Introduction
Samsung made a huge shift in its wearable direction with the Galaxy Watch4 and Watch4 Classic this year. Already one of the biggest rivals to Apple's dominating Watch series, Samsung's Tizen watches have consistently ranked third behind Xiaomi's wearables. Tizen was steadily becoming a hallmark of smart wearables, and the Galaxy Watch is a name associated with elegance and rich capabilities.
So when Samsung diverted from its own Tizen OS and took its talents to Google's fledgling Wear OS, it took a huge leap of faith. What it got in return is access to Wear OS' list of apps, which is superior to that of Tizen. And of course, it also got the green light from Google to have the watch UI customized to Samsung's liking.
This puts Samsung in a somewhat exclusive place among Wear OS makers with a custom software branch, aptly named Wear OS Powered by Samsung. It's got a non-stock UI and Samsung's exclusive suite of apps - Samsung Pay, Samsung Health, Bixby and a deeper connection between Galaxy phones and the new watches.
That's not a bad start if you own one of the billion active Galaxy phones out there and you are in the market for a smartwatch. But there's more that makes Samsung's new Galaxy Watch the best for an Android user. Samsung's newly-developed BioActive Sensor, which is built into the watch, can measure body composition and perform an electrocardiogram and blood pressure reading, which can be very enticing for those who want to keep a better track of their health and progress. Sleep tracking has gotten better as well.
Samsung Galaxy Watch4 specs at a glance:
- Body: 44.4x43.3x9.8mm, 30g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass DX+), aluminum frame; MIL-STD-810G compliant*, 50m water resistant (IP68), ECG certified, Blood pressure monitor.
- Display: 1.40" Super AMOLED, 450x450px resolution, 9:9 aspect ratio, 330ppi; Always-on display.
- Chipset: Exynos W920 (5 nm): Dual-core 1.18 GHz Cortex-A55; Mali-G68.
- Memory: 16GB 1.5GB RAM; eMMC.
- OS/Software: Android Wear OS, One UI Watch 3.
- Rear camera: No.
- Front camera: No.
- Video capture: Rear camera: No.
- Battery: 361mAh; Qi wireless charging.
- Misc: Accelerometer, gyro, heart rate, barometer; NFC; Natural language commands and dictation, Samsung Pay and Google Pay.
Wear OS has also opened a few avenues for the Galaxy Watch family that Tizen never couldn't. You get access to Google's native suite of apps like Maps, Messages, YouTube Music, and you can pay contactless by tapping just your watch with Google Pay.
This year's Galaxy Watch is powered by a new and improved Exynos W920 chipset that ensures faster performance and better efficiency. It's a 5nm chip replacing the 10nm Exynos 9110 of the older generation.
As for the look, Samsung put the bezel-less Active and the conventional watch with a rotating physical bezel under the same roof as this year's Galaxy Watch4. The bezel-free Watch4 comes in 40mm and 44mm sizes, while the Watch4 Classic with a rotating bezel comes in slightly bigger 42mm and 46mm. All four models can be configured with LTE courtesy of an eSIM or Bluetooth to keep things more reasonably priced.
Unboxing
The Galaxy Watch4 comes in a simple box with a wireless charging puck that ends on a USB-A port, and the watch itself. You have a generous choice of additional bands for the Galaxy Watch4 series - from the €39.90 Extreme Sport and Ridge Sport silicone straps, to the €49.90 Hybrid Leather straps, all in multiple colors.
A word on pricing, the Galaxy Watch4 is €269 and €299 for the Bluetooth-only model, 40mm and 44mm, respectively. A move to the LTE is €319 and €349 per size. The Galaxy Watch4 Classic comes in 42mm and 46mm, priced €369 and €399 each. A move to the LTE models is €419 and €449.
Design and build
The Samsung Galaxy Watch4 comes in two designs. Our review unit is the Galaxy Watch4 with a black Armor Aluminum casing and a virtual rotating bezel.
The Galaxy Watch4 is the spiritual successor to the Galaxy Watch Active2, and it carries that same design, with a single but not insignificant difference - the glass cover on the new watch is flat, while the old model' was slightly curved.
