Samsung’s newest smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, is the company’s latest attempt to redeem its smart wearables line. After Apple, Samsung is the second-largest smartwatch manufacturer, with over 9.5 million devices supplied by June 2021. In retrospect, Samsung only managed to ship 2 million handsets at the same period, giving Apple a lead of almost 7 million shipments, demonstrating the popularity of the iPhone.

Samsung hopes to alter that with the Galaxy Watch 4, which is the company’s first wristwatch to run ‘WearOS Powered by Samsung’. This is a new proprietary wearable UI built in collaboration with Google. Samsung smartwatches ran Tizen OS until the Galaxy Watch 3, but the company said earlier this year that it will combine Tizen OS’s greatest features with the next iteration of Google’s WearOS. Is the Watch 4 thus worth the asking price? Here’s what we discovered.

SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH 4 BUILD AND DESIGN

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 boasts a simple aesthetic and a build quality that is robust. The frame is composed of aluminum, and a silicone sport band is included.

This 44mm variant has a thickness of 9.8mm and a weight of 30.3 grams. This makes it rather slim and light in the hand. In comparison, it is thinner and lighter than the Apple Watch SE and Series 6.

The Watch 4 boasts a sleek appearance that is similar of the Galaxy Watch Active series. It has a flat display surrounded by chamfered corners. A red accented home key and a back key are located below it.

The atmospheric pressure sensor is on the Watch 4’s top edge, and there are a slew of sensors on the rear, including an optical heart rate sensor, electrical biosensors, and a pressure vent.

On the left side, there is also a speaker unit. The Watch 4 is also 5ATM and IP68 certified, making it dust and water resistant for up to 1.5 meters of freshwater for 30 minutes. The Watch 4 is also resistant to water pressure at depths of up to 50 meters. In our testing, the Watch 4 was able to tolerate splashes of water with ease. We are convinced that it will last for lengthy periods of time in freshwater.

The Watch 4 does not put too much strain on your hand and is generally pleasant to wear. However, the sport band has a rigidity to it where it bends around the lugs. This is primarily due to the way Samsung built the watch, with the strap appearing to be an extension of the lugs. However, because of this design choice, there is some gap between the straps and your hand. Therefore the watch may feel a little loose at times.

If you have thin wrists, the 40mm model is the way to go, but for everyone else, the 44mm will suffice. It may not be the coziest wristwatch on the market, especially at night, but the Watch 4’s design leaves nothing to be desired.

SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH 4 DISPLAY

The 44mm Watch 4 includes a 1.4-inch Super AMOLED display with 450×450 pixel resolution. It also has a scratch-resistant layer of Gorilla Glass with DX+ that improves visibility and contrast ratio.

The bezel around the screen is also touch-sensitive and functions as a virtual rotating bezel. This allows you to move about the home tiles by just swiping across it. It’s a straightforward feature, to be sure, but the functioning isn’t ideal because the display is flat; a little curved screen would have been better in this case. The tactile spinning bezel on the Watch 4 Classic, on the other hand, is noteworthy.

The Watch 4’s display is rather bright at full brightness. However, you can configure it to adapt automatically based on the ambient illumination. The watch’s sunlight readability is excellent, and you can readily see and interact with it even in direct sunshine.

An always-on display and increased touch sensitivity for usage while wearing gloves are among the other improvements. Thanks to Wear OS, there are a slew of different watch faces pre-installed, and third-party apps can be downloaded for even more options.

SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH 4 Performance

The Exynos W920 processor in the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 includes dual-core CPUs that work at up to 1.18GHz. The Exynos CPU is efficient and the One UI Watch 3 interface feels incredibly fluid. This is because it is constructed on a 5nm design and combined with 1.5GB RAM.

The swipe motions are quick, and I had no latency during my time with it. There is 16GB of storage available, which is plenty for storing your music, programs, maps data, and other files.

The app drawer is accessed by swiping up from the home screen, and the icons are organized in a honeycomb-like grid. You can see all of the installed apps in the drawer; everything is incredibly simple and runs like clockwork.

When you link your Watch 4 with your phone, you’ll get alerts on it, as well as the ability to receive calls, respond to texts, and more. In the app drawer, there is a recent apps symbol that feels out of place. It may have been handy if it had been merged into one of the physical buttons.

TRACKING FEATURES

The BioActive, accelerometer, barometer, gyroscope, geomagnetic, and light sensors are all included in the Galaxy Watch 4’s sensor set. The BioActive sensor, which lets the watch monitor blood pressure and body composition, is really a mix of the optical heart rate sensor, ECG, and Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis.

