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Samsung Galaxy Watch: the smart health connected watch that rivals the Apple Watch

Samsung Galaxy Watch: the smart health connected watch that rivals the Apple Watch

April 08, 2020

Galaxy Watch features
Samsung Galaxy Watch Quick Tour
In-depth review of the Galaxy Watch
Autonomy: very good especially for the 46 mm version
Samsung Galaxy Watch 42 or 46 mm? The differences
Our opinion on the Samsung Galaxy Watch: should we buy it?

Exit the Gear series and make way for the Galaxy series with this new smart health connected watch signed by Samsung. This is a watch that can do just about everything and that will delight athletes and non-athletes alike. If you were looking for an Apple Watch but did not want to take the step of buying an iPhone, this watch is for you!

Buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch

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329 € 305

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329 € 299

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Galaxy Watch features

Housing dimensions45.7 x 41.9 x 12.7 mm (42 mm model)49 x 46 x 13 mm (46 mm model)

Music playerYes + Spotify

(embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozWykcUSNVY (/ embed)

Samsung Galaxy Watch Quick Tour

Who is the Galaxy Watch for?

Released in September 2018, the Galaxy Watch is a smart health connected sport and well-being watch. Elegant, robust and very complete, it is designed for sport and everyday life. It is aimed at a mixed audience, men and women, sportsmen or not, who like to have practical tools to help them in their daily life and in their sport. It can also be worn like a classic watch with a variety of tools that can be used as needed.

Feature overview

Comparable to the Apple Watch, this watch is a real Swiss knife offering multiple tools for everyday life and for sport. It is an on-board microcomputer including a personal assistant and a sports coach.

It is loaded with sensors (GPS, altimeter, barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, heart rate sensor) and offers many features aimed at making everyday life easier and supporting athletes on their outings.

It offers in particular voice assistance (you can speak to the watch, ask questions or give orders), an agenda, access to online applications (Youtube, weather, news, search and reservation of a restaurant , hotel, taxi, etc.), GPS guidance with map display, mp3 player with access to Spotify (on subscription), contactless payment function, call and SMS management (you can phone with your watch ) And much more.

Regarding sports functions, the watch encourages its user to move and measures its daily activity (shopping, cleaning …). It indicates the calories expended, the number of steps taken, the number of stages climbed. It analyzes sleep, measures the level of stress, helps to relax with suitable exercises. It supports the sportsman in his sport with 39 programmed activities, data recording, voice coaching, detailed analysis of the outing, display of the course on a map, online sharing with the community. In short, everything you need for good sports monitoring.

Galaxy Watch versus Apple Watch

Compared to the Apple Watch, which requires an iPhone, this watch has the advantage of working with Android and iOS. It is therefore perfect for holders of an Android phone who do not want to switch to the iPhone.

Its look is different (round instead of square) but here it is a matter of taste. Some will prefer the sleek design of the Apple Watch, others the authentic side of the Galaxy Watch.

The Apple Watch offers a better screen definition: 324 x 394 pixels and 368 x 448 pixels respectively for the Apple Watch 4 models 40 and 44 mm against 360 x 360 pixels only for the Samsung.

Regarding the features, the Apple Watch 4 has a head start with voice recognition that works well while that of the Galaxy Watch is not yet fully developed. Apple offers telephony without Smartphone (eSIM and 4G LTE chip integrated), a function that Samsung will soon offer in France (release scheduled for 2019). The apple brand also offers ECG function (electrocardiogram) certainly limited but which would have already saved several lives. The Apple Watch also has a fall detection and SOS call function which can be useful in the event of an accident.

Discover our detailed review and opinion on the Apple Watch 4.

In-depth review of the Galaxy Watch

Design: neat and chic

The Galaxy Watch is a watch with a neat and elegant design that goes very well in town, at work or for sporting outings. It has the appearance of an authentic watch with its steel bezel and, for classic dials, a second hand that makes a ticking noise like that of a mechanical watch. Its display is permanent except in energy saving mode. It is a robust watch with its steel bezel, an ultra-resistant Gorilla Glass DX + glass and a military standard MIL STD 810 G -516.6

It has an AMOLED screen of 16 million colors, touchscreen and excellent brightness (568 cd / m2). This allows it to be readable even in direct sunlight. Its definition is 360 x 360 px for a size of 1.2 "(42 mm model) or 1.3" (46 mm model). Note the difference with the Fenix 5 Plus, the screen size of which is independent of the case size (same resolution and screen definition).

In addition to its touch screen, the watch offers 2 buttons on the side and a rotating bezel that allows you to navigate among the screens with ease.

The Galaxy Watch is available in 2 sizes (42 mm and 46 mm) to fit all wrists, even the thinnest.