Because of this swiping on the virtual bezel is less enjoyable. You feel the sharp metal edge of the casing while gliding on the glass. And the black bezel is more noticeable with a flat glass than it is with the curved one, especially when the Watch is set to a lightly colored watch face.
Like the Galaxy Z Fold3 5G and Z Flip3 5G, the Galaxy Watch4 is made using the new Armor Aluminum, which Samsung claims is 10% stronger than the strongest aluminum alloy used before it.
The metal casing itself feels quality made. It has a two-toned finish - the round part of the casing is always glossy black, while the outer part of the casing and the lugs are matte. You have a choice of Black, Silver and Pink Gold.
Some people might like this dual-tone design, but we think that the glossy finish really lets it down. It looks a bit cheap and gets smudged up fast. And while we haven't had any scratches on the polished surface since we took the watch out of the box, it makes the impression that it would get scuffed easier than an anodized finish.
The Galaxy Watch4 Classic' case is made of stainless steel, which feels decidedly more premium than the aluminum of the Watch4, Armor or no. It's anodized in both its Black and Silver colors and has the aforementioned rotating bezel, which is not a superior control option but also adds to the perceived quality.
There are two buttons on the Galaxy Watch4 - the one on the top has a red accent, which alludes to its deeper functionality. The buttons have good feedback and are easy to find.
The band we received is a plain silicone black with a 20mm width attachment, which fits both the Galaxy Watch4 and the Galaxy Watch4 Classic in both their respective sizes - 40/44mm and 42/46mm. 20mm bands are a standard, but they aren't as widespread as 22mm bands, which fit the Galaxy Watch3 45mm from last year. So if you're upgrading from a 45mm Galaxy Watch3 to a 46mm Galaxy Watch4 Classic, you won't be able to carry over your bands.
Now, for the Watch4 price, the silicone band is very basic and a bit underwhelming. It looks cheaper than it is, and you wouldn't be surprised if we'd told you it's a cheapo replacement band from a no-name brand we found online.
The underside of the Galaxy Watch4 is bulbous and slightly protruding. It's filled to the brim with gadgetry like the BioActive Sensor, which does double duty as part of the ECG and Blood Pressure sensor, and here's where the Qi wireless charging circuitry is housed as well.
Being a watch, smart or not, the Galaxy Watch4 is certified for 50 meters of water resistance - so a shower with the watch or the odd training session in the rain or even swimming should not be any problem.
Usability and controls
The Samsung Galaxy Watch4 doesn't feel uncomfortable, even after long stretches of wearing. The 40mm Galaxy Watch4, in particular, is very discrete and is easily forgotten on the wrist. Bear in mind the wrist in question is used to a 46mm smartwatch from one of Samsung's competitors, and this 40mm watch is plain tiny in comparison.
We'd go for the leather strap as it feels nicer on the skin. The supplied silicone one leads to skin sweating and it looks cheap and has zero character.
The two buttons are easy enough to get the hang of. A single press on the top button takes you home, while a long press either summons Bixby or the Power Menu. A single press on the second button brings up the last app, while a long press activates Samsung Pay. It's irksome that you can't set this button to bring Google Pay instead.
There are electrodes in the pair of buttons that work in tandem with the BioActive Sensor to perform an electrocardiogram or a blood pressure reading, both subject to approval in each country, after which Samsung activates them market by market via a software update.
The virtual rotating bezel is easy to use. It recognizes your finger immediately after you begin scrolling, and there's a reaffirming vibration that accompanies the action. However, it's nothing like rotating a physical bezel. There you can do most tasks with your index finger and thumb, while with the virtual bezel, it's mostly just index.
You can, of course, navigate the watch interface through the touchscreen. And specific actions require it, like the swipe from the top or bottom or holding on the screen to change the watch face.
Hardware
The Samsung Galaxy Watch4 series premieres the brand new Exynos W920 chipset. Designed specifically for wearables, this new 5nm chipset is a big step up from its predecessor, the 10nm Exynos W9110.
The new SoC brings a 20% boost to CPU performance and up to 10 times better GPU performance over the silicon inside the Galaxy Watch3 series. That last bit is felt through the animations on this year's watch when you compare it side by side with the previous generation.
