Samsung Galaxy Watch review

Smart Android And Trik-Commenting on Andorid indeed never endless, because smart devices this one is often updated every certain amount of time. So that the market can always be garapnya menerinya with pleasure. And it is not denied if this device has become the lifestyle of each society. To not wonder if the 6th business information and many are turning to mobail smartphone. With Android which thoroughly dominated the mobile industry, choosing the best Android smartphone is almost identical to choose the best smartphone, period. But while Android phones have few real opponents on other platforms, internal competition is intense.

From the sleek devices impress with the design premium, up to a full plant furniture features, to a very good device, and affordable mobile phone has a heavy weight, the Android ecosystem inhabited by a diverse range of attractive mobile phone Samsung Galaxy Watch review Samsung Galaxy Watch review,But "oversize" are subjective, and sometimes pieces of the specification and a list of features is not enough to get an idea of how good a phone. In this roundup, we look at the absolute best-the Android phone you can't go wrong with. The habits of young people or to accentuate trand blindly lifestyle, make this a medoroang this clever device industry vying to do modifications to the device, with a distinctly vitur vitur-tercanggihnya. So it can be received over the counter Samsung Galaxy Watch review

Introduction

Smart watches - lambasted by many and dismissed as a fad. Even believers are holding off from investing due to poor battery life. So does the new Galaxy Watch provide the answer to address the critics?

With its new Galaxy Watch, Samsung has combined design cues and durability from its Gear S3 and Gear Sport smartwatches while appealing to an even wider audience by making it available in two sizes and three colors.

The Galaxy Watch is embodied with new health, fitness and smartwatch capabilities courtesy of Tizen 4.0, optional LTE and a new HRM module, oh - and we mustn't forget Bixby makes its appearance for the first time on your wrist.

Is this enough to make the new Galaxy Watch Samsung's most appealing smartwatch offering yet?

Samsung Galaxy Watch (46mm) model-specific specs:

  • Case: Stainless steel - Silver with black bezel
  • Display: 1.3" (33mm) Circular Full Color Super AMOLED (360 x 360), Always On Display option, Corning Gorilla Glass DX+
  • Battery: 472 mAh, WPC based wireless charging
  • Dimensions: 46 x 49 x 13 mm
  • Wight: 63 g (without strap)
  • Strap: 22 mm (Interchangeable)

Samsung Galaxy Watch (42mm) model-specific specs:

  • Case: Stainless steel - Midnight Black with black bezel / Rose Gold with Rose Gold bezel
  • Display: 1.2" (30 mm), Circular Full Color Super AMOLED (360 x 360), Always On Display option, Corning Gorilla Glass DX+
  • Battery: 270 mAh, WPC based wireless charging
  • Dimensions: 41.9 x 45.7 x 12.7 mm
  • Wight: 49 g (without strap)
  • Strap: 20 mm (Interchangeable)

Samsung Galaxy Watch shared specs:

  • Durability: Water Resistant (5ATM / 50 meters), IP68, MIL-STD-810G Certified
  • OS: Tizen Based Wearable OS 4.0
  • Chipset: Exynos 9110 Dual core 1.15GHz CPU
  • Storage: 4GB Internal Memory
  • Memory: LTE - 1.5GB RAM / Bluetooth - 768MB RAM
  • Connectivity: 3G/LTE, Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi b/g/n, NFC, A-GPS/Glonass
  • Sensors: Accelerometer, Gyro, Barometer, new HRM, Ambient Light
  • Misc: Bixby, Microphone, vibration, speaker
  • Compatibility: Samsung, other Android: Android 5.0 or higher, iPhone: iPhone 5 and above, iOS 9.0 or above

To appeal to a broader audience, Samsung broke its dependence on Android last year by making its Gear and Health apps available for iOS, but do you sacrifice too much by not owning a Samsung or even Android phone?

We thought we'd take the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, and clutching our trusty iPhone, we strapped the 46mm Silver Samsung Galaxy Watch to our wrist for a week of work and play to find out.

