Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic Review
Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic at its Unpacked event earlier this month. It also has a more premium appearance, with a chunky ring around the display that more closely resembles the design of a classic wristwatch. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 looks familiar, yet different.
Design and Display:
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic is the company’s most recent smartwatch, and it comes with a strap that can be readily changed using an app. The watch is available in silver or black, depending on the color of the straps, as well as the watch’s body and bezel. The straps can only extend perpendicularly from the sides of the body, leaving a large gap between the strap and your wrist, unlike most other smartwatches. The watch has two buttons: the top one returns you to the home page, while the lower one may be held down to suspend tracking during exercises. With vibrant colors and high maximum brightness, the display is one of the nicest we’ve seen on a smartwatch.
Activity Tracking:
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 can track both indoor and outdoor exercises. The calorie counter on the watch is a little high, but the GPS accurately traced my reliable 10-mile route. You’ll probably need to use the Samsung Health app on your phone to add workout types. It also includes an auto-pause feature, which prevents me from recording a 35-minute mile due to my dog’s need to say hello to everyone.
Performance and Software:
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic is the most recent version of Google’s Wear OS smartwatch and fitness tracker operating system. Wear OS 3.0, which will be used on this series of watches and other devices in the future, makes its debut on the Classic. This means you can use the rotating bezel to access fitness tracking modes, audio controls, and heart rate monitoring.
Swiping down from the top opens the options menu, which contains a very helpful option called ‘Theatre Mode,’ which we used a lot. This turned off raise-to-wake and silenced notifications for a specific amount of time, making it ideal for viewing a movie. You can choose from a variety of watch faces, and you can further modify them by changing the complexities, adding your photo, or adjusting the clock.
Sleep and Stress Tracking:
The watch measures SpO2, which is important for people who suffer from sleep apnea. Samsung’s stress app displays your stress levels, which are tracked using the Breathe app embedded into the phone. Though it’s encouraging to see Samsung’s watch-catching up, the Fitbit Sense takes a more believable approach to stress monitoring.
Fitness:
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic includes three primary fitness modes that are easily accessible from the device’s main menu. The watch uses GPS to track your location, as well as time, speed, elevation, heart rate, calories burned, and other data. The watch will interrupt any music you’re listening to at the end of each ‘lap’ or mile while a voice reels off a list of your data.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic is one of the better smartwatches we’ve tried, but when it comes to fitness monitoring, it’s a bit hit-or-miss. Its workout modes have certain errors, and the finicky controls and voice announcements can be annoying to use. A fascinating new mode tells you stuff like body composition scanning, which isn’t as exact as scanning these things with actual technology.
Battery Life:
The battery life of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic is without a doubt its poorest characteristic. While the ordinary model lasts roughly two days between charges, we found that the Classic only lasts about one day in our testing. Charging is a USB-C charging station that plugs into a wall socket. It doesn’t charge quickly; it takes around two hours to fully charge the watch.
Pros:
- New watch faces and a slimmer design
- Wear OS is similar to Tizen, but with more apps.
- Body composition analysis is the first important smartwatch feature.
- More cost-effective than the Galaxy Watch 3.
Cons:
- Issues with the BIA sensor
- Battery life isn’t always consistent.
Conclusion:
The success of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is due to its ability to integrate as seamlessly with Galaxy devices as the Apple Watch does with the larger Apple ecosystem. The battery life might be better, and Wear OS lacks certain important functions at launch. For the number of people for whom wrist-based body composition analysis may be dangerous, I’m cautious to extol its virtues.
