Samsung Galaxy Watch Review:
Introduction:
The Samsung Galaxy Watch is one of the best smartwatches that have been released to date. In regard to its functionality and features the Samsung Galaxy watch has been adapted to follow the same interface and features as of the Samsung smartphones for familiarity and ease of the customers. The watch is designed to be different from the former Samsung watches like ‘Gear’ series and while Samsung Galaxy Watch does the job at being fresh and new from its former production, it, unfortunately, doesn’t bring much newness to the table.
To oppose the Apple watch’s Digital Crown, the Samsung Galaxy Watch has made the return of rotating bezel. The Galaxy watch offers many features like near field communication (NFC) for Samsung Pay, GPS for location and tracking, heart rate monitor and other options like a barometer, gyro, accelerometer, and ambient light. While the Samsung Galaxy Watch has a new virtual voice assistant ‘Bixby” instead of Samsung S Voice, it also gives a new option to the user of picking between two different sizes according to style and wrist.
Specifications:
Price: £279
Battery capacity: 270 mAh
Clock speed: 1.15 GHz
Display: AMOLED panel
Operating system: Tizen OS
Sensors: barometer, gyro, accelerometer, heart rate monitor, adapting the light sensor.
Processor: Exynos dual-core CPU
Protection: 5 ATM water resistance
Near Field Communication (NFC)
Samsung Galaxy Watch: Screen and Design
The Samsung Galaxy Watch gives the consumer 2 options to pick from, the models have been designed in two different sizes, one of the models is 42mm which will cost you £279 and the second one is 46mm which is priced at £299. The watches have similar features and basically, there is no difference except the size variation. The display used in both the watches is 360 x 360 AMOLED, although the popular belief is that the 46mm will have lower pixel density contrary to that there is not a big visible difference in the display.
Even though the Samsung Galaxy Watch does not live up to the level of 1000 nits, the bar set by the new Apple Watch, it still makes up with its ambient light sensors as they stay vibrant and easily visible even in high brightness of the outdoors.
The rotating bezel really adds a nice little feel to the watch as most watches can only be operated by their touch screens and it becomes awkward to touch the small screens to go through the menus. Much like Apple Watch’s digital crown, a simple rotation lets you browse through the menu. Although the Samsung Galaxy Watch’s rotating bezel provides a different feel like rotating the wheel on a safe to crack open the lock, it feels amazing.
On one side of the watch is a speaker that is powerful and loud that can be used for making calls, listening to music, streaming videos with audio and mainly for the virtual voice assistant Bixby to read out loud your notifications or any said information. On the opposite side, there are buttons on the watch that are for ‘back’ and ‘menu’ button, all the browsing on the watch can be performed using the rotatory bezel and there is a microphone located amid the back and menu buttons.
It’s a common mistake that whenever you’re wearing a tracker, under whatever circumstance you are forced to take it off, it is most likely that you'll forget to water it back on after some time but the Samsung Galaxy Watch is 5 ATM meaning that it is not only waterproof but can withstand the depth of water up to 50 meters which are a great thing. Even people who are not swimmers can take advantage of this feature is you can literally wear the watch all day, even in the shower and not be scared of your watch getting ruined.
The 42mm version of Samsung Galaxy Watch is smaller and lighter in weight and feel. It is not incommodious and is very manageable, contrary to their former in production in Samsung’s smartwatch series of Gear S3. It is powerfully evocative of the Galaxy Sport I and is lightweight weighing only 49g excluding the weight of the strap. Speaking of the strap, it is very manageable and lightweight that is 12.7mm in thickness, with vibrant blue color, it is made of soft silicone that doesn’t irritate the skin and feels breathable on the wrist.
The 42mm version of Samsung Galaxy Watch comes with the options of two beautiful colors or themes; Midnight Black and Rose Gold. While the Sliver watch selection has been reserved exclusively for the 46mm watch, the two options available in the 42mm are significantly exciting and striking. Both the 42mm and 46mm versions of Samsung Galaxy Watch come with the silicon bands that are easily changeable according to the consumer’s taste and preference. Although the strap is good and lights it is prone to getting dust and lint getting stuck to it which makes it look like a fur ball after having a workout or basically any activity as it catches the surrounding dust very easily.
Samsung Galaxy Watch: Fitness and Workout
When it comes to fitness tracking and workout routines, the Samsung Galaxy Watch proves to be a superior watch. Even though most of its features are based on the former Samsung smartwatches like Sport or Gear but it definitely takes the good parts of the former Samsung smartwatches and incorporates them with a modified version of its self making it an amalgamation of the entire good tech Samsung has to offer.
