Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 First Look: Features, Specs, and Price

After months of leaks, rumors, and speculation, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic are officially here, which means the same goes for a new smartwatch platform for Android.

While there weren’t too many surprises at today’s Unpacked event, so far it looks like Android fans could finally get the smartwatches they’ve been asking for since the Launch of Wear OS in 2014.

The design you know, plus a powerful new processor

Visually speaking, the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic don’t rock the boat. They look like modified versions of their predecessors, the Galaxy Watch Active 2 and Galaxy Watch 3. (For clarity, Samsung has also updated the brand so that its previous Active line is now the Galaxy Watch, while the Galaxy Watch’s premium line is now dubbed the Classic.) The