Unboxing

Our 46mm Galaxy Watch was an early review unit so it came bubble wrapped along with its now familiar charging dock. Interestingly, the charging dark was labeled 'Gear S4', probably a cunning move by Samsung to keep the Galaxy Watch name under wraps for as long as possible before it leaked.

Production packaging will contain the Galaxy Watch, Charging Dock, Travel Adapter and QSG (Quick Setting Guide).

Both the 46mm and 42mm Galaxy watches come with two strap sizes. The default silicon strap is best described as functional but ideally suited for fitness-related activities. The silicon straps are differentiated from Samsung's other Gear offerings by incorporating grooves that run parallel to the strap as opposed to diagonally.

Galaxy Watch (left), Gear S3 Frontier (middle) and Gear Sport (right)

The interior of the strap is concave and provides the right amount of stretch to get a comfortable fit. At no point did we find that the strap caused unnecessary sweating against the wrist.

The included dock charges the Galaxy Watch wirelessly while magnetically affixing the watch itself in a landscape orientation making for a convenient bedside clock. The charging LED comes through as obtrusively bright for this sort of use case though.

It still irks that the dock utilizes micro-USB and not USB-C - come on Samsung. During its 'Unpacked' event, Samsung also announced the Wireless Charger Duo which can charge both your Samsung phone and your Samsung Galaxy Watch simultaneously. Additionally, the recently introduced Wireless Charger Pad 2018 should also be capable of charging the Galaxy Watch.

Design

The Galaxy Watch is available in two sizes providing attractive options for those with big and small wrists.

The larger 46mm variant with its 1.3" display is only available in Silver currently (the color of our review unit).

alt tag Silver 46mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Silver 46mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Silver 46mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Silver 46mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Silver 46mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag
Silver 46mm Galaxy Watch

While the 42mm variant with its 1.2" display is available in Midnight Black or Rose Gold.

alt tag Midnight Black 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Midnight Black 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Midnight Black 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Midnight Black 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Midnight Black 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag
Midnight Black 42mm Galaxy Watch

alt tag Rose Gold 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Rose Gold 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Rose Gold 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Rose Gold 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag Rose Gold 42mm Galaxy Watch - alt tag
Rose Gold 42mm Galaxy Watch

The main watch body is machined from 316L corrosion resistant stainless steel and polished to a high sheen, and its 5 ATM/IP68 waterproofing and MIL-STD-810G accreditation ensures that the Galaxy Watch can accompany us on the majority of our adventures.

The Super AMOLED touch-enabled display is protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass DX+, which according to Corning provides superior scratch resistance approaching that of alternative luxury cover materials. Navigation is assisted by Samsung's ubiquitous Rotating Bezel which as always is a joy to use, providing an unobstructed view of the screen at all times as you navigate through the features of the Galaxy Watch.

The two watch buttons performing the Home and Back functions are made from the same surgical grade stainless steel with black rubberized inserts for extra 'grippiness'.

While the overall design is informed by the Gear S3 Frontier, the bezel has significantly more and shallower teeth than those of the Gear S3 Frontier. Visually, this results in a smoother, less rugged design and a more sophisticated appearance.

The Silver 46mm model comes with a black bezel, subjectively we're not fans of the resulting two-tone effect. We'd much sooner see a silver bezel paired with the Silver case. Conversely, the 42mm models have bezels that better match their case colors for a more coherent look.

We're not able to categorically determine the material the bezel is made out of, on closer inspection though, if we had to make an educated guess, it appears to be some form of composite. This would not only save weight but facilitates easier color matching. This could explain why Samsung didn't provide a silver bezel as it would appear Matt and therefore couldn't match the polished stainless steel of the Silver case.

Turning the Galaxy Watch over and we see the Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) sensor inset within the black composite rear case cover.