Despite the upgrade in CPU performance, it's still a dual-core processor, and the clock speed is almost the same - 1.18GHz vs. 1.15GHz.
The new Galaxy Watch4 series bring twice the storage over their predecessor and 50% more RAM - all models now come with 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. The last bit is handy when you want to download a bunch of Spotify playlists for offline listening.
Another notable improvement is the display. It's sharper than last year's thanks to an increase in resolution - 396x396px on the smaller models and 450x450px on the larger ones, up from the global 360x360px resolution used on the older generation models. Text and graphics are very sharp. Samsung's myriad of watch faces really pop on this canvas.
Otherwise, the display is as good as last year's, which is to say it's about the best display on a smartwatch you can have. It's easily visible outdoors and won't take your eyes out in dim indoor conditions.
A word on the BioActive sensor, specially developed for the Galaxy Watch4 series. Samsung put electrodes in the bottom part of the watch as well as the buttons that put a very weak current through your skin to measure the amount of water through impedance. Water has low impedance to electricity, which is what the sensors look for.
In 15 seconds, the Galaxy Watch4 measures electric currents 2,400 times. It then uses the impedance data to estimate your body composition breakdown - that includes fat, skeletal muscle, water and basal metabolic rate. This gives you a BMI (body mass index) reading, which you can then use as a tracking point for the future - the BMI and its individual components will change over time through your diet and workouts.
Samsung claims its BMI measurement is 98% accurate when compared to professional DEXA/DXA (bone densitometry) scanners. We haven't verified this, but you would still get valuable information from the watch if you monitored your BMI over time. Just make sure you hydrate well before measuring, as the measurement consistency of this type of sensor vastly depends on how hydrated you are overall.
The same sensor also does heart readings. One is an electrocardiogram (ECG), and the other is a blood pressure reading - both modes rely on the electrodes inside the two buttons, and you need to follow the instructions on the watch (keep hands up, keep still, don't talk, etc.). However, to reiterate, both the ECG and Blood Pressure functionalities need to be certified in the specific country where you reside so that Samsung enables them, so check for your locale if either feature is important to your purchase decision.
You can also measure your heart rate and blood oxygen levels, like you could on the older generation Galaxy Watch3.
Finally, a word on vibration. It's very strong on the Galaxy Watch4. And it's a quality-feeling buzz, not a 90s Nokia buzz. Where we would've liked a bit more from the Galaxy Watch4's motor is its fusion with the software - every haptic moment is long and strong, there are no subtle little nudges or taps from notifications or apps.
Battery life
Samsung claims the same 'multi-day' battery life for the Galaxy Watch4 series as it did with the Galaxy Watch3. The unit we've tested is the 40mm model with a 247mAh battery, which is the same as last year's 40mm model. The larger 44mm and 46mm come with a 361mAh, a bit bigger than the 340mAh of old.
Overall, you shouldn't expect more than two days of battery life from a single charge. On a day with notifications on and always on display, we did a workout of around 1 hour and 30 minutes and then spent the night with the watch on for sleep tracking. The next morning we had about 20% battery left, which went down to around 15% after the morning commute to the office.
With a similar day of use without workouts but still with sleep tracking, we had the watch at 40% when we opened our eyes in the morning. If you refrain from the always-on and notifications, you might be able to squeeze three days out of the Galaxy Watch4, but only barely. The larger models with the bigger battery might be able to achieve a few more hours here and there, but you should likely expect similar up to two days battery life.
A full charge took an hour and a half.
Wear OS Powered by Samsung
A huge selling point for this year's line of Galaxy watches is the move to Google's Wear OS, which unlocks access to Google's catalog of apps, like Keep, Gmail, Maps and more. It also opens the world of Wear OS apps to the Galaxy Watch, which up until now had only a limited number of Tizen apps to work with.
The Galaxy Watch4 runs on Wear OS 3, Google's latest wearable OS, which is yet to make it to any other smartwatches. Part of this is the hardware requirements - unofficially, you need at least Qualcomm's latest 4100/4100+ platform and 1GB of RAM to run Wear OS 3.
