SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch 3 (45mm, GPS, Bluetooth, Unlocked LTE) Smart Watch with Advanced Health Monitoring, Fitness Tracking, and Long Lasting Battery - Mystic Black (US Version)

I have had several smatch watches. Casio smartwatch 6 years ago, 1 fitbit charge 4, 2 prior iterations of the Samsung Gear Watch, 1 prior was also the LTE version and this is the best so far. Mine is the 45mm LTE version.Pros: Very nice fit and finish, so glad they kept the rotating bezel, this is something that I could simply not live without in such a watch. It is so slick and smooth. I couldn't imagine having to swipe and tap constantly like on other phones. If you only want to use it for step counting, weather apps, etc, then no problem. However, scrolling through hundreds of spotify songs, playlists or other music files would be a real pain in the neck if it weren't for this handy feature. Also, being able to adjust your brightness, volume and other controls using the bezel is SO much easier rather than having to tap to change for every single feature. Trust me, try it, you won't go back!Battery life is surprising long given what this puppy can do. I can get nearly 2 days for everyday app use. HOWEVER, if you are wanting to stream music on 4G LTE or make tons of calls, it will eat the battery much quicker...just saying. However, it can fully charge from 20% battery life in about 45 to 50 minutes. I come in from being out all day, lay it on the wireless docking/charging station and do some stuff at the desk and in <1 hour it is ready to go.The fit, finish and overall quality is outstanding. It is a hefty and VERY solid piece of equipment. Honestly feels like a Rolex on your wrist with regards to its solidity. There is no hollow sound and I am amazed at how the engineers can cram so much tech into this house. It does not feel like a block of wood or lump of stone and is very comfortable. However, if you are used to a fitbit versa or charge 4, etc., that is a nearly "barely there" type of accessory on your wrist, well...there will be a different feeling, but it isn't cumbersome.The display is stunning. Even in full sun, it is EASILY readable and is simply a gorgeous display. There is no annoying pixelation. I can generally keep it at 1/2 brightness and it is very bright and clear and my eyesight isn't the best (auto bright works very well also).OK, I have to say, I have never used Spotify, I am a youtube music fan myself, but youtube music isn't an app for this watch. However, you can STREAM using wifi or the 4G LTE even when your phone is not around. I don't think you understand how freaking cool this feature is. Most fitbit or other smart watches have music apps where you tether to your phone via bluetooth and the watch is more of a remote control. Or, you can download so many files which is also a pain. Nope....I can wirelessly stream while I am on a walk or jog anything on spotify. The easiest thing is to go online via your phone or laptop and setup your playlists. You CAN also download these playlists if you don't want to stream. I mean, WOW, slap in 2 wireless BT earbuds, turn your main phone off and go for a job or walk, listen to what you want. If you didn't download the right playlist or haven't set one up, just scroll through the ones they already have for nearly every genre of music and go with it.The built-in speaker is surprisingly good, obvious if you are looking for Bang & Olufsen sound, good luck in ANY smart watch or phone. However, it is relatively loud and would be obnoxious if at max volume with people around.The Samsung Health app is actually pretty good. The step counter and distance measuring is MUCH more accurate than on my brand new fitbit charge 4. I sent the charge 4 back, it would count 1000+ steps while I was driving due to wrist movement, drove me nuts.The single lead ECG (EKG), SpO2, stress meter, etc. is really good for the most part. I personally think that Fitbit has the slickest app on the phone which gives you a clearer picture of your health. But, Samsung Health works well for the most part. The actual health monitors on the phone aren't buggy and I have had no difficulties getting it to take measurements consistently.On a side note...I was told this would take blood pressure. Well, apparently the firmware if you live in Korea has this function. I hope that it come soon, that would be honestly the bees knees to have this function. This would TRULY give the Gear 3 an advantage over every other smart watch out there. I mean good grief, ECG, O2 sats, blood pressure, heart rate. Who would have EVER though this was possible on a watch even 5-10 years ago.Cons:OK, I am sorry to say, but they may have 1000+ apps for the watch, most are mediocre at best. For such a dang good watch whose general type has been out for years (ie., frontier, gear, etc) you would think they could put out decent stuff. They are so freaking limited with the Tizen chipset. I wish they were more android based, I think samsung could sell a crap ton more of these puppies if they simply changed to android.They watch faces are cool and all but just a few google apps would be so dang handy. Good luck trying to find a good assistant (Bixby is garbage for the most part), google maps or ANY good GPS app or music services such as youtube music or similar isn't available.Samsung could literally destroy the smart watch market if they had an android system that gave OFFICIAL youtube music, youtube (modify it for smart watch compatibility, etc), google maps, along with their existing tech.Phew! OK, that is my take on it. The reason I am not giving it 5 stars is mainly due to the lack of good and honestly necessary apps. A longer battery life say 2 to 3 days would be fantastic, but its current configuration isn't frustrating. I don't feel battery anxiety like the apple watch (going off others' experiences, not my own, never had one, sure that they are great watches too). However, overall after wearing this out for the past several days streaming music (still probably one of my favorite features), making calls, sending texts and responding to emails, etc., it is just about as good as it gets for the $369 that it cost me. Spring for the 2 to 3 year replacement plan too. I mean good grief, it is only like 10% of your purchase price. These are expensive and complex things to fix and one good smack against the wrong type of surface and well...scratched up paper weight.