Controls & Navigation

Nothing much has changed in the way that you interact with Galaxy Watch compared to Samsung's previous offerings but in summary:

You interact with the Galaxy Watch through the rotating bezel, the touchscreen, and the physical Home & Back buttons. You can also use Bixby, more of that later.

Older Samsung Gear watches packing the older Tizen 3 had an annoying quirk. In that, the screen timing-out took you back to the watch face when next woken - annoying if you were halfway through something and got interrupted. Increasing the screen time-out time-resolved this but impacted battery life.

With the Galaxy Watch packing Tizen 4.0, this has been resolved. A new 'Show Last App' setting allows you to specify how long an app remains available to be returned to after the screen has timed out.

With its combination of touch screen and rotating bezel, and Tizen's 4.0's UI, the Galaxy Watch is a joy to use.

Hardware

Both sizes of the Galaxy Watch pack Samsung's Super AMOLED displays with a resolution of 360x360. The 46mm Galaxy Watch's screen size is 1.3" resulting in 282 DPI, while the 42mm variant has a physically smaller screen at 1.2" but with a higher pixel density of 302 DPI.

Display quality and color rendition is up to Samsung's usual standards with content looking simply fantastic while the light sensor is used accordingly to deliver a display that we could view in all lighting conditions.

The other notable difference resulting from the physically smaller 42mm Galaxy Watch, as expected, is that it has a reduced battery capacity of 270mAh as opposed to the larger Galaxy Watch's 472mAh. Samsung quote up to 7 days battery life on the Galaxy Watch 46mm model, and up to 4 days on the 42mm model based on light usage. We'll cover this in more detail later.

42mm Rose Gold (left), 46mm Silver (middle) and 42mm Midnight Black (right)

All variants of the Galaxy watch use Samsung's new Exynos 9110 Dual core SoC running at 1.15GHz. This more efficient 10nm SoC was developed specifically for smartwatches and should liberate extra battery life when compared to the 14nm Exynos 7270 SoC that powers the Gear S3 and Gear Sport.

The new 9110 SoC appears to be up to snuff, during our time with the Galaxy Watch, the UI remained smooth at all times and we experienced no slowdowns or other performance related issues with apps.

While the new processor is a welcome improvement, the jury's out on Samsung's decision to stick with only 4GB of storage for apps and media. Out of the box (or bubble wrap in our case) following the installation of the Spotify app, transferring over our 52MB 10 track test album (encoded at 160 kbps) and having taken a few screenshots, we were left with 1.43GB free. We envisage that media or app heavy users could struggle.

768MB of RAM keeps things ticking along, while if you spring for the LTE variant RAM is doubled to 1.5GB. The higher memory capacity of the LTE model may lead to better overall performance, but we're unable to verify that.

In addition to the new heart rate sensor, the Galaxy Watch's fitness capabilities are bolstered by the usual suspects that include an accelerometer, barometer and gyro sensor.

Connectivity is handled by Bluetooth v4.2 to pair to your smartphone and wireless earphones. Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n 2.4Ghz allows the Galaxy Watch to connect to your wireless networks. With the 3G/LTE variants with their embedded eSIM break your dependence on your smartphone entirely.

Samsung Pay support comes courtesy of NFC as Samsung appears to be abandoning the MST functionality which allowed it to emulate any of your cards that are secured only by a magnetic strip. It's worth noting that unless you have a Samsung Pay supported smartphone, you can't set up and use Samsung Pay on the Galaxy Watch.

Location tracking is provided courtesy of the on-board GPS/GLONASS.

Revised HRM

Samsung hasn't made any particular claims regarding the HRM but the sensor looks to be an all-new module specifically for the Galaxy Watch.

Virtually every smartwatch packing a heart rate monitor uses Photoplethysmography. Blood is red because it reflects red light and absorbs green light. Therefore, by using green flashing LEDs, paired with photodiodes that measure the amount of light absorbed, our smartwatches are able to detect the amount of blood flowing through the wrist.