Its GPS (Global Positioning System) and GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System) have proved to be very accurate and precise. The best feature, in my opinion, this watch has to offer is the fact that it can monitor the body movements very accurately throughout the day as well as night. Many smartwatches have made the mistake of using cheap motion sensors and tech but the Samsung Galaxy Watch really pays off its price when it comes to tracking, for instance; many watches in the past would count small movements like moving around you hands a bit too much while showering, to be as you taking steps, these watches would then continue to calculate the calories burnt by counting those supposed steps and all in all, provide you with extremely erroneous and inaccurate calculations.
The sensors are extremely precise, these include the barometer, accelerometer, gyro and the most accurate of all, the heart rate monitor. The watch also has built-in messages of encouragements that pop up quite frequently as you workout and complete different milestones. These little messages actually become very motivating for instance; if you’re walking up a flight of stairs the barometer sensor will help you track the steps you take and provide you with little messages telling you how you’ve made a new record or how you’ve done better than the day before, this comes off as very inspiring and encourages you to do more to stay fit.
The watch starts recording your steps after 10 minutes of your walk, the watch also matches up to your steps and pace with your previous record and encourages you to keep up a healthy pace and maybe even give you a little pat on the back for your good work which makes you want to carry on. These medals and little notes of motivation also pop up when you’ve gotten up at the right time or went to bed at the set time.
Even though in popular opinion it is not very useful but the Samsung Galaxy Watch has added the feature of guided breathing exercises, similar to Apple Watch or Fitbit. These exercises will monitor your breathing activity throughout the day as well as at night and then form a set of short and brief breathing exercises.
Analogous to the Apple Watch, the Samsung Galaxy Watch also introduced the feature of adding more workouts to the already existing guided workouts. The course of action is a bit labor-intensive and manul as I had to set some reps on certain workouts myself. But all in all the 39 guided exercises are very good at calculating movements as well as displaying heart rate. Lunges or deadlifts, there are various exercises that are built-in and help monitor activity.
Although the sleep tracking is more detailed and comprehensive in the opponent watches like the Apple Watch or Fitbit as compared to the Samsung Galaxy Watch but it is still functional and exact. The workout and steps count on the Samsung Galaxy Watch are accurate just like the previous models of Samsung watches, the screen displays information like heart rate and the speaker says aloud your performance and small messages of support.
Samsung Galaxy Watch: Apps and Performance
In the beginning, before the release of Samsung Galaxy Watch, it was expected that the watch will follow the Wear OS as it was to be in cahoots with Google but this buzz died immediately after the release of the Samsung Galaxy Watch as it operates on the Tizen OS which feels very familiar for the Gear wearers. The OS is very user-friendly and allows swift and easy movements due to the rotating bezel the browsing is very fast and dare I say very different from all the other watches. The watch houses a dual-core processor Exynos 9110 and has a battery capacity of 270 mAh with an internal storage of 4 GB with RAM of 768 MB. The clock speed is 1.15 GHz which makes it fast and swift just the way the former models are known to be free lag as well.
The rotatory bezel makes browsing easy and the watch lets you add as many widgets as you want. Widgets are a huge relief as the Huawei Watch has its pros but the biggest deal-breaker is the fact that no new apps can be added and users can only use the already existing built- watches, but the Samsung Galaxy Watch takes care of that situation as many apps can be downloaded using the Samsung app store and various new widgets can be added as well as customized according to the users preference. For instance; if you use weather or music more frequently then all you have to do is press down on that widget and select the edit option and place it near to the watch menu page or wherever you like. The Samsung Galaxy Watch is highly user-oriented as it allows so much customization, unlike the other smartwatches.
To avoid surplus all the notifications can be cleared with just a simple tap on the screen. There are various pre-written messages replies that you can use to respond to not only SMS but also WhatsApp messages, you may as well type out your own message or reply that entirely depends on you. Although there are many pros of this watch but apps are still not the best thing about the Samsung Galaxy Watch as there is a scarcity of many apps that are used on the daily basis by various people; for instance home automation or navigation, these are some major apps that need to be on a smartwatch but unfortunately these are not available on the Samsung Galaxy Watch which makes it seem less exciting. At the end of the day, Samsung Galaxy Watch just feels like a watch running on some thor party app-store where reviews and ratings can not be a great help when looking for apps.