Wear OS 3 brings many improvements, but none is bigger than the new Tiles to the left of the watch face. Think of these as widgets for specific apps, which show off app-specific information on your watch. Up until Wear OS 2, you'd need to scroll down a list of apps, choose the one you want and tap to see specifics.
Wear OS 3 allows manufacturers to customize the look of the interface, and Samsung has carried over its Tizen interface pretty much 1 to 1. The only difference, really, is the app drawer, accessible with a swipe from the bottom. It's very Apple Watch-esque, and it lists all of your apps as a honeycomb of little circular icons.
This is also where you can access your list of recent apps - from the topmost dual-apps icon, which is very unintuitive to the point where you're unlikely to ever see this screen.
Samsung has integrated Wear OS with its One UI very deeply. Many of your phone settings are mirrored on the watch - your Do Not Disturb schedule, your alarms, your Calendar. If you install an app on your phone that has a corresponding Wear OS app, your phone will automatically get the app as well.
You can change a lot of the Galaxy Watch4 settings from a Galaxy smartphone - the watch face, rearranging or adding new Tiles, etc.
Like before, you can use the watch as a remote viewfinder and shutter for your Galaxy smartphone's camera.
You can also take and make calls through the Galaxy Watch4 itself, using its very loud built-in speaker. The experience is great, especially when you're driving a car or walking on the street and can't easily reach your phone.
So by default, you get your watch face in the center, your notifications to the left and your tiles to the right.
Samsung has preloaded a number of its own Tizen-derived watch faces to the Galaxy Watch4 as well as a number of Wear OS ones. You can download hundreds of third-party watch faces from the Google Play store, but there aren't really good ones for free. There are apps with paid watch faces from designers and artists that you can buy better.
The preloaded watch faces can be customized. You can change what widgets a watch face shows as well the accent color of certain elements or the whole watch face.
A word on Google apps on the Galaxy Watch4. There's still no Google Assistant for the Galaxy Watch, although there's one in the works. For now, you get Bixby, which can be summoned with the voice command 'Hi, Bixby' or by a double-press on the home button. Bixby can do things like play your playlist or ring your phone or call a person from your contact list. But where Google's voice Assistant is better is understanding commands - Bixby would routinely miss a word or get it wrong.
Then there's Google Pay and Google Fit, which can't be set as the default apps for payments or fitness tracking over Samsung Pay and Samsung Health. Those functionalities are coming in the future, reportedly. Another issue is certain apps like Google Fit not recognizing the rotating (or in this case virtual) bezel and requiring you to swipe on the screen itself.
Notifications are a primary reason for buy a smartwatch and Wear OS is one of the best platforms in this regard. A swipe from the left brings up your notifications panel, and you can scroll between different apps and their notifications.
You can reply to texts with an emoji, handwriting, a voice memo or text to speech with Bixby. However, certain apps, like Viber, will show you images, while others, like Messenger, will tell you someone's sent you a photo but not show you.
There's one issue we have with notifications - when you have notifications from multiple apps, a swipe down would scroll through them, when you have notifications from a single app, that same swipe down deletes all notifications. Surely a side-swipe from the center or something similar would be a better way of clearing things.
Finally, there are a few issues with Wear OS on the Galaxy Watch4 that we'd like to address. For instance, you can't carry over your apps and watch faces from your Tizen Galaxy Watch.
Another, more serious issue is that the Galaxy Watch4 isn't compatible with iOS at the time of writing, which hasn't been the case with previous Wear OS and Tizen watches. Samsung Health is also available on the iPhone, so we expect that support for iOS will arrive at some point.
Samsung Health and fitness tracking
Probably the biggest selling point of the Galaxy Watch4 is the extensive fitness tracking ability. From workouts to health, this watch can track it all and can give you useful feedback and data.
A quick negative before we get to the many positives. The Galaxy Watch4 will work with any Android phone to monitor heart rate, body composition, blood oxygen levels as well as track sleep and stress - all you need is the free Samsung Health from the Play Store. But ECG and Blood Pressure tracking will work only with a Galaxy smartphone with the Health Monitor App installed from the Galaxy store. This is a bit of a letdown that could put off many buyers without a Galaxy phone.