The new sensor on the Galaxy Watch combines a single green LED with 4 photodiodes, whereas the Gear S3 and Gear Sport combine 2 green LED's with 1 photodiode. For comparison, our Garmin Fenix 5 uses 3 green LED's combined with 1 larger photodiode, while the Apple Watch employs a pair of green LED's with a pair of photodiodes.

During our Samsung Gear Sport review, our comparative tests of the HRM were quite damning. So we're excited to determine if this new arrangement makes a tangible difference, more on that later.

The Galaxy Watch will sample your heart rate continuously throughout the day with the sample rate being configurable between Always (this will impact battery life), Frequent (every 10 minutes) & Never.

The fitment of the HR sensor on the Galaxy Watch stands proud of the rear case by 1mm. We're fans of this approach for HRM's as it ensures the sensor gets better contact with the skin for improved accuracy whilst not feeling noticeable during everyday wear.

Battery Life

The lights are kept on with a 472 mAh battery in our 46mm Galaxy Watch, the largest battery Samsung has ever put in a smartwatch. While the smaller 42mm Galaxy Watch's battery has only 57% of the capacity of the larger 46mm variant with its 270mAh battery.

Leaving the charging dock at the office - a risky move we know, we strapped the Galaxy Watch to our wrist and left for a long weekend during which we'd undertake our usual week-end routine, including a smattering of our usual sports - nothing more, nothing less. Consciously, we'd avoid using the watch for curiosities sake and to show it off to our friends and family to best represent our real world usage.

A few points worth mentioning though:

We left the Bixby voice command active, always listening for 'Hi Bixby'.

Our intrigue regarding the new HRM module and stress tracking ensured that we set 'Auto HR setting' and 'Auto stress setting' to 'Always' to get the most accurate readings throughout the day and night. This would for sure increase our battery usage, a hit we were willing to take for the added insights.

We added both the 'office' and 'home' Wi-Fi networks to the watch and set Wi-Fi to 'Auto' within settings. The only other settings we tweaked were in relation to the display settings:

  • Brightness = 50%
  • Auto low brightness = on
  • Screen timeout = 15 secs
  • Standard 'Frontier' watch face selected
  • Battery management was set to 'Default'

With a 100% charge, the Galaxy watch estimated a battery life of 2d 13h 32m. 'Power saving' would yield 7 d 3h 6m at the expense of a grey-scale Home screen, turning off all functions except calls, messages, notifications, turning off Wi-Fi and limiting performance. While the 'Watch only' mode would liberate 41d 21h 15m worth of usage for us if we so chose.

During the test, as we were still away from the office when the watch hit 11% we enabled the 'power saving mode' to avoid any battery life anxiety. This 'power saving mode' eked out an additional 12 hours of life.

Despite the not so scientific nature of this test, the Samsung Galaxy Watch lasted an impressive 4 days 5 hours and 30 minutes before it died, and don't forget that was with 24x7 heart rate and stress monitoring active.

Samsung Galaxy Watch battery usage chart
Samsung Galaxy Watch battery usage chart - select for larger view

'Plopping' the Galaxy Watch onto the supplied 5v dock resulted in a fully charged battery in 2 hours and 51 minutes.

Samsung have confirmed to us that the Galaxy Watch conforms fully to the QI Wireless charging standard. At no point though could we get it to charge on any of our wireless pads other than the supplied Samsung Dock and the new Samsung Wireless Charger Duo announced at the same time as the Galaxy Watch. This is likely a result of the shape of the rear of the Galaxy Watch - not a deal breaker but don't go thinking that you can utilize the random charging pads you already have sitting around your home/office.

Theoretically, if we use our real-world test above as a baseline, and we make the assumption that the display of the 42mm Galaxy Watch draws the same power - the smaller Galaxy Watch would have lasted circa 2 days and 4 hours owing to its smaller battery capacity.

Additional battery tests

Our 1-hour Music Playback test using the Samsung Music app and to playback local content, connected to our Dr Dre BeatX headphones at full volume depleted the battery by 8%.