Speaking of not being a great help that brings to my mind the virtual voice assistant Bixby, although Bixby is an upgrade from Voice S assistant yet it is still not up to the mark as compared to other voice assistants used in the opponent watches. Bixby is often very slow in response and doesn’t comprehend simple language that you would expect your virtual assistant to be quick in response to, it becomes super annoying when it is connected to WiFi and still manages to grumble about no internet connection. It does although respond well to very detailed and specific instructions it’s just not very good at comprehending day to day casual language; for instance, if you want to set a timer for 20 you will have to instruct it carefully and say ‘set an alarm for 20 minutes’ instead of just asking for a twenty-minutes timer because for that you would have to download a separate app of timer and that can be very irritating.
The NFC ( Near Field Communication) Pay Samsung is an extremely convenient feature of the Samsung Galaxy Watch as it allows the transfer of payments contactless but there are many banking services that are not in contract with Samsung which makes it not a convenience but a burden as this feature becomes basically futile if your baking company is not a part of the system.
The most outstanding feature of Samsung Galaxy Watch is that it supports offline Spotify playback which is a feature incorporated in very few smartwatches. You can use up the 4 GB internal storage by downloading your favorite music on Spotify and still browse through apps and go about your daily routine while your favorite track plays in the background. You can easily pair up your wireless headphones through Bluetooth connection and workout while streaming some tunes.
Samsung Galaxy Watch: 4G LTE
Even if it is highly unlikely but the Samsung Galaxy Watch gives you the freedom to leave your phone at home and just go out whilst wearing the Samsung Galaxy Watch as it is supported by 4G LTE. This review has been based on the WiFi consuming Samsung Galaxy Watch but we have also tested out the Samsung Galaxy Watch running solely on 4G LTE.
Giving the consumers the option of the watch being run on 4G is a great incentive by the company although youll have to pay an additional sum just for your watch’s internet. The solitary variant supporting the Samsung Galaxy Watch’s 4G LTE plan in the UK is EE and you'll have to pay an extra £20 to add the 46mm version or 42mm version of the Samsung Galaxy Watch to get access of the 4G to our existing phone plan.
even though it is an amazing feature that your watch can run on 4G while you’re outdoors or do not have WiFi, the main impact on the battery life is very disappointing as the battery percentage falls down faster than ever. This is very bothersome if you’re stuck outside and it is in general very infuriating.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch as well as the ‘Gear’ work perfectly over 4G which enables you to browse, stream and even download apps, music and videos, the users are not restricted to go through the already downloaded data and this becomes a huge relief if you're outside, the best part is that you can do everything on your watch without having to use your phone.
It is recommended that if you use you watch to stream music from your route from home to work while using the 4G LTE, you should not use the watch in between the traveling, why is that you ask because that is the only way you'll make the battery last.
Samsung Galaxy Watch: Charging and Battery Life
The battery is the main point when the difference between the two versions of Samsung Galaxy Watch becomes imminent, the 42mm has a battery fitter with a capacity of 270 mAh whereas the 46mm version of Samsung Galaxy Watch has an enormous difference in the battery capacity of 476 mAh, this makes a colossal divergence between both the versions as the 46mm version can run for about 7 days, a whole week between charges and the smaller version of 42mm can only go for 4 days in-betweens charging intervals.
But despite Samsung’s guarantee of 4 days, the 42mm Samsung Galaxy Watch is more likely to run for only 2 days and that is only in the case if the always-on watch faces have been turned off. There are many apps that have been noted to eat up the battery at high rates for example if your GPS is on the battery percentage is more likely to fall quicker and if you’re planning on Bluetooth connected music play, you will be most likely to charge your watch night after night.
Taken as a whole, the battery management of any device depends entirely upon the user as so if you can be careful with your battery usage you can surely make it last.
Should You Buy The Samsung Galaxy Watch?
All in all the Samsung Galaxy Watch is an upgrade that ameliorates its predecessors and that is exactly what makes this watch proficient, superior to its forerunners and overall polished, making your money worth it. There are of course some limitations and inadequacies that should not be overlooked like the fact that the apps are not Tizen’s forte. There are many vital apps that have failed to get noticed by the company but there are various plus points of the watch that can surely make up for the lack of apps, it should also be noticed that the scarcity of apps being available is an issue that is not being faced by the Samsung Galaxy Watch alone as many of the smartwatches have received the same review so it’s better to let this issue slid while keeping this point in mind when you buy the watch to be aware of how high your expectations should be set for the watch.
Samsung Galaxy Watch comes with the light, aesthetic and pleasing to the eye look with 3 different colors. The users can customize the watch by using any changeable straps. The watch is also packed with a huge assortment of sensors, be it gyro, barometer, accelerometer, heart rate etc. the display is sharp and vibrant with ambient light settings.
This watch is perfect for anyone looking for a sporty, fitness tracking watch or even for casual heath checking as it keeps an accurate track of your vitals.