The past week has been quite a busy one for Samsung as the South Korean electronics and gadget giant has embarked on an unveiling spree of new products; the latest being the Samsung Galaxy Watch — the new flagship off its wearable line of products. Other products that were unveiled include the Galaxy Home AI speaker, the Galaxy Tab S4, and the Galaxy Note 9.
While the last notable wearables from Samsung were the Gear S3 released in November 2016, and the Gear Sport (2017), Samsung has decided to steer towards a totally new direction and drop the ‘Gear’ codename from its smartwatch line of product and adopt the renowned ‘Galaxy’ branding. Hence, the release of the Samsung Galaxy Watch, and not ‘Gear S4’ as many had expected and previously predicted.
With the Galaxy Watch, Samsung is looking to re-enter and (maybe) dominate the smartwatch market in grand style. But with top-of-the-line smartwatches from rival brands like Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei etc., will the features of the Galaxy Watch compete effectively? Does it cut the mustard? I guess time will be the judge of that.
Samsung Galaxy Watch: Design
Generally, the aesthetical property of the Samsung Galaxy Watch is similar to its predecessor, the Gear S3. The only difference, which might take quite much time to notice, is that the dial designs have a more analog-y appearance.
About the display, a 1.3-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 360 x 360 resolution is in place. While one might wonder why Samsung chose to adopt the same display hardware used on the Gear S3 of 2016, you can’t but admit that display is a good one. Surrounding the display is a rotating bezel for navigation and switching between apps.
The Galaxy Watch sports the Gorilla Glass DX+ which was recently announced by Corning for wearable devices.
The Gorilla Glass DX+ —asides improving sunlight readability by 75% and offering improved resistance against scratches, bump, knocks, and whatnot— surprisingly brings about improvements in battery life.
Variants
The Samsung Galaxy Watch comes in two variants, the first time Samsung will release a smartwatch in two types; like it mostly does with smartphones.
The two variants are entirely differentiated by watch face size, with (the smaller) one coming in at 42mm while the other is sized 46mm. The 46mm Galaxy Watch will be available in Silver colour while the 42mm variant will launch in Rose Gold and Midnight Black colours.
All features and properties of both watches are entirely the same, save for battery capacity, RAM, and connectivity. Both variants are 5 ATM water resistant and possess military-grade (MIL-STD-810G) protection.
Hardware, Processor & OS
Underneath the body of the Samsung Galaxy Watch is a dual-core Exynos 9110 chipset that clock up to 1.15GHz. In assistance is 1.5GB of RAM (46mm 4G model) for fluid operations and 4GB of built-in memory for data and multimedia storage. The Bluetooth (42mm) variant, however, comes with 768MB of RAM.
The Galaxy Watch will run Samsung’s native Tizen OS, but a rather improved version; the Tizen OS v4.0.
Battery
One of the highlights of the Samsung Galaxy Watch is the seven-day battery life it boasts of. The 42mm model comes with 270mAh battery while the 46mm model is almost twice the size of the smaller counterpart; 472mAh.
Other Features
- Samsung Health App — tracks up to 40 different workouts
- Built-in GPS
- Samsung Pay — supports only NFC transactions
- Compatible with Android 5.0 or iOS 9.0 and above
- Heart rate monitor
- Calorie tracking
- Reminders
- Sleep tracker/monitor
Samsung Galaxy Watch Price and Availability
Perhaps to drive up sales, Samsung beat down the price of the Galaxy Watch to be about $90 cheaper than the Gear S3. And though they won’t be up for sale till August 24 in Korea, pre-order have officially begun; global shipping of the wearable will commence on September 14.
The 42mm variant of the Samsung Galaxy Watch with 768MB of RAM and Bluetooth will cost $329.99 while the bigger 46mm variant with 1.5GB RAM and 4G LTE will sell for $349.99.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Specifications
- Dimension — 46 x 49 x 13 mm, 63g (46mm) l 42 x 46 x 13 mm, 49g (42mm)
- Battery — 427mAh (46mm) l 270mAh (42mm)
- Chipset — Dual-core 1.15GHz Samsung Exynos 9110 processor
- RAM — 1.5GB (4G) l 768MB (Bluetooth)
- Storage — 4GB internal memory
- Operating System — Tizen OS 4.0
- Compatibility — Android 5.0 or iOS 9.0 and above
