The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is the slimmer, sporty sibling to the Classic. It’s one of the best Wear OS smartwatches for smaller wrists.<\/b>
\nThe Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is the svelte sibling to the chunkier Watch 4 Classic. With its smaller size and multiple color options, it largely offers the same Wear OS experience as the Classic, but there are some key differences. It has a digital bezel rather than the physical rotating one the Galaxy Watch series is known for. This shaves off some of the overall footprint at the cost of a certain degree of usability. When it comes to features, though, you\u2019re not missing out on anything. It runs Wear OS 3 and is loaded with health and fitness-tracking features like blood oxygen, heart rate, and BMI. You also get a complete set of Google Play store apps, including Spotify, YouTube Music, Google Maps, Samsung Pay, and more. All this leaves you with one of the best Android smartwatch for smaller wrist sizes, at the cost of ease of control. The Galaxy Watch 4 is much less of a behemoth on your wrist than the Watch 4 Classic, making it seem more like the spiritual (and physical) successor to the fitness-oriented Active series. It comes in two size options,40mm and 44mm, and the screen sizes are pretty much identical to the Classic, with the smaller Watch 4 having a 1.2-inch screen and the 44mm having a 1.4-inch screen. There are several color options, including black, silver, green, and pink gold. My review unit was black. I got the larger 44mm Watch 4 for review, even though my wrist is on the narrower side, to take advantage of the slightly larger screen size \u2013 and potentially \u2013 battery life. At 30.3 grams, it\u2019s a good bit lighter than the 52-gram Watch 4 Classic, and it fit comfortably using the included silicone strap. Wearing it all day, working out, and sleep with it on were all perfectly comfortable. Because it\u2019s IP68, you don\u2019t have to worry about water or dust, so I never felt the need to take it off and often even forgot it was on my wrist. The most notable change is that the Watch 4 has a digital bezel rather than a physical rotating one. The screen sits flush to the aluminum body, but there is a black bezel ringing it along with two lug buttons you can use to go back to the home screen or reopen a previously opened app. If you want to scroll through apps or the various Tiles, you can run your finger along the bezel, and in theory, it should replicate the same effect as rotating the physical bezel, complete with haptics. Unfortunately, in practice, it was never very precise. Maybe my fingers are simply too inelegant, but trying to scroll with the digital bezel was awkward and finicky at the best of times. All this lends more credence to my personal belief that physical buttons and controls are almost always superior to \u201cfake\u201d capacitive ones that try to replicate them with haptics. Most of the time, I just resorted to using the touchscreen. On the plus side, the screen is crisp at 450\u00d7450, giving it 330 pixels per inch. The AMOLED panel looks great in all settings, and it\u2019s bright enough for outdoor usability. I also wasn\u2019t concerned about durability since the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass DX+, and it survived some accidental drops and bangs without a scratch. With the melding of Samsung Tizen and Google\u2019s Wear OS platform into Wear OS 3, the Watch 4 is one of the best smartwatches I\u2019ve used in terms of uniformity and usability. In many ways, Samsung\u2019s Tizen dominates the interface with the various Tiles you can set up to view what you care about, tons of watch face options with as many or as few complications as you want, and solid and improving app support on the Google Play Store. Bixby is present if you want to use voice commands, but I never found much use for it. Initial pairing is easy, and it imports things like alarms and Do Not Disturb settings from your phone automatically. Upon initial setup, however, getting notifications was finicky. I couldn\u2019t always count on messages coming through from Teams, Slack, Signal, or Discord. After a software update, notifications became much more reliable, and I haven\u2019t noticed any missing notifications lately. Apps like Spotify and YouTube Music support offline listening mode, letting you leave your phone at home when you go for a jog. You also have media controls for most apps, including Audible, Netflix, and Pocket Casts. One app I got a lot of use of was Google Maps. You can plug in directions using the keyboard or use voice commands and let the Watch 4 give you the directions. It\u2019s excellent for sparing you from having to look at your phone while on the go. The one complaint I have is that everything isn\u2019t found in the Galaxy Wearable App. You\u2019ll need to use the app for initial watch setup, picking watch faces, controlling watch settings and the Quick panel, and finding the watch. But to get all the details of your fitness and health-tracking data requires the Samsung Health app, giving you access to sleep tracking, stress tracking, steps, heart rate, and more. Last, for just electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements, you\u2019ll need to download and grant permissions to the Samsung Health Monitor app, which you can download from the Galaxy Store. That brings you a grand total of three apps to get full usage out of the Watch 4, making me wonder why Samsung doesn\u2019t integrate everything into Galaxy Wearable or Health. It\u2019s a lot of unnecessary app clutter. There are also a few individual permissions that need to be granted to take advantage of certain features. You won\u2019t be disappointed with the comprehensive suite of health and fitness-tracking features packed into the Watch 4. In terms of what it can measure, it\u2019s a closer rival to smart scales than other smartwatches on the market. The big unique measurement here is Body Composition. The Watch 4 can measure an impressive set of stats, including Body Mass Index (BMI), Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), weight, muscle, fat mass, and body fat. You measure by sliding the smartwatch further up your wrist, placing the elbow down on the table, and then pressing your fingers against the two lug buttons without touching your wrist. It\u2019s an awkward gesture and not very comfortable to hold for the time