Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 assessment: a wonderful watch, however an iterative replace
Editor’s Observe
• Unique assessment date: August 2023
• New Galaxy Watch 7 launched in 2024
• Launch value: $299.99 / £289 / AU$549
• Official value now: $299.99 / £289 / AU$549
Replace: November 2024. The Galaxy Watch 7 was launched by Samsung in September 2024. It options broadly the identical design as its predecessor however provides new AI-powered wellness options and a sooner chip. Nonetheless, the Galaxy Watch 6 continues to be a succesful watch that boasts the identical battery life because the newer mannequin and truly has one key benefit. Samsung hasn’t launched a Basic model of the 7, so in order for you that premium rotating bezel and nicer end, a less expensive Galaxy Watch 6 is perhaps the choose for you.
If you will discover a Galaxy Watch 6 with a hefty low cost (we have seen them half-price), that would make for a less expensive Android smartwatch than the Galaxy Watch 7, or a extra premium different to a Fitbit if you wish to push the boat out. On the proper value, the Galaxy Watch 6 is certainly nonetheless price contemplating in 2024.
Stephen Warwick
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: One minute assessment
I’ve spent a full week with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. I’ve been utilizing it to trace my sleeping, operating, normal exercise stage, water consumption and extra through Samsung Well being. I’ve used Whatsapp, Spotify, Strava and different third-party apps to check out their performance on Samsung’s One UI Watch 5.
The quick display screen refresh charge and response time for the apps we have been in a position to make use of imply the general expertise is butter-smooth, and the design is good – each externally and internally. Crucially, I’ve drained the battery down and monitored how a lot battery life GPS exercises drain from the watch.
The tip end result? We will clearly see the potential for it to knock the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 off the highest of our finest smartwatches record. It’s packing some nifty new options: notably, the processing energy and RAM have been boosted, and Samsung Pockets has expanded to have the ability to embody paperwork aside from playing cards, comparable to airline tickets.
A brand new Customized Exercise possibility permits you to put collectively multi-stage exercises, and a redesigned Sleep app expertise makes the Watch 6, in Samsung’s phrases, “the perfect machine available on the market for monitoring your sleep”.
It’s an iterative improve in some ways, however an improve nonetheless, even when it doesn’t fairly enhance on the Watch 5’s flaws sufficient to earn a uncommon 5 stars. In isolation, the Watch 6 a wonderful machine, maybe the perfect Put on OS watch I’ve but tried.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 assessment: Specs
| Chipset | Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 (40mm) | Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 (44mm) |
| Dimensions | 38.8mm x 40.4mm x 9.0mm | 42.8 x 44.4 x 9.0mm |
| Weight | 28.7g | 33.3g |
| Show | 1.3-inch, 432 x 432 px tremendous AMOLED | 1.5-inch, 480 x 480 px tremendous AMOLED |
| Case/Bezel | Aluminum armor, graphite | Aluminum armor, graphite |
| GPS | GPS, GLONASS, BEIDOU, Galileo | GPS, GLONASS, BEIDOU, Galileo |
| Battery | As much as 40 hours | As much as 40 hours |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi, LTE | Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi, LTE |
| Water-resistance | 5ATM+IP68 | 5ATM+IP68 |
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 assessment: Value and availability
- 40mm mannequin within the US begins from $299.99, 44mm from $299.99
- Begins from £289 within the UK (40mm) and £319 (44mm)
- Begins from AU$549 (40mm) and AU$599 (44mm) in Australia
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 was introduced at Samsung’s July 26 Unpacked occasion in Seoul, alongside the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Basic, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, Galaxy Z Fold 5, and Galaxy Tab S9 collection.
The Galaxy Watch 6 is available in 4 variants, and that’s earlier than you take into account the choice Basic mannequin. You might have the 40mm and 44mm sizes, with every obtainable as Bluetooth-only or LTE fashions, the latter of which grants you web entry unbiased of your telephone.
Within the US, the 40mm fashions begin at $299 for Bluetooth-only and $349 for LTE, whereas the 44mm fashions are $329.99 for Bluetooth-only and $379.99 for LTE connectivity.
Within the UK, costs begin from £289 for the 40mm Bluetooth mannequin and £339 for the 40mm LTE possibility, and from £319 and £369 for the 44mm Bluetooth-only and 44mm LTE fashions, respectively.