But as you'd just spent over €260 on a Galaxy smartwatch, you're likely a Galaxy smartphone owner as well.
The Galaxy Watch4 uses Samsung Health to track a long list of workouts, including running, walking, cycling, hiking, rowing, swimming (indoor and out), treadmill and other. The watch would automatically detect when you've walked for a few minutes and start a workout and track your heart rate during the workout to measure whether you've been active and how much - don't want to go overboard with those anaerobic heart rates!
After a workout, you can look up parameters like your average heart rate, a breakdown of your heart rate zones (low intensity, weight control, aerobic, anaerobic, maximum).
Workout information
A hike would give you the pace of walking, the elevation data and your heart rate data, as well as a GPS track of your progress on a map.
Hiking information
Moving on to health tracking. The big novelty this year is BMI (Body mass index) monitoring, which breaks down your body's muscle, fat and metabolic rate and combines it into a neat rating. Normally a DEXA/DXA (bone densitometry) scanner would be fitted into a scale, taking in your weight and conducting small electro-charges through the soles of your feet to measure body composition.
Because the Galaxy Watch4 can only to the latter part it asks you for your weight every time it performs a reading. This is fine, but makes the reading inaccurate for people that don't have a scale at home and don't know what their current weight is.
Then there's the accuracy. Samsung claims 98% when compared to industry scanners, but we have no way of verifying this. A couple of us here at HQ gave the BMI reading a go. Samsung Health says we're a bit overweight and have too much fat mass and too much skeletal muscle, which can't be right! Right?
To conclude, BMI readings should be used to take a baseline from which you can observe changes over time - be active, enjoy a balanced diet and use changes in your data to better your health.
We performed an ECG through the Galaxy Watch4 and got a clean bill of health, well sort of. The Watch4 will only ever look for atrial fibrillation in your sinus rhythm, which we didn't have.
Sleep tracking is very advanced on the Galaxy Watch4. You get a total number of hours in bed, which the watch calls total sleep time, weirdly. Then a break down of the actual sleep time, broken down further into REM sleep, light sleep and deep sleep. The Galaxy Watch4 would monitor your blood oxygen levels while you're asleep and also estimate how many calories you've used.
There's snore detection which uses your phone in tandem with the watch - when the watch detects certain movement, the phone starts an audio recording to determine if you're snoring. We tested for it, but the watch reported no snoring.
You need to have a general idea of what you're looking for sleep readings, and Samsung Health will give you some guidelines and a score. From generalizations like 'most adults need 7 to 8 hours of sleep' to more insightful information about deep sleep accounting for physical recovery and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep taking care of mental recovery.
If you're willing to have a watch strapped to your wrist while you're sleeping, the Galaxy Watch4 can give you insights for your own consideration.
Competition
The Galaxy Watch4 starts at €269 and goes to €299 for the BT/Wi-Fi model, 40mm and 44mm, respectively. A move to the LTE is €319 and €349 per size.
The Galaxy Watch4 Classic comes in 42mm and 46mm, priced €369 and €399 each. A move to the LTE models is €419 and €449.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch4 series has few rivals because of their early access to Wear OS 3. Only a few Wear OS watches are currently on the market and can be recommended, like the TicWatch E3 or the TicWatch Pro 3. They're packing the Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform, which should ensure they'll get Wear OS 3 eventually.
But even then, the Galaxy Watch4 offers more - like the premium build, the broader fitness and health tracking and the tighter integration with Galaxy smartphones.
Huawei has a trio of smartwatches that are worth looking at. The recent Watch 3 and Watch3 Pro with Harmony OS can't match the Galaxy on apps support, but are both more than a match in terms of display quality, performance and can double the Galaxy Watch4' runtime.
The Huawei Watch GT2 Pro is older now, but it's very cheap and provides a week's worth of battery life as well as a sapphire glass cover and stainless steel casing.
The Galaxy Watch3 series is still around and more than capable of going toe to toe with its successor. While technically more limited due to their now-older Tizen OS and their chipset, the Galaxy Watch3 boasts almost the same performance, the same battery life and barring BMI readings, the same fitness and health tracking - ECG and Blood Pressure included. And the pair of smartwatches are now cheaper because they're 1 year old, not to mention that the 45mm Galaxy Watch3 ships with a superior leather band, compared to the 46mm Galaxy Watch4 Classic and its rubber band.