Our 1-hour GPS test depleted the battery by 4%.

This means, potentially, that you could track your marathon while listening to music and still have juice to spare at the finish line.

readability="292.27181516937">

Tizen 4.0

Contrary to recent rumors that we could see Google's Wear OS make an appearance, the Galaxy Watch continues to use Tizen as its Operating System of choice now in its fourth iteration.

We're not going to cover old ground here as we've previously covered Tizen in our past reviews of the Gear S3 and Sport. What follows is a summary of the new features that we've discovered during our time testing the Galaxy Watch.

Watch faces - certain default watch faces now go the extra mile to further reinforce the feel of a real watch. The usual 3D effects are now supplemented by utilizing the on-board Gyro to provide real-time lighting effects that change when you move your wrist. Hold the Galaxy Watch up to your ear and you can even hear a ticking sound. While not exactly life-changing features, they're a nice touch nonetheless.

A selection of Galaxy Watch default watch faces - Frontier, Fitness Centric and Rings

Goodnight mode - whose sole aim is to prevent disturbances while you're sleeping. Once activated, all alerts are muted excepted for alarms and system sounds, while 'Watch always on' is deactivated, as is the Wake-up gesture. This option should also prolong battery life.

While you can add Goodnight mode to your quick settings, you have to remember to turn this on and off manually. We'd like a way for this to activate automatically, either based on when your watch detects when you're asleep or using a schedule similar to 'do not disturb.'

Daily assistant - available for Android only, is Samsung's response to Apple's Siri watch face. Your Galaxy watch will now give you a morning briefing including the weather, your upcoming schedule for the day and reminders. While you'll receive another briefing just before bed, based on your sleep patterns, including remaining reminders and your health information for the day.

My Day watch face

My Day watch face - displays a summary of your schedule for the next 12 hours around the outside of the watch face with the next appointment in your calendar highlighted. Touching an appointment on the watch face pops up a little more information while rotating the bezel allows you to move between appointments. Finally, touching the pop-up shows you all the details regarding the appointment including notes.

This rapidly became one of our favorite watches faces and worked fine with iOS.

Read notifications aloud - employing text to speech to read out your notifications when connected via Bluetooth headphones. We actually found this useful during workouts when our weight training gloves covered the Galaxy Watch. A unique use case we agree, but useful nonetheless.

Bixby - activated by double pressing the 'home' key, requires either a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection to work with zero on-device capability when you have no connectivity, rendering it brain-dead if you're out running for example. The LTE versions will presumably work without a phone.

When paired with our iPhone, even with a network connection our hit rate was low and we were often told that an error had occurred and to try again later - could this be to the servers not being fully ready? In contrast, when we paired the Galaxy Watch with our Samsung S9+ Bixby behaved as expected, able to start specific workouts and respond to other basic requests. On our Bluetooth Galaxy Watch we experienced about a second delay when using Bixby. If you decide Bixby isn't for you, the double press of the home key can be customized to perform another function.

Show last app - Within Settings>Display, the new 'Show last app' option allows you to specify the time to display a recently used app when the screen re-activated after timing out.

Our only criticism of Tizen isn't a fault of the software itself, but that developer support isn't as high as that of the Apple Watch. Therefore, if apps are essential to you check to see if it's available before taking the plunge.

You can check out our Gear S3 and Gear Sport reviews for additional details on previous iterations of Tizen.

Health & Fitness

We lambasted the Samsung Gear Sport for its Fitness tracking capabilities when we reviewed it last year. If Health and Fitness are a priority you should probably use a more fitness-focused device on your wrist, but has Samsung improved things enough for the majority of people to ensure that you keep the Galaxy Watch on your wrist during your workouts?