In Australia, the 40mm watches go for AU$549 (Bluetooth) and AU$649 (LTE), with the 44mm fashions going for AU$599 (Bluetooth) and AU$699 (LTE).
These costs put the varied Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 fashions in the identical ballpark as current-generation Apple Watches and the Google Pixel Watch, though clearly depending on sizes, fashions and offers obtainable. Contemplating that the Watch 5 began at £269 / $279.99 / AU$499 for a 40mm Bluetooth-only mannequin, a small value enhance over final yr is to be anticipated.
Having now used the watch, I’d say the value is just about bang-on: an iterative value enhance for a good improve. Nonetheless, there’s not sufficient bang in your buck right here that I’d suggest present Samsung Galaxy Watch house owners rush out and get the Watch 6.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 assessment: Design and show
- New Exynos W930 processor
- Redesigned strap-swapping performance
- Butter-smooth tremendous AMOLED display screen
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 sports activities a barely thinner bezel than the Watch 5, which has additionally necessitated a slight tweak to the case. Nonetheless, the display screen sizes and button functionalities stay similar, so the watch does look similar to its predecessor. That is no dangerous factor: the Samsung Galaxy line are handsome watches with the appropriate face alternative, and the tremendous AMOLED display screen is superb, with {smooth} transitions and a excessive refresh charge.
The watch’s display screen stays a excessive level, from the little exercise animations obtainable on earlier Samsung Galaxy Watches, to utilizing the Watch as a viewfinder to take selfies and group pictures when your telephone is propped up on a desk or different floor. Not solely can you employ the watch as a distant shutter button; you’ll be able to see a tiny image of what the digital camera sees to make sure the composition is as you need. It’s a neat trick, and I used to be stunned how good the picture-in-picture digital camera view appeared on the watch after I tried it with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5.
The Watch 6 appears to be like sensible because of its stainless-steel case and quite a lot of straps which now have a quick-swap performance. Like its predecessor, the Watch 6 has two bodily buttons (which will also be used as sensors for taking physique composition readings), which can be utilized to navigate the watch, pause exercises, or swap the Watch off manually by holding the higher button. They don’t have up and down features, so that you’re nonetheless reliant on the touchscreen for truly biking by means of screens, which might show an irritation if you wish to pause your watch mid-workout to verify one thing with sweaty arms.
Swapping between apps was seamless and fairly responsive, though the principle cloud of apps typical of Put on OS watches is wanting somewhat drained, with Apple having switched its finest Apple Watch fashions to displaying the widget stack for its most-used options. I’m an enormous advocate of widgets typically, so I discovered myself stacking my favourite functionalities as tiles onto the round digital bezel and utilizing that to navigate the watch as an alternative. Hardly ever did I am going into the app cloud as soon as I received my tiles arrange.
The Exynos W930 processor is alleged to supply an 18% sooner clock velocity, and the Watch is packing 2GB of RAM in comparison with 1.5GB within the Watch 5. Day-to-day the watch was fast and responsive because of the elevated processing energy, and it comfortably dealt with functionalities comparable to WhatsApp.
Battery life stays a problem although: at 425mAh for the 44mm mannequin and 300mAh for the 40mm mannequin, battery dimension is barely barely elevated over the Galaxy Watch 5. It’s not a small battery, however Samsung’s watches, like Apple’s and Google’s, are actually fairly inefficient in comparison with Fitbits and the perfect Garmin watches, which can final you thru every week of wear and tear at a minimal. A minimum of the Galaxy Watch 6 has WPC-based quick charging.