However, you can only test your blood pressure and ECG if you have a Samsung smartphone. This is a disappointment but nothing that an OTA update from the brand can’t fix.

All of your fitness activities can be conveniently tracked with the Galaxy Watch 4. It tracks how many steps you take each day, how long you stay active, and how many calories you burn while doing so. Swimming, jogging, circuit training, hiking, treadmill, and bench press are just a handful of the 90 workout modes available. It also monitors your sleep cycle, stress levels, and oxygen saturation levels in your blood. Aside from that, the watch is capable of automatically detecting activities.

The Samsung Health app offered me with a comprehensive picture of data points such as a precise GPS map of the stretch, speeds, elevation, and heart rate.

It also provides a split-view of your lap performance at each kilometer. You can also filter by average speed or time to finish a kilometer.

If you engage in other fitness activities such as jogging, walking, or hiking, for example, you may get a comparable analysis. In sports such as running, the Watch 4 provides sophisticated data such as asymmetry, contact duration, stiffness, and more, as well as an overall score based on the run.

The body composition or BMI (Body Mass Index) function, which sends an electric pulse through your body to assess your body fat, muscle mass, body water, and more, is one of the Watch 4’s standout features. For the whole time the watch calculates the body composition. The watch collects 2,400 data points from your body in only 15 seconds. It does this to analyze fat mass, body fat percentage, body water, basal metabolic rate, weight, BMI, and skeletal muscle.

While we were unable to evaluate the accuracy of the body composition function, it should provide you with a starting point from which to track your body fat fluctuations over time. The Samsung Health app also creates a graph based on all of your BMI readings, displaying changes in skeletal muscle, body fat, and more.

My sleep was also correctly and minutely observed by the Galaxy Watch 4. The Samsung Health app displays the length of sleep, as well as blood oxygen levels and snoring statistics. A detailed chart of sleep durations classified as REM, light, and deep sleep may also be found.

HEALTH APP

samsung galaxy watch 4

It’s simple to connect your Watch 4 to your phone. It connects to your smartphone through Bluetooth 5.0 and synchronizes data in real time. The software is simple to use, and many data points are clearly described inside the app. Therefore you can read and understand what the statistics represent in terms of your vitals.

You can also connect the Samsung Health app with Strava and share and accept fitness challenges with your friends. The software is well-designed, and it keeps track of all of your workout data. You can access this by simply touching a day on the calendar.

The Health app gives a full description of how to determine BMI and the data gathered and evaluated during body composition measurements depending on your weight during body composition measurements.

BATTERY LIFE

The Galaxy Watch 4 has a 361mAh battery that Samsung promises would last for more than two days. However, with alerts, an always-on display, Bluetooth, and WiFi enabled, we were able to achieve a day and a half of use on a daily basis. Expect the battery life to decline to approximately a day or so if you use it to track workouts, sleep, and other activities. This is fine for Android smartwatches. The Apple Watch Series 6 lasts 18-20 hours on a single charge as well, but it costs twice as much.

The Watch 4 took almost 2.5 hours to completely charge using the magnetic charger included in the package. This is a pity because the watch is worthless for the time it is plugged in, missing out on data points when you’re relaxing or sleeping.

SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH 4 PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

In Nepal, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 with Bluetooth starts at Rs 35,000 for the 40mm band size. It will cost you Rs 37,000 for the 44mm band size. The device is available in three colorways: black, green, and silver.

VERDICT

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is a multi-functional timepiece that allows you to track your vitals and activities throughout the day with no effort. Those who like simple design will appreciate Samsung’s newest watch. The Watch 4’s display is bright and clear, although we would have preferred a slightly curved screen instead.

For those who already possess a Samsung smartphone, the Watch 4 is a no-brainer because it is the ideal partner. If you don’t have a Samsung phone and want a nice wristwatch that can measure your fitness levels, you can still get it. Just keep in mind that some services, like as ECG and blood pressure, are now only available on Samsung phones.

Overall, the Galaxy Watch 4 is a significant improvement over previous generations, serving as a spiritual successor to the Galaxy Watch Active 2. If you have an iPhone, don’t buy it because the Watch 4 isn’t compatible with them, although Samsung is expected to support it shortly. Check out the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic if you’re searching for something a little more refined.

Also check out our review of the Galaxy Watch 3 to see what improvements were made in the latest edition.