They're off to a good start, and in addition to the revised HRM module, Samsung has teamed up with the University of California to enhance the software and its supporting algorithms to interpret better the measurements and fluctuations in the heart rate data captured. This collaboration should also bear fruit downstream later in respects to longer-term health insights to better predict Atrial Fibrillation, Hypertension and Sleep Apnea.

Daily Activity Tracking & Health

The Galaxy Watch tracks your steps, floors, sleep and kcal burned throughout the day. Regarding accuracy, no two trackers are identical, but the measurements we obtained were well in the ball-park, and as such we have no qualms with the results.

With it's excellent battery life, the 46mm Galaxy Watch is more effective at tracking the quality of your sleep, spending more time on your wrist as opposed to the charger overnight. The resulting log includes the 4 stages of sleep - deep, light, rem and awake. Again, in comparison to our test devices the sleep tracked was pretty much spot on.

Stress monitoring is all new. You can set the Galaxy Watch to measure your stress continuously, or you can choose when to measure your stress by selecting the measure option within the stress widget.

Once the Galaxy Watch has a baseline of your stress levels, it will offer up a breathing exercise if it determines that you're stressed. Additionally, you can choose to perform a breathing exercise to help you relax at any time.

Unfortunately, your stress data isn't transferred to the Samsung Health app on your phone if you're running iOS, so don't go looking for your stress levels there. Instead, you have to refer to the watch itself to see your stress history.

Finally, we come to 24x7 heart rate tracking and accuracy. We witnessed no issues with 24x7 HR recording and accuracy during our regular daily routines and sleep.

Sports & Fitness

The Galaxy watch will now automatically detect six types of activities when you exercise for around 10 minutes, covering walking, running, cycling, elliptical trainer, rowing machine and the ambiguously titled Dynamic workout which gives the impression that it will detect vigorous cardio style workouts.

In addition, the number of activities has been increased to 40 covering;

If you select one of the new weight training activities, you're presented with a quick animation on how to perform the exercise while during the exercise the watch will guide you through the motions and count your reps.

Beginners may find these useful, but in practice, you may soon tire of them. During our chest routine, we found that on a number of occasions our reps were not counted and you have no way to manually add the reps or skip the set. Additionally, not all exercise types are covered off in the above list. During our routine, no Chest Flyes are supported - resulting in you using the 'Other workout' routine as a catch-all.

Frustratingly, each exercise is captured as an individual workout resulting in you quickly filling up the Samsung Galaxy Health apps Me panel. A more structured and coherent approach would be to include the individual exercises within a single workout.

A welcome improvement, however, is that you can now go from one exercise to another without having to back out and start a new activity completely. Upon selecting 'FINISH' within your current workout, simply select ' NEXT WORKOUT,' choose an activity type, and you're good to go.

We'd still like to see the facility to string together multiple activities to enable true multi-sport activities, this way we can create our triathlon activity.

Before you start your training you can select a Training target. These are limited; no option to create you own HIT sessions, distance is only available if you're using GPS. Treadmill sessions for example only allow time and kcals as targets.

During workouts, the screens can be lightly customized to display the information that's important to you.

Fitness Testing

We set the bar high when testing the fitness and sports elements of smart watches by using a Garmin Fenix 5 paired with a Polar H10 ECG heart rate monitor, our gold standard for measuring heart rate. Optical heart rate accuracy also varies by individual, usually dependent on hair density, position and fit and the wrist and even skin color.

Our Polar HR10 used for heart rate comparison testing

To recap, with steady state activities a good OHM such as that employed by the Galaxy Watch shouldn't deviate too far from the ECG of our Polar H10. So let's put that to the test with our treadmill test.

Treadmill Run

In our 1.5k treadmill test the Galaxy Watch acquitted itself well pretty much matching the ECG of the Polar H10, a test we recall the Gear Sport didn't pass muster.

Treadmill run
Treadmill run - select for larger view

Outside Run

Moving outside we set off for a 5K run, and again the Galaxy Watch performed admirably not deviating much from our ECG baseline.