Samsung offers numerous watch faces, free or paid, and customizable dials.

As for the bracelet, it is made of light and flexible silicone and is interchangeable (20 mm bracelets for the 42 mm model and 22 mm for the 46 mm model). The manufacturer also offers a wide range of colors.

A personalized assistant

The Galaxy Watch allows you to optimize your day. When you wake up, it displays the weather, the schedule for the next 10 hours summarized on a MyDay dial, reminders and more. In the evening, before going to bed, she summarizes the day's activities and displays reminders that have not yet been taken into account.

The voice recognition function allows you to ask questions or give orders to the watch.

A user-friendly interface

The watch offers an easy-to-use interface, including intuitive navigation thanks to its rotating crown. It is possible to program the order of the screens to make their access easier, especially those which are the most used. With a simple movement of the crown, you can access the weather, current events or even control the music player. The watch faces are customizable.

A voice assistant

Thanks to Bixby Vision, Samsung's voice assistant (the equivalent of Siri on the Apple Watch), you can give orders to the watch or ask questions.

An mp3 player to listen to music without a smartphone

The Galaxy Watch has an mp3 player and 1.5 GB of memory to store up to 500 music titles and listen to your favorite music without having to carry your smartphone. The watch also integrates the Spotify app to listen to music in streaming. You can also download a playlist directly into the watch.

A Samsung Pay contactless payment function

The toquante is equipped with an NFC chip making it possible to pay for small purchases without having to take out a bank card. Convenient when you play sports and don't want to clutter up with a wallet!

smart health connected functions: access information and control your health home devices

The new Samsung has functions allowing access to information via a Smartphone or directly in 4G via the cellular network (function which will be available in France during 2019) and to interact with its environment:

Access to the Internet (browser), news, weather, Youtube and other services via a dedicated app. For example, you can watch a ehealth online, search for a hotel or restaurant around you, etc. The watch can also make geo-localized reminders, for example reminding you to fill up with petrol when you pass a station.
Access to Smartphone notifications (SMS, calls, emails) with the possibility of telephoning with your watch (integrated microphone and speaker). You can also respond to SMS via pre-recorded messages or via a mini numeric keypad or by dictating your message.
Online agenda, calendar, voice assistant
Control of the environment thanks to the health home IoT and SmartThings functions: television, robot vacuum cleaner, air conditioner, smart health connected objects. The user can define custom commands allowing to launch several simultaneous actions.

Functions for health

Samsung Health is an application offered by Samsung to track your health. Compatible with all phones, it measures your sports activity, which it complements with many other physiological measures (heart rate, stress level, weight change, eating habits, quality of sleep, for example).

Activity monitoring to stay motivated

Activity tracking, available today on many sports watches and on activity bracelets, is a motivating function, especially for the less athletic. It measures your physical activity and the quality of your sleep 24 hours a day. Shopping, cleaning, gardening, going back and forth to work or school are all physical activities generating significant calorie expenditure. The watch measures and records your daily expenses and encourages you to move.

The Samsung measures the number of steps taken during the day, the distance traveled, the calories expended, the heart rate, the number of stages climbed, the quality of sleep, peaceful or restless (the optical heart rate monitoring and the accelerometer are used for this). It even measures your stress level and offers suitable relaxation exercises (synchronized breathing for example) to help you relax. The Galaxy Watch also offers nutritional monitoring.

Sports functions: 39 sports

Samsung offers 39 sports profiles, including 12 indoor. The watch automatically detects certain activities such as cycling, walking, running or, indoors, the elliptical trainer and rowing machine. It can even automatically start recording an activity if you forgot to do it (but it will not record GPS and cardio data).

It offers an automatic counter for activities like lunges, abs, flexes, star jumps. For swimming, you can indicate the length of the pool. However, it will be necessary to drain the water from the watch at the end of the session. For this, the Samsung vibrates the speaker as on the Apple Watch.

The Galaxy Watch is a real multisport watch: thanks to the latest TizenOS 4 operating system, it can record up to 6 sports without stopping the recording at each transition. It is thus possible to use it as a triathlon watch.

An auto-pause function allows recording to stop when you stop for a breath or, in town, at a fire.

To encourage you, the Samsung indicates your performance during the race and can give you advice (voice coach).

Back health home, you can find your route on a map with all the data on heart rate, distance, speed and a detailed analysis.

The Samsung app

The watch gives access to a large amount of data that can be used on a computer thanks to the interface offered by Samsung. This allows you to view route data, statistics, an analysis of the outing and follow its progress. Samsung offers 2 iOS and Android compatible applications:

Galaxy Wear: a minimalist application that offers a global view of the main data of the watch: battery status, memory and available storage space. Here you can make basic settings, transfer music and photos for example.
Samsung Health: intended for athletes, it displays the data recorded by the watch: sports performance, activities, number of steps, calories, sleep data, etc. all in graphic form.