needed for the results to process. Once you get the results, there are many numbers, and as you can see in the screenshots below, it doesn\u2019t really provide much in the way of breakdown or explanation of what it all actually means. You\u2019ll have to do your own research to figure out if the stats provided by Body Composition are good or bad and to get some actionable advice. That would have been a nice feature to have in the Samsung Health app, and I\u2019m surprised at the missed opportunity since other measurements like sleep and stress tracking do offer advice for improvement. With sleep tracking, the Watch 4 neatly breaks down your sleep cycle in the Samsung Health app, giving you a sleep score, showing sleep stages like REM sleep, keeping track of blood oxygen, and recording snoring and even calories burned. It was an excellent way to evaluate the quality of my sleep, especially on those unfortunately frequent nights when I had insomnia. Stress tracking doesn\u2019t throw quite so many numbers at you, but simply plots your stress level on a chart and a color-coded bar. It\u2019s difficult to tell how accurate it is. It often told me I wasn\u2019t very stressed when I was burdened under a flood of work and told me I was very stressed while sitting down and watching Castlevania on Netflix. As much as I\u2019m fond of Trevor Belmont and Alucard, I don\u2019t think either of them was causing me much stress. Other tracking features are fairly standard. You get step and workout tracking with a variety of exercises like running, walking, cycling, swimming, circuit training, rowing, weight machines, treadmills, and more. There\u2019s both automatic and manual workout tracking, but the Watch 4 is pretty decent at picking up when you\u2019re walking and running. It had more issues picking up on when I was using my rowing machine, with me often being 10 minutes into my workout before picking up on the fact. The first several times, I had to start it manually before it eventually started to get what I was doing. It does have a bad habit of ending my session early, though, and I haven\u2019t quite been able to figure out why. There\u2019s also a heart rate monitor and electrocardiogram (ECG) that let you track your vital signs. The ECG requires the separate download of the Samsung Health Monitor, bringing you up to three apps to get full usage out of the Watch 4. The ECG measurement takes about 30 seconds to complete and requires you to rest your finger on one of the button lugs. The measurement isn\u2019t meant for diagnosing heart attacks, but it will tell you if it thinks you have atrial fibrillation. In that regard, it\u2019s useful enough, but not really something I would measure every day since the heart rate monitor keeps track of things automatically. The Watch 4 is powered by an Exynos W920 processor and has 1.5GB RAM, and 16GB of internal storage. This translates to fast and responsive apps and measurements. I never noticed any lagging or hanging, like you might on certain older-generation smartwatches. It\u2019s also nice to see the 5nm processor finally hit wearables after years of hardware stagnation in the smartwatch space. Battery life is great, at least relative to the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. I reliably squeezed out two days from the battery under average usage, which included working out on the rowing machine for 40 minutes, a walk in the park, sleep tracking, using Spotify, and general day-to-day monitoring. It took just under two hours to charge to full from 1%. Rather than topping up overnight, I usually just plugged in the Watch 4 when I was showering and never ran out of juice. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 comes in at the following price points depending on the size and model: Most models will start shipping in mid-September. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is packed with features and gives Android users plenty to like. With its slimmer design and more color options, it\u2019s more fashion-forward than the bulky Watch 4 Classic, though that does result in some usability trade-offs. The health and fitness-tracking features are impressive, especially Body Composition, even though there\u2019s room for improvements. Wear OS 3 is smooth and responsive, and the issues that cropped up upon initial use seem to be steadily getting resolved. If you\u2019re in the market for a comfortable, feature-packed smartwatch, you won\u2019t go wrong with the Galaxy Watch 4. If you\u2019re an iPhone user, the obvious choices are the Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch SE. They integrate the best in the iOS ecosystem, they\u2019re high-quality and packed with most or all of the same features as the Watch 4. While it\u2019s possible to use Android smartwatches on iOS, the setup and integration aren\u2019t perfect, and you\u2019ll miss out on many features. For Android users, the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic is our top pick, with the Watch 4 right next to it for people with smaller wrists who are willing to sacrifice the convenience of the physical bezel. However, there are other Android smartwatch options like the Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 and TicWatch E3, which will both get Wear OS 3 at some point next year. But the Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic are both newer, so if you want the latest and greatest, you\u2019d be better off with them. The Galaxy Watch 4 has a standard one-year warranty. It\u2019s IP68 dust and water-resistant and rated to 5ATM, meaning it can survive at a depth of 50 meters for 10 minutes. It\u2019s also certified to MIL-STD-810G, which means it\u2019s survived a set of lab tests for resistance to shock and vibration. The included Sport strap also seems to be made of good, high-quality silicone that didn\u2019t get grungy after workouts. Lastly, Wear OS 3 is the most recent software out for smartwatches, and you\u2019re sure to get more updates, so I expect it to last for at least two years, if not longer. Yes. The Galaxy Watch 4 is the best Wear OS smartwatch for people with narrower wrists. It has the same great health and fitness-tracking features as the Watch 4 Classic, but has a lower starting price and two-day battery life. While the digital bezel isn\u2019t nearly as precise a control as the physical dial, the slimmer and more comfortable design makes it a worthwhile trade-off.<\/p>\n