The strap-swapping performance is simpler than ever, offered you may have first rate thumbnails for urgent down and releasing the strap. It makes it very simple to swap straps on the fly from, for instance, daywear leather-based (which appears to be like nice) to the silicone sport band. With two sizes, a variety of colours, and quite a lot of straps, there are ample choices for having your Galaxy Watch, your approach. I cherished the black leather-based strap with the black 44mm watch: the phrase ‘govt’ got here to thoughts after I slipped it on, and I’d take into account sporting my Galaxy Watch with this strap in a proper setting, which isn’t one thing I can say for many smartwatches. However the one I examined over every week was the 40mm watch with the silicon strap, which was comfy and sized fantastic for my wrist.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 assessment: Options
- A lot of new well being and health options
- Redesigned on-watch sleep app
- Loads of third-party apps to get caught into
The Watch is stuffed to the brim with options. Sleep teaching stays related in performance to what you get on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 and 5 Professional, and on these gadgets it’s glorious: after sleeping together with your Look ahead to seven days (two days off work and 5 work days) you’ll be assigned a ‘sleep animal’ or chronotype, and get sleep-coaching suggestions primarily based on that evaluation. Your chronotype additionally presents tips about whenever you’re more likely to have essentially the most power for work or train: in case your sleep animal is a bear, as an illustration, you’re extra more likely to wake with the solar and be productive till round midday. You may view the complete record of chronotypes and sleep animals right here.
Adjustments on the Watch 6 imply you’ll see your sleep scores, sleep animal, teaching, and extra on the watch instantly, somewhat than having to dive into the app in your telephone, so you’ll be able to entry extra of your sleep stuff on the watch. It’s not fairly as detailed as marketed: for extra superior stuff, you will must open up your telephone, nevertheless it’s fantastic at a look. For instance, you’ll be able to see pores and skin temperature and blood oxygen knowledge on-watch, however to interpret this, and uncover whether or not these readings are good or dangerous, you’ll must open your telephone.
On the health aspect, Customized Exercises permits you to create multi-stage exercises which you could flick by means of with a press of the higher button to maneuver your self onto the following stage, good for triathletes. Excessive-heart-rate alerts and mid-workout coronary heart charge zone notifications are each new, and whereas I received a notification as my coronary heart charge modified zones throughout a troublesome run within the August solar, I received no alerts for an excessively excessive coronary heart charge. Good, I suppose?
The remainder of the exercises carry out simply as they did on older watches within the collection, with strolling and operating detection proving a specific spotlight. The watch robotically logs a brisk stroll or a run, which is splendidly liberating: it’s good to only stroll out my entrance door and begin operating with out urgent a single button. It’s not a brand new characteristic, nevertheless it’s well-implemented right here, and as an everyday runner, the vary of metrics you get is superb and exceeds expectations. Detailed GPS mapping lays out your route very nicely, whereas superior operating metrics embody scores for asymmetry, floor contact time, vertical stiffness and extra, with useful explainers for every.
Throughout my preliminary hands-on time with the watch, I used to be in a position to attempt the physique composition characteristic, which makes use of the identical bioelectric impedance evaluation course of as a wise scale to gauge your skeletal muscle and fats percentages. I examined the Galaxy Watch 5 Professional in opposition to a number one sensible scale final yr, and located it to be fairly correct, and testing the Watch 6 confirms this. I did, nevertheless, have a bit bother getting the characteristic to work on the smaller 40mm watch at first, as I used to be constantly prompted to maneuver the watch additional up my wrist; it was midway up my forearm earlier than it triggered, an issue I didn’t have on the 44mm. Nonetheless, after organising the 40mm and utilizing it an extra 3 times, I now not had that difficulty. Bizarre.
In any other case, the watch is stacked with potentialities because of Google Play integration, so you’ll be able to obtain all of your favourite Put on OS apps, giving the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 an terrible lot of potential; WhatsApp, for instance, can be utilized independently of your telephone. When synced to a Samsung telephone and the Samsung Well being app, the watch actually shines, with seamless transference of information, though sadly you’ll be able to’t simply share that very same knowledge with the Fitbit or Google Match apps.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 assessment: Efficiency
- I cherished the watch’s operating expertise
- Useful recommendation contextualizing knowledge
- Battery life stays irritating
Over every week of testing, I’ve actually loved the operating expertise on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. I’ve talked about the superior operating metrics, and the way I loved the automated exercise detection already on this assessment, and although I’m lacking a number of issues from my typical Garmin watches – like seeing my route with an inbuilt warmth map of how excessive my coronary heart charge was throughout every space of the route – Samsung’s operating exercise profile has quietly change into an actual contender for the perfect operating look ahead to novices.