Notice: I am a software tech and understand how computer equipment works. Not everyone will have the same experience as me! I had read a lot of reviews about how they couldn't get it to work or connect to ATT. Yes, the Watch3 is fairly new and not everyone at ATT probably knows everything about it. But I hope that my review will help those people because I found that with ATT, a Samsung watch is different than any other smart watch.I like to try and do things myself rather than call someone to set up things like this watch. So I went to the ATT website and logged into my account. The first thing I was told by ATT when I was investigating the watch was that the watch DOES have it's own phone number. So I knew that I need to click on the link to Add A New Phone Number to my account. The next question was if I was going to purchase the equipment from ATT or bring my own. I selected to Bring My Own.Now here is where you have to be careful and fully read the instructions. Natural thinking would be to fill in the form that asks for the IMEI number of the watch and the SIM number. Problem is, you don't have a SIM number. If you read the instructions, for a Samsung watch, you need to purchase an eSIM activation number so you have to tell it that you are adding a Wearable and the click the link to get an eSIM Card and add it to your cart. Depending on the specials on that day, you could get it free or pay fees. Once you purchase this card, you will have to wait for it to arrive. Or you can be like me and call customer service and ask for the eSIM number right away.When I called ATT they saw that I had ordered and paid for the card and so they got the card number and with my IMEI number, they set up their system for the new cell phone number. You will not get an actual phone number because the watch will clone the cell phone number when you connect the two. The agent then texted a photo of the QR code for me to scan into the app when it asked for it. I printed the photo or you can email it to your desktop email to use it from the screen.Now you should have downloaded the Wearable app from the Samsung Store and started it. The app will turn on the Bluetooth and see the watch and connect it. It will then will ask you to scan the QR code or enter the activation code number. After doing that, I had to go to the menu option Mobile Plans and run the function to NumberSync your watch to the phone. Once you do this, your watch should be connected to the cellular network ONLY when it can not connect to your cell phone via bluetooth or via the same wifi network that they are both on at the same time.After that, everything worked right away. I had to answer permissions for every app that I started on the watch for the first time and sometime in the phone. It can be annoying but is a necessary evil. Understand that text will work when connect to the phone or not but email you can only read when it is connected to the phone. Same with a few of the health apps and other things. But overall, it has been great. If you have Samsung Pay on your phone, it will sync with the one on your watch.There are practically a thousand different watchfaces that your can get or purchase in the store for cheap. I found that the ones that you purchase work better and have more configuration than the free ones. There are Navigation apps and even Radar maps for the weather that work great.I even downloaded an app called Nearby Places that will tell me what businesses or government offices are near me. Just tap, select the category you are looking for and then search. Once you find what you want, double-tap and a map with the route will show up with options to get directions as well.For the most part, I can leave my phone at home for most of what I need to do if I don't need to worry about getting emails. But the biggest reason for purchasing this watch was because it has an SOS option where if I fall or if I click three times on the home button, it will text my neighbors and family as well as call 911 so that I can ask for emergency services. I have tested it with my son and hope to test it with 911 soon... once I know that the odds are accidentally triggering a false alarm is minimal.