[Samsung Gear S3] Ahowe125:
Hello S3 Forums, Just wanted to say hello and share my store about how I became an S3 Frontier owner. (sorry, it got kind of long and wordy, lol)

I got my first "smart watch" when I came across the OG Pebble and had the wife buy it as a Christmas gift one year. From that day I synced it until now, I have not missed a day with my tech wearables. I eventually Kickstarter backed the Pebble Time, and loved that one even more. It had just a little more to it, and did everything I wanted from a little wrist tech.

Fast forward to a few days ago when I finally got my hands on a S3. As some or many of you may have heard by now, Pebble is going down in flames and they are selling out to Fitbit. This was the push I needed to start doing research on a suitable replacement for my trusty Pebble Time. I have never used anything but Pebble, so where was I to go? Android Wear? Samsung? Tic Watch (a close 2nd choice) or back to a classic watch?

I watched YouTube after YouTube and finally had my mind just about made up on the S3 Frontier. One problem, It was a week after Black Friday, and dang near every vendor was sold out. I called Best Buy, and they told me that they could order it in and it would be around 4-5 days. So on a Monday I took a trip up to my local Best Buy to check it out in person and hopefully pull the trigger. While one think was for sure, I fell in love with the size and design of the S3 way more then the S2 or any other watches on display.

Then the crazy story about how I ended up with my watch. I was told by 2 different Best Buy associates that, "yes, we can still get you one in 4-5 days" and So when I made up my mind, the guy said, its on order and should be here by Friday (12/16/16). So we proceeded with the transaction, and I bought the Bluetooth only version for $299.99. The next few days seemed to take forever and once Thursday night came, I couldn't take it anymore. I decided I would call and check on the status of my order just to make sure it was going to be here on Friday. Well.. that's when my heart sank. The customer service agent on the phone, couldn't find my order and didn't see where anyone had ever placed the order. He managed to find my sales receipt, but said there was no order associated with it. Thankfully he listened to the situation and with some on hold time, had the Manager at the store verify my story and was going to get back to me on Friday to let me know what they could do. Thankfully the store's inventory was now showing negative 1 on hand after my sale. They said it was a glitch in their system, and that the watch was basically sold out and not available.

Once I got that call, my option was to basically take a refund, and then once they got some more in, I could come back and buy it then. But all I wanted was to buy this thing! Even Samsung direct website said that it was going to be January before any other watches shipped out. So.. I decided to try and talk them into letting me exchange my pre-ordered Bluetooth model in for the ATT LTE model that I knew they had on the shelf. After some deliberation between sales managers, they decided to let me exchange it, plus $25. Because the Bluetooth was on sale for $299.99, but the outright ATT was still $349.99. I am on Verizon, so I had no use for the LTE, but I still just wanted the watch, lol. But to my surprise for all the headache and hassle, the Mobile manager decided to just exchange them straight up and apologized for the mistake. I love it when customer service based business comes to the plate for customers. Huge kudos to my local Best Buy for making it right for me.

Not going to get into the issue of getting the correct apps installed on my custom ROM HTC 10. But after a night of reflashing a stock based ROM and getting the apps done, its finally working! Even Samsung Pay which is so damn cool on my wrist. I'm excited to be a part of the Samsung S3 family and can't wait to see how much better it gets as more and more join in. I think the S3 is going to get a lot more customers as its out longer. I know I love it and don't think I'll find a replacement soon.

So there we go, sorry it got so long, but I'm just so excited about my new tech and thought my story was crazy enough to share.

Attached is a neat picture of my last 5 watches. Pretty cool to see the progression of wearables. Left to right: favorite black Fossil, favorite stainless Fossil, Original Pebble smart watch, 2nd generation Pebble time smartwatch, and the newest beast, the Samsung Gear S3 Frontier.