Stylish digital timepiece
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch is designed to match every lifestyle, writes Balqis Lim
THERE are two main reasons why you would want a smartwatch — notifications and fitness tracking. Today, there are also a number of competitors stepping up their game with solid smartwatches that deliver impressive battery life, enhanced tracking metrics and useful features, all designed to help you stay active and alert throughout the day, and restful and stressfree at night.
Let’s have a look at Samsung’s Galaxy Watch, an iteration of wearable devices that were formerly known as the Gear S.
FIRST LOOK
As the review unit comes in the 46mm size, it was a little big for me. There’s also an option of 42mm for women or those with smaller wrists.
The watch is made of stainless steel, plastic, and gorilla glass. The device has excellent build quality and can easily be mistaken for a regular wristwatch. Howmore ever, the design at the bottom stands out, making the Galaxy Watch a little bulkier. I would prefer my watch to have a flat bottom so it looks sleeker and more ergonomic.
The rotating bezel is an absolute joy to use, allowing you to navigate through widgets and notifications while maintaining full visibility of the screen.The 22mm interchangeable rubber straps are comfortable to wear. It is 5ATM+IP68, meaning you don’t have to worry about wearing the watch during your workout.
The Galaxy Watch sports a 1.3-inch Super Amoled display with a 360x360 pixel resolution. It has a beautiful display, something we have pretty much come to expect from Samsung.
Besides that, it also has a good selection of watch faces to choose from. Those who like changing their watch face to suit every occasion will not be disappointed.
Although I did not try, this feature the Galaxy Watch comes equipped with Samsung Pay, so making a purchase is as easy as a flick of the wrist and there’s no need to bring your phone or wallet with you.
COMMUNICATE BETTER
The watch features a built-in speaker on the left side, where you can also play music but the sound quality isn’t going to blow you away. Answering phone calls, which is a realistic use of the built-in speaker, is something I can appreciate.
Besides the downside of having everyone around listening to your conversations, expect to be stared at when speaking to your watch in public. But it doesn’t take away how awesome it is though.
Calls are clear and the mic picks up my voice just fine. I have yet to receive any complaints from those I spoke to over the watch. When it comes to battery life, it does an amazing job. For normal use, I get about four to five days. It also takes less than three hours to charge it fully.
NOTIFICATIONS AND APPS
You will receive most of the notifications that you get on your phone. In the Galaxy Wearable app, you can customise which app to receive notifications from. The vibration intensity is super strong, there’s no way you can miss any notification.
The Galaxy Watch works best when paired with a Samsung phone as the emails, messages and phone app all have a native app on the watch. This would allow you to see your message history and initiate messages directly on the watch.
If you paired it with a non-Samsung phone, you will still receive notifications on the watch and for the most part, you will also be able to respond to them. However, you will not be able to see the history of your messages or initiate messages on the watch.
There are a number of Samsung apps or health-related widgets that you can choose to add to your Galaxy Watch homescreen. Any third-party apps that have widgets will automatically show up once installed on the watch.
In terms of messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, while both do not have a native app on the watch, you can still receive notifications.
With Facebook Messenger, you are only given the option to “Like” the message but will not be able to reply on the watch. WhatsApp messages, however, can be responded to directly on the watch. Options for replying messages include speech-totext, handwriting, T9 keyboard and customised quick messages.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch has really cut down on the number of times I checked my phone throughout the day.
FITNESS AND HEALTH
The watch offers a range of fitness and health tracking capabilities. With its autoworkout detection, the watch can automatically detect six activities — walking, running, cycling, elliptical, rowing and dynamic workout.
You can select more to measure up to 39-plus types of activities as you move from one to the other. The Inactive Time Alerts, once activated, will prompt you to perform five repetitions of small movements like torso twists or squats when it detects that you have been sitting around for too long.
It does a very good job at detecting walks. Although not much can be said in terms of fitness tracking, it’s more than capable of being your fitness companion. The heart rate monitor works well on everyday tasks, but despite that, the struggles were more during an intense workout.
An accumulation of sweat seems to throw away the optimum heart rate sensor. You will have to wipe your sweat before re-wearing, for the sensor to work again. Sleep tracking offers a glimpse into the quality of your sleep and it’s built right into the watch. However due to the large size, it is not that comfortable to wear to bed.
CONCLUSION
Samsung has done a really good job at providing users with apps that are used frequently on the Galaxy Watch. It’s a durable, attractive and well-built smartwatch that has a battery that can go multiple days. The rotating bezel is the most fun I had navigating on a smartwatch, period. If you own a Samsung phone and are looking for a smartwatch, look no further than the Galaxy Watch. Verdict: 4/5