We also used the outside run as a GPS test, with circa 50% of the run taking place under the canopy of trees. Firstly, the Galaxy Watch was quick to find a GPS lock ensuring that we could take off for our run without having to wait around.

5K run GPS testing
5K run GPS testing - select for larger view

Overall, the Galaxy Watch was 200 meters behind the Fenix 5 when calculating the running distances. You have no control over the sampling rate of the Samsung Galaxy watch which could account for some corners (literally!) being cut.

The course we ran consisted of two main loops with a smaller loop used to complete the final distance. You can see on the Fenix 5 that the three times the 'main drag' was run down the plots are pretty close together with the Galaxy Watch have a greater deviation. Oddly, the plots that we received from the Galaxy Watch are incomplete - with the thick blue line showing the fastest part of our run.

Gym Session

Our next test recorded our gym session. It was back day, and we started with heavy deadlifts and moved on from there. The divide between the OHM of the Galaxy watch and the ECG of the Polar H10 was much broader - but again, but overall not as far off as some devices that have passed through our hands. This is to be expected due to the different technologies employed and is an issue with OHM's in general.

Gym session
Gym session - select for larger view

In the weeks that followed we logged many hours in the gym and pounding the pavement, and overall the Galaxy Watch impressed and was on par with its competitors.

What if you're an iPhone user but don't want an Apple Watch? We knew that as an iPhone user we'd take a hit in some functionality and features but would they be enough of a turn-off to turn us away from using the Samsung Galaxy Watch in conjunction with an iPhone?

Galaxy Watch app

During our testing, on the 22nd August Samsung released an update to their companion iOS app to officially support the Galaxy Watch while re-branding the app 'Galaxy Watch'.

The Galaxy Watch iOS app provides the battery, storage and RAM status of the Galaxy watch, configure many of the settings on the watch itself, as well as providing a method of finding and installing watch faces and apps.

Setting up the Samsung Galaxy Watch and the Galaxy Watch app in action Setting up the Samsung Galaxy Watch and the Galaxy Watch app in action Setting up the Samsung Galaxy Watch and the Galaxy Watch app in action Setting up the Samsung Galaxy Watch and the Galaxy Watch app in action
Setting up the Samsung Galaxy Watch and the Galaxy Watch app in action

During our time the app proved to be reliable and coherent in its layout.

And that 'chunk of functionality that we knew we'd lose?

  • Unable to respond to messages due to Apple's closed iOS ecosystem
  • Unable to set up Samsung Pay
  • Transferring music is cumbersome via a web browser as opposed within the iOS app. However, Spotify support provides a better experience for online and offline listening
  • Unable to transfer watch screenshots to your phone - probably only an issue for this reviewer but something to bear in mind
  • Unable to configure SOS message functionality for Galaxy Watch
  • iPhone Reminders not synced
  • Notifications, while the majority of notifications are shown on the Galaxy Watch, you can only view them or dismiss them. E-mails were notable by their absence though, and during our time with the Galaxy Watch we didn't see a single E-mail notification
  • Can't sync Wi-Fi networks from an iPhone, these have to be added manually
  • Find My Phone is pretty much useless if your phone is on silent when it slipped down the back of the chair cushion! Stick to Find my iPhone instead. While conversely, Find My Watch from the iPhone works as advertised vibrating the watch while playing an alarm sound
  • iOS version doesn't support the setting up of Samsung SmartThings

Phew - got all that? Those were the major ones that we came across during our testing.

Transferring music to the Galaxy Watch via a web browser if you use iOS

Samsung Health app

The app itself falls far short of the offerings from the likes of Fitbit, Garmin and Apple lacking a coherent look and feel resulting in a much higher learning curve and even then the lack of organization makes delving into your stats frustratingly slow.

