Our take on Samsung’s latest wearable — the Galaxy Watch
“Our take on Samsung’s latest wearable — the Galaxy Watch”
I’ve been using Samsung’s latest Galaxy Watch for a few weeks now, and in the time, I’ve concluded that it’s the best smartwatch money can buy, provided your daily driver is an Android smartphone. In fact, until Qualcomm’s Wear 3100 platform hits the shelves, you’d be hard-pressed to find a wearable which can compete with Samsung’s offering head-on. From its rich feature set which lets you track a myriad of activities, to its gorgeous design and competitive price tag, there’s plenty to love about the all-new Samsung Galaxy Watch. If you’re still not convinced, read on as I elaborate on what makes the Galaxy Watch so darn good.
First things first – if you’re planning on buying the Samsung Galaxy Watch, you’ll have to choose between two different sizes of 42mm and 46mm. The variant I was sent for review shipped with a 46mm dial, however, since the rest of the specs are the same across the two models, my praises and critiques would apply to the smaller sized Galaxy Watch too.
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch leaves little to the imagination in terms of design. In fact, if you’ve seen the brand’s Gear S3 Frontier, then you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the company’s latest entrant looks like. That’s not a bad thing as the Gear S3 Frontier was, in my opinion, a bad-ass looking smartwatch. Consequently, the Galaxy Watch too feels remarkable when strapped to the wrist and I got several compliments on the design of the watch when I was out with my friends.
A word of advice — if you’ve got thin wrists, I’ll recommend you get the 42mm model. Not only will it take up less space on your wrists, but it weighs considerably less too. The model I tested tipped the scales at 63g and every now and then, I had to remove the smartwatch as it would start to weigh me down.
Now, the reason why the Galaxy Watch has a bit of heft to it is because it primarily uses metal in its construction. While the base of the smartwatch is plastic, the entire top-half (including the rotating bezel) employs series 7000 aluminium. Coupled with its silver finish, the Galaxy Watch has an air of premiumness to it which rivals high-end analogue timepieces. Moreover, you can take the Galaxy Watch for a swim too, as the wearable comes with a water-resistance rating of up to 50 meters and is also compliant with MIL-STD 810G standards.
This brings me to my favourite design aspect of the Samsung Galaxy Watch – the rotating dial, which allows users to seamlessly navigate through the UI of the watch. The bezel is arguably the most intuitive method of interacting with a wearable I’ve seen in a while, and the mechanical clicks you feel whilst rotating it feel oddly satisfying too. A fringe benefit of the same is that it doubles up as an excellent device to satiate your fidgeting needs too.
Lastly, for ports and buttons, the Samsung Galaxy Watch ships with two buttons positioned on the right-hand side of the dial, one of which acts as a back button, while the other functions as a home button. The smartwatch makes use of a proprietary charger, and even comes with a built-in speaker which is present towards the left spine of the device.
We all know that Samsung makes arguably the best displays in the biz. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the company’s Galaxy Watch’s window to the world is gorgeous too. The 46mm variant of the smartwatch ships with a 1.3-inch Super AMOLED panel with a resolution of 360 x 360 pixels. The display is as good as it gets on a smartwatch and it exhibits vibrant hues, has phenomenal contrast ratio, is extremely responsive and has satisfactory peak brightness levels.