The entire superior metrics characteristic useful explainers, and whereas beginners-to-intermediates received’t be fussed about vertical oscillation and floor contact time, the Samsung Well being app lays out all its info in a useful approach, and your route ran is displayed above a full-color, beautifully-rendered GPS map. The app won’t present as a lot data as Garmin’s, nevertheless it certain does look nicer, and for everybody aside from energy customers the operating profile goes to be simply fantastic. There’s a glut of different profiles, comparable to biking and swimming, in addition to much less helpful ones comparable to yoga and weight machines, which have a tendency to make use of the identical metrics of calorie burn and coronary heart charge as so many different watches do.
The third-party apps meshed nicely with the Watch 6’s structure. You may pair sure points of in style apps to the digital bezel as easily-accessible tiles; I’m a person of the Calm app, for instance, and the watch comes with Calm’s two-minute respiration train already loaded. WhatsApp was nice to make use of, as I obtained messages on my watch and even replied with out having to take out my telephone. Easy one-word ‘sure’ or ‘no’ choices are offered, or you’ll be able to attempt your luck with the tiny QWERTY keyboard, draw letters on the watch’s display screen till autocorrect will get the phrase, or file a voice message utilizing the watch’s microphone. Different apps I attempted embody Strava and Spotify, the latter of which works nice, and has a few fundamental on-watch features in addition to a DJ to play you music primarily based in your historical past.
Name rejection and acceptance labored a deal with, and even utilizing the watch as a viewfinder in your Samsung telephone’s digital camera with the watch’s Digital camera app felt pure and intuitive, particularly when ensuring all your folks are in a bunch shot. My largest frustration was that battery life: after set-up, I ended up getting round 25 hours on common out of the watch from a full cost.
I may sleep, do a brief exercise, and go about my each day routine with out difficulty, and steadily left my charger at dwelling on days I went into the workplace with no difficulty. Once I went for a 75-minute run within the Watch’s GPS mode, it went from totally charged to 69% battery life: sufficient to go about the remainder of my day, however I wouldn’t put on it for a prolonged occasion.
However after I wished to sleep with the watch over a number of days, I needed to cost it daily to make sure it wouldn’t die in the course of the night time. The battery expenses quick, and on this respect is akin to the Apple Watch and superior to the Google Pixel Watch, its closest rivals. Nonetheless, with such an emphasis on sleep, I’d have cherished to see the battery life lengthen to 2 days of wear and tear – however that is not fairly the place the smartwatch trade is correct now, no less than exterior of devoted sports activities watches.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 assessment: Rating card
| Class | Remark | Rating |
| Worth: | Equal to its rivals, regardless of a small value enhance from earlier years. | 4/5 |
| Design: | Excessive construct high quality, engaging slim bezels, large display screen and easily-swappable straps. | 4/5 |
| Options: | Completely stacked, with nice well being and health and communication options alike. | 4.5/5 |
| Efficiency | Exceeds expectations in operating and sleep, however that battery life is an annoyance. | 4/5 |
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Ought to I purchase?
Purchase it if…
Do not buy it if…
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Additionally take into account
How I examined the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
I’ve spent a full week with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. I’ve been utilizing it to trace my sleeping, operating, normal exercise stage, water consumption and extra through Samsung Well being. I’ve used WhatsApp, Spotify, Strava and different third-party apps to check out their performance on Samsung’s One UI Watch 5.
The quick display screen refresh charge and response time for the apps we have been in a position to make use of imply the general expertise is butter-smooth, and the design is good – each externally and internally. Crucially, I’ve drained the battery down and monitored how a lot battery life GPS exercises drain from the watch.
The tip end result? We will clearly see the potential for it to knock the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 off the highest of our finest smartwatches record. It’s packing some nifty new options: notably, the processing energy and RAM have been boosted, and Samsung Pockets has expanded to have the ability to embody paperwork aside from playing cards, comparable to airline tickets.
A brand new Customized Exercise possibility permits you to put collectively multi-stage exercises, and a redesigned Sleep app expertise makes the Watch 6, in Samsung’s phrases, “the perfect machine available on the market for monitoring your sleep”.
It’s an iterative improve in some ways, however an improve nonetheless, even when it doesn’t fairly enhance on the Watch 5’s flaws sufficient to earn a uncommon 5 stars. In isolation, the Watch 6 a wonderful machine, maybe the perfect Put on OS watch I’ve but tried.
