Talk to the watch: Samsung Gear S2 Classic 3G lands in the UK

Samsung Gear S2 Classic

Samsung makes some of the best smartwatches around, in fact the Samsung Gear S2 is currently sitting at the top of our best smartwatch list and if you live in the UK you can now get a wearable that has the potential to be even better.

The Samsung Gear S2 Classic 3G has just launched exclusively on O2, as the UK's first smartwatch with an embedded SIM (aka an e-SIM).

Having a SIM card means it can be used independently from a phone and being a GSMA compliant e-SIM means it can electronically decide which network to connect to, with a choice of over 40 networks worldwide.

The world is your oyster

That means users can theoretically choose and change their network without changing SIM card, as well as allowing a single device to fully work in more worldwide markets.

Of course much of that flexibility will initially be lost if you buy it on an O2 contract (which starts at £22 per month plus £9.99 upfront for 100MB of data, 100 minutes and unlimited texts).

Other than an innovative SIM card and an awful name the Samsung Gear S2 Classic 3G is basically the same as the Gear S2 Classic, which itself is a version of the Samsung Gear S2 with a classier design.

It runs Tizen OS, has a 1.2-inch 360 x 360 screen, 1-2 days of battery life, a 1GHz dual-core processor, 512MB of RAM and built in GPS. In other words it's easily a match for most other smartwatches on paper and one day it may also be fully compatible with iOS devices, but for now you need a smartphone running Android 4.4 or higher.

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.