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The Samsung Smartwatch Review: Samsung Galaxy Watch

How does the latest Samsung Smartwatch compare to the ones in the market?

The Samsung Galaxy Watch is finally here. The Samsung smartwatch was announced with the latest Note 9 smartphone at the Galaxy Unpacked 2018. This 42mm Rose Gold model is as stylish as they come. Name-wise, Samsung no longer names its watch along with the ‘Gear S’ series. Instead of simply upgrading the specs and releasing a new watch, the company has redesigned pretty much all aspects of the smartwatch, making it more usable, functional, and chic.

While it looks like your regular watch, it is packed with cool smart features. This combination is what is likely to attract customers. While the Apple Watch has far too much experience for Samsung to consider it a competition, maybe the company hopes to catch up someday. The Galaxy Watch is available in two sizes – 42mm or 46mm. You will be able to choose from Midnight Black, Rose Gold, and Silver. Instead of a funky smartwatch, it looks and feels like your regular watch, but has all the features and functions of a reliable smartwatch.

Design And Hardware

With a large circular face and a metal body, the watch is pretty attractive. However, if you like the design of Apple Watch, you may feel this is a bit more traditional in its design. If you want your battery to last long, you could turn off the Always-on display. With this, your Galaxy Watch display will turn into a black circle. Again, although nobody right now can compete with Apple regarding the quality of build, Samsung has done a pretty great job.

Samsung Galaxy Watch
Samsung Galaxy Watch

While its aesthetics could be improved since it feels a little bit cheap as it sits on our wrists, maybe Samsung is just getting started. It doesn’t feel like a stylish piece of accessory – more like a functional piece of technology. Looks and design apart, the Galaxy Watch has tons of features that will win your hearts. It is one of the most user-friendly and functional smartwatches out there. It comes with two buttons and a rotating bezel, using which you can easily navigate around the apps, menus, and the general UI.

The bezel clicks as you rotate it, making it tactile and satisfying. The 42mm model comes with a 1.2-inch display while the 46mm Galaxy Watch has a larger 1.3-inch screen. The dimensions of the former are 41.9 x 45.7 x 12.7mm. It is perfect for use with 20mm straps. The larger model features the 472mAh which is a significant jump up from the 270mAh battery present in the 42mm model. The battery life of the watch is good enough with being able to last any time between four to five days.

Features 

The Samsung Galaxy Watch uses Tizen 4.0 OS. You will find that it is compatible with all phones running on Android 5.0 and later. It also works well with iPhone running iOS 9 and above. Its interface is extremely tactile, intuitive, and simple. It is so far ahead that it simply cannot even be compared with the likes of Wear OS and watchOS. Coming to Tizen’s drawbacks, it has very little third-party support. This means that you will be restricted to using only Samsung apps.

Samsung Galaxy Watch Display
Samsung Galaxy Watch Display

Coming to Bixby, the Galaxy Watch features Samsung’s AI voice assistant. It is designed to replace S Voice on the new Galaxy Watch. Practically speaking, Bixby doesn’t add any actual value and is pretty much useless. Google Assistant would have been a better addition to the watch and offered the users a much nicer experience.

Samsung Health

Samsung has made health a major focus of its latest smartwatch. They have integrated Samsung Health here, which has new features like stress management and breathing along with a range of 21 indoor exercises and 39 tracked workouts. Some of them include running, walking, cycling, swimming, exercise bike, treadmill, weight machine, crunches, deadlifts, hiking, leg press, and other commonly used gym equipment.

It is an easy enough task to jump between the different tracking modes. All you need to do is to rotate the bezel of your Galaxy Watch. While the smartwatch is great enough for tracking a casual user’s activities and progress, it is by no means a reliable replacement for Garmin or Suunto. Besides your exercises, the watch will be able to measure your stress, give you a stress score, and even track your sleep. The stress score generally automatically calculates. While the watch offers sleep tracking, it is not a viable option since the watch seems a bit too bulky to sleep with.

Samsung Galaxy Watch Review
Samsung Galaxy Watch Review

Samsung Smartwatch And 4G

The latest version of the Samsung smartwatch features 4G. The features change geographically, from country to country. Looking at the UK, the Galaxy Watch 4G is exclusively compatible with EE mobile contracts. The watch is designed to fit in an eSIM which you can use to pair the watch to your device. Once done, you can link it to your plan. In certain plans, you can use unlimited data, make calls, and send texts from the watch itself. The cellular function works perfectly and gives no cause of concern. You can comfortably use your watch even if you are away from your phone or a Wi-Fi network. The watch has two versions – Bluetooth and LTE/4G – both of which feature a dual-core 1.15GHz chipset and 4GB of internal storage space. The LTE/4G has 1.5GB RAM while the Bluetooth version of the smartwatch only has 768MB.

Verdict

Considering Samsung’s offering to this sector, we agree that the Samsung Galaxy Watch is one of the best ones the company has even developed. While its aesthetics could be improved, it is functional and features a lot of abilities. Its new fitness tracking capabilities, data usage, and other details make it a great option to consider. With the Galaxy Watch running on Tizen, offering a reasonably great battery life, and available in multiple colours, the smartwatch is a great upgrade from its predecessor. The different sizes and colours will do their bit in attracting the customers too.

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Shilpa

With an experience of over 7 years in writing and translations, I combine my love of technology with writing. I love checking out new apps and smart electronics on the market, trying them out, and of course, writing about them!

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