Samsung Great S2 Round Smartwatch Goes on Sale Friday

We’ve written before about the round Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch. The company announced today that the watch will go on sale October 2, but it may be a little hard to find. Although you’ll be able to get it at Samsung’s own site and Amazon, if you want to get hands on at launch, you’ll have to make the a pilgrimage to your local Best Buy or to Macy’s main store in Herald Square, New York City.

The Gear S2 is remarkable for several reasons. First of all, it runs the open-source Tizen operating system, not Android Wear and certainly not iOS. The watch has a round face, unusual (although increasingly common) for smartwatches. And, unlike previous Samsung connected watches, the Gear S2 will connect to most phones running Android, not just Samsung’s own phones.

The watch will cost $300 or $350 depending on trim and finish. A version that uses a SIM, connects directly to 3G networks and doesn’t require phone tethering will launch this fall, Samsung said. Pricing for that version was not announced.