The Watch is compatible with the following smartphones:

Galaxy S6, S6 Edge / S6 Edge +
Galaxy A and J 2016, S7 / S7 Edge
Galaxy A and J 2017, S8 / S8 +, Note8
Galaxy A and J 2018, S9 / S9 +, Crown
Android smartphone 5.0 and later with 1.5 GB RAM
Iphone5, IOS 9.0 and later

Autonomy: very good especially for the 46 mm version

Unlike the Apple Watch, Samsung offers a great autonomy for its watch (see summary table below). Even if we are far from reaching that of certain sports watches, you should know that smart health connected watches are usually very energy-hungry and do not last long in duration. Samsung was able to stand out from the competition with a new, more economical processor.

Note that the autonomy offered varies depending on the model. The 42 mm version has a 270 mAh battery compared to the 472 mAh of the 46 mm model. In the end, this represents a difference of 40 to 70% of autonomy depending on the use.

To make the watch last even longer, it automatically goes into energy saving mode when the storage capacity drops below 15%. The screens then switch to black and white and access to apps and widgets is restricted with the exception of smartphone notifications.

The watch recharges in less than 3 hours thanks to a wireless charger operating by induction (AirPower).

Samsung Galaxy Watch 42 or 46 mm? The differences

The 42 mm model will be more suitable for thin wrists, especially for female wrists. This model is also lighter (49 g instead of 63 g) but its autonomy is weaker (see our comparison above).

The advantage of the 46 mm model is to present a larger screen, therefore more comfortable, in particular for reading a map, watching a ehealth or reading the news, even if the definition remains the same between the 2 models. This model also offers a silver stainless steel finish that is not found on the small model.

Our opinion on the Samsung Galaxy Watch: should we buy it?

The Galaxy Watch is an attractive watch with its allure and its complete functions. It is to date the best alternative to the Apple Watch, in particular for people who are looking for this type of watch that is practical, elegant and versatile but who do not wish to acquire an iPhone (necessary condition to use an Apple Watch) .

Connected watch with second hand Galaxy Watch

We were seduced by its authentic watch look, its robustness and its rotating crown which greatly simplifies navigation (a movement of the crown allows you to go to the next screen). It is a pleasant watch to use, whose interface is fluid and intuitive thanks to the new TizenOS 4 operating system. Its color touch screen is pleasant to read and readable even in direct sunlight thanks to a very bright panel which, by however, can disturb some at night!

Note that this watch is more wellness oriented than sport. For demanding athletes who are looking for advanced data, training assistance and sports monitoring, it is better to turn to a watch exclusively dedicated to sport.

The 46 mm model is a little imposing by its size and thickness of 13 mm (2.3 mm more than the Apple Watch) because of its larger battery. It is a little heavier than the 42 mm model (63 g versus 49 g) or an Apple Watch (30 to 37 g depending on the model!). That said, it is doing well under clothing. The silicone strap is light. We also appreciate the cardio optics on the wrist, which is protuberant and that we don't feel.

We appreciated the great autonomy of this smartwatch, especially on the 46 mm model. The amazing can last up to 7 days in watch mode and 23 hours in GPS mode, values to compare with the maximum 18 hours of the Apple Watch (6 hours in GPS mode)!

We like the Spotify app which, with the mp3 player, allows you to listen to music in streaming. You can of course also download your favorite music to listen offline and without a smartphone via Bluetooth headsets.

Contactless payment function Samsung Pay is finally available in France, even if its use is still quite limited today. This handy function allows you to pay for your purchases (coffee, sandwich, etc.) without having to clutter up a wallet or a Smartphone when playing sports.

Unlike the Apple Watch Cellular, the Galaxy Watch does not yet have 4G connectivity in France, but that will not be long. Samsung announces the release of this model in 2019. It will allow you to phone and access the Internet without a Smartphone or Wi-Fi.

Regarding the comfort of the watch, the screen remains too small to view videos, consult the internet via a browser or even type a text using the digital dial! As for making a phone call from your watch, the audio quality of the microphone is not optimal but it can help.

We liked

A beautiful watch, with a more chic than sporty look and which is suitable for men and women
The fluidity of the interface
The practical rotary crown
The quality of the display (contrast, colors)
The quality of sports monitoring

We'd have liked

4G connectivity
A slightly larger screen definition

Price and availability

The Samsung Galaxy Watch has been available for sale since September 2018 at the recommended price of € 309 (42 mm version) and € 329 (46 mm version).

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