Samsung Health App layout All day HRM weekly overview Sleep tracking Samsung Health App layout All day HRM weekly overview Sleep tracking Samsung Health App layout All day HRM weekly overview Sleep tracking Samsung Health App layout All day HRM weekly overview Sleep tracking
Samsung Health App • All day HRM weekly overview • All day HRM daily drill down • Sleep tracking

  • No links exist to Apple health or other apps such as My Fitness Pal. This means double logging of food and no ability to link smart scales to automatically suck in your weight. The Android version supports partner apps such as those described above and more
  • Stress tracking not yet available within the Health app, only on the watch itself. Again, the Android version of Samsung Health does support Stress tracking
  • Lacks Android fitness Programmes

We found several activities didn't transfer the full data to the Samsung Health app. At one point we thought we'd lost the Heart Rate data through several activities. Further investigation revealed the full data on the watch, but the full heart rate track didn't transfer over.

The Verdict

Before we give our final verdict these are the main points that we observed during our time with the Galaxy Watch.

Pros

  • Two sizes and three colors provide attractive options for most
  • Excellent build quality
  • 46mm Galaxy Watch has much-improved battery life
  • One of the few watches to have Spotify support
  • Tizen just keeps getting better with age with a slick and fluid UI
  • Good daily activity tracking, stress monitoring and sleep tracking now viable with its improved battery life
  • Improved HRM - now as good as expected for steady state activities such as walking, running and cycling
  • Fast GPS lock
  • Waterproof up to 50 meters
  • Supports iPhones (albeit limited) not requiring Samsung or any Android phone

Cons

  • Lack of basic fitness data - for example, Vo2 Max or SWOLF From the built in apps
  • 4G Storage could be problematic for off-line music lovers or footprint heavy apps
  • Tizen - App ecosystem is more restrictive than WatchOS or Wear OS
  • If battery life is a priority, avoid the smaller 42mm variants
  • Included silicon strap is functional but you'll want to supplement it with a posher one for date night
  • We couldn't get Bixby to work with iOS and its usefulness when working is debatable
  • No 'stress' measurement passed to Samsung Health iOS app in current version (Version 1.5)
  • No on-line Samsung Health version
  • Can't pair with external heart rate monitors for serious fitness fans

Put simply, this is simply the best smartwatch from Samsung yet. It builds upon the previous Gear S3 and Sport. While not revolutionary in any one area, the sum of all the changes in hardware and software results in a well rounded evolutionary smartwatch.

It's good looking - with the right strap, robust and has a great display. The Galaxy Watch in 46mm form now has usable battery life. While it's health and fitness capabilities are more than a match for what the majority of people require.

From left to right - Galaxy Watch, Gear S3 Frontier, Gear Sport, Fenix 5, Apple Watch

As an iPhone user you have to be sure that you can live with the restrictions, if you can then you've got a great alternative for your wrist.

Today we have no problem highly recommending the Samsung Galaxy Watch. Ah, I hear you say, you're sensing a but! The Samsung Galaxy Watch is one of our favorite, if not our favorite smartwatches and if you're an ardent Samsung fan or Android user you won't be disappointed if you went out and got one today.

But there are two dark clouds looming on the horizon that could rain on Samsung's parade in the next few months. For iPhone users, the Apple Watch with its rumored larger screens and usual spec upgrades could prove tempting. While Google's first rumored smartwatch - the Pixel may now not appear this year as predicted, we should witness a slew of improved watches courtesy of Snapdragons new 3100 SoC and Google's own evolving recently updated Wear OS, which will be of particular interest to Android owners.

Unless they hey have managed to keep something significant under wraps, such as MicroLED screens, we expect none of them to blow the Samsung Galaxy Watch out of the water. However, we'd be remiss not to advise you to wait just a while longer, you'd never forgive us otherwise.

What does this mean for the Samsung Gear Sport and Gear S3?

The new Samsung Galaxy watch has these older devices bettered in every area, and should now be avoided unless you manage to grab a bargain. We suspect they're not long for this world.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Read:


Subscribe to receive free email updates:

Related Posts :

0 Response to "Samsung Galaxy Watch review"

Post a Comment