October.
I’m thinking about a Galaxy Watch, but there’s some cheaper pricing on the Gear Sport. Should I buy the Gear Sport or wait for the Galaxy Watch?
Gear sport is basically a Gear S3, and that’s two years old now. I’d probably go the newer one… Gear Sport is an alright watch but nothing remarkable
I’m assuming these watches are not Android or Wear OS, but instead Samsung’s version of Tizen OS. That would mean no Google Assistant. Instead, you get Samsung’s Bixby. Because watches have no keyboard for input, and very little screen for output, you have to rely more on the Digital Assistant. Think about this before you buy. The Samsung watch is probably OK, as long as you like Bixby.
Have to agree, I find Tizen much more enjoyable on my wrist. Wear OS lost the plot with the v2.0 update. With rumours Google might undo some of the more stupid changes made I’m interested, but today, I have to agree with comments elsewhere. The best smartwatch around is Apple Watch, and for Android users, Samsung’s Galaxy Watch.
Except that the Tizen watches do have keyboards. My Gear S3 can do the old style ITU-T keypad as well as an excellent handwriting recognition mode.