Finally, and obviously, the Galaxy Watch4 series has a major rival in the likes of the Apple Watch Series 6. Like Samsung's currently closed-off smartwatches, the Apple Watch really only works with the iPhones. The Apple Watch is fast, and its selection of apps is unparalleled. You have a huge choice of materials, custom straps, both artsy and high-quality. And the Apple Watch has the health and fitness pedigree to rival the Galaxy Watch4 in almost every way. Price-wise, the Apple Watch Series 6 costs more in both its 40mm and 44mm variant. But really, if you're choosing between an Apple Watch and Galaxy Watch, you're choosing between an iPhone and a Galaxy, so sort that out first and then take the default watch for the platform.
Verdict
Samsung made a good set of watches this year. They're clearly based on their predecessors, and most of the focus went in on integrating with Google's Wear OS and achieving reliable data from the new BMI sensor. Still, the end result is a polished and mature product, if not drastically different than its predecessor.
Samsung's watches have always done things their own way, and in 2021 that's still the case, only with a little help from Google and its considerable wearable OS. Whether you go for a Galaxy Watch4 with a virtual rotating bezel or the Galaxy Watch4 Classic with a physical one, you're getting Samsung's way of doing a wearable, and that's no bad thing. The rotating bezel is in many people's minds the best way to do it. Using your fingers to navigate an OS and having that lovely, fine-tuned mechanical feedback is something we've forgotten in this age of touchscreens. Having that might justify paying a price premium for the Classic model all on its own. The Galaxy Watch4 does its best to mimic the mechanical bezel but ultimately falls short.
The Galaxy Watch4 series bring industry-leading processing, display technology, fitness and health tracking and deep integration with Galaxy phones that's only matched by Apple's watch and phone combination. Put simply, these are the best smartwatches for the general Android user - the one that likes to track health and fitness and keep an eye out on notifications.
We've already laid out this watch's rivals. But who is it for? Generalizing that it's for Android users doesn't feel right. It's for Galaxy users. Paying as much as Samsung asks for these smart timepieces isn't practical without getting all you've paid for - the deeper integration and the ECG and Blood Pressure functionality.
Pros
- Good build quality, especially on the stainless steel Classic model.
- Great OLED with higher resolution.
- The iconic rotating ring is here (on the Classic model).
- New BMI reading, ECG monitor, Blood Pressure, SpO2, VO2 Max, Sleep and Stress monitoring.
- New Wear OS Powered by Samsung adds features, yet feels familiar.
- Superb notificaton handling.
- LTE and loudspeaker for direct phone calls even on the 40mm version.
Cons
- Only average battery life of 1-2 days.
- Even the more expensive Classic model ships with a cheap-feeling rubber band.
- Expensive at launch.
- ECG and Blood Pressure measurements not certified in most countries.
- Galaxy Watch4 could've retained the curved glass of the Watch Active2.
If you're looking at the new Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 in a vacuum, they are expensive, but not unreasonably so. But if you factor in their predecessors and things take on a different look. All Galaxy Watch3 models came with a classy leather strap. With the Galaxy Watch4, the leather option is an add-on you pay for. Adding insult to injury, the provided rubber band is lacking character and feels cheap. We have our fair share of watch straps at HQ, both original and third party; the genuine ones habve always been higher quality than the third party - this year, Samsung's feels just as cheap as a €7 knock-off you can grab online.
Of course, that issue can be remedied by simply grabbing any 20mm strap you like - it's part of accessorizing your watch. But with prices north of €260 and reaching €399 and even €449, the materials you get should be better.
People that use Samsung Health regularly should definitely consider this watch. It's the default choice, and it's deserving of it. It's better than its predecessor at taking care of your health, and it's faster and smarter, thanks to Wear OS. It's also future-proofed, while the Galaxy Watch3 is basically as good as outdated at this point.
However, if you own a Galaxy Watch3, you should probably hold onto it for a while.
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