Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Review: Samsung Reinvents the Best Android Smartwatch

Samsung has unveiled its Galaxy Watch 4 series with some major changes. For one, the “Active” moniker is gone and we get the “Classic” version with a rotating bezel.

Samsung Watch 4 price in Nepal starts at Rs. 34,999 whereas the Watch 4 Classic starts at Rs. 46,999. The LTE models of both the Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic are not available in Nepal.

I have been using the Watch 4 40mm version for more than a week now and this is my full review.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Review

Design

• Watch 4: 40mm and 44mm, Watch 4 Classic: 42mm and 46mm
• IP68 Dust/Water Resistance
• Aluminum Frame (Watch 4), Stainless Steel Frame (Watch 4 Classic)

The 40mm Watch 4 looks a bit small for my hands but I like how it rests on the wrist. The aluminum frame looks sleek and it feels sturdy as well. And, I definitely miss the physical rotating bezel found on the classic version.

The silicone strap of the Watch 4 is comfortable to wear all day. But, these straps have angled connectors which makes it look a bit bulky. The two buttons feel premium as well. The home button does what is named after and it can also wake up Bixby.  Likewise, you can customize the back key to go to the previous screen or show recent apps.

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It also comes with 5ATM and IP68 Dust/Water resistance. And, that’s why I have been wearing this out in the rain and even while taking shower without any worry.

Display

• 1.2-inches Super AMOLED / 44mm: 1.4-inches Super AMOLED

For display, the 40mm Watch 4 has a 1.2-inch AMOLED panel with black bezels all around. Well, the bezel could have been thinner but it’s fine. Talking about the bezel, Watch 4 doesn’t get the physical rotation bezel. Instead, it uses the touch bezel which works pretty well.

The display panel is bright, colors are punchy, and offers very good viewing angles. The auto-brightness adjustment does a very good job and I never had to use the manual brightness slider.

You can get plenty of watch faces via Samsung’s store or you can even install third-party apps like “Facer” from Play Store for premium watch faces.

Hardware

• Exynos W920 chipset
• 2 Cortex-A55 cores
• Mali-G68 GPU
• 1.5GB RAM
• 16GB Storage

The Watch 4 series is also using a new Exynos W920 processor designed for smartwatches and other wearables.

The Exynos W920 has 2 Cortex-A55 cores and a Mali-G68 GPU. And, it also includes a dedicated Cortex-M55 processor for always-on display. Samsung claims that this chipset provides 20% better CPU performance and 10 times better GPU performance than its previous wearable chip.

Moving on, these watches have 1.5GB RAM and 16GB internal storage.

During my usage, these watches felt smoother and faster than the previous generation. The animations are faster and feel more fluid but it is definitely not super smooth. I mean, I had to swipe more than once to get what I wanted sometimes.

Health Tracking Features

• Samsung bioactive sensor
• ECG, Blood pressure, SpO2
• Sleep monitoring, Body Composition

Samsung is debuting its BioActive sensor that can measure ECG in real-time. The BioActive sensor is a 3-in-1 sensor that uses a single chip to precisely run 3 health sensors – Optical Heart Rate, Electrical Heart, and Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis. This helps users to monitor their blood pressure, detect irregular heartbeat, and measure blood oxygen levels. Sadly, we cannot use some of these features in Nepal.

The heart rate measurement and SpO2 measurement are quite accurate. I never had any trouble while measuring the heart rate or blood oxygen level.

There’s also a new feature called Body Composition which measures things like skeletal muscle, basal metabolic rate, body water, and body fat percentage.

The two buttons on the side also act as an input to check your body composition. It’s very easy to use this feature but I’m not sure about its accuracy. According to its measurement, I dropped around 3% body fat in 3 days which makes me wonder about its accuracy.

Furthermore, Watch 4’s sleep tracking is also really good. It can accurately track your sleep and provide insights on how to improve your sleeping habits.

The Watch 4 series is packed with health and fitness tracking features. But, things like ECG and blood pressure measurement won’t be available in regions like Nepal.

Activity-Tracking

As for fitness tracking, it can track a lot of workouts. Some of the workouts are already provided via the Workout tile but you can add furthermore from the phone or the watch itself. And, GPS tracking also works like a charm.

During workout tracking, the Watch 4 also provides audible and vibration updates. This is really useful when you are not able to closely monitor your wrist. As for the automatic tracking, it is very accurate. The tracking screen pops up after 10 mins of walking, cycling, and running. And, the auto-pause function of the Watch 4 is also seriously accurate.

Overall workout-tracking of the Watch 4 is very impressive.

Wear OS

• Wear OS 3
• One UI Watch 3

Samsung has made the switch to Google’s Wear OS 3 and Samsung is calling it the Wear OS powered by Samsung. Basically, it feels like a Galaxy Watch with Samsung software sprinkled with Wear OS elements.

The Watch 4 uses a Samsung One UI Watch overlay on top of the Wear OS 3 with Samsung apps and services. But, the Google Map support is a welcome addition with updated navigation support. The watch automatically syncs itself and shows you the direction when you use the google map on the phone.

Samsung has also opted to keep the Bixby instead of the Google Assistant. The Google Assistant support should be coming later with an update.

Samsung has done a great job with the software integration. When you go through its settings menu, you will know that you are using One UI. With the new Wear OS, you can now access the play store which allows users to use popular third-party apps. Well, Spotify support was already available on previous watches but Spotify still hasn’t added offline play support on the Wear OS.

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Moving on, the gesture keyboard is very easy to use, and it’s really useful when you want to send short messages like “Ok”. Overall, Samsung’s spin on Google’s Wear OS is almost perfect.

Battery

• 247mAh battery

As for the battery, the 40/42mm models feature a 247mAh battery. Whereas the 44/46mm models feature a 361mAh battery. Both models support WPC-based wireless charging.

Samsung claims 40 hours of battery life on a single charge. For the 40mm Watch 4 that I’m using I was getting around a day of battery life. This included tracking workouts and notification sync with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on. Under heavy use, I was having to charge the watch before the end of the day.

If you use the watch in medium power saving mode then you can extend the battery life by some hours. But the battery life of the Watch 4 is its only weakness.

As for charging, it takes slightly under 2 hours to go from 0 to 100%.

Should You Buy Samsung Watch 4?

The Galaxy Watch 4 series looks very good. Samsung’s spin on Google Wear OS 3 looks swift and practical.

On top of that, Samsung provides lots of features like ECG, Blood Pressure, and Body Composition. While I don’t think the Body Composition feature is accurate, ECG and Blood Pressure features are not available in regions like Nepal.

Overall, the hardware upgrade and new software integration from Samsung makes the Samsung Watch 4 one of the best smartwatch. However, I would have enjoyed a better battery life.

On the other note, If you are using the Watch 3, you do not really need to upgrade if you are fine with Tizen OS.

What do you think of the Samsung Watch 4? Let us know in the comments!

Also, watch our review of the Samsung Z Flip 3 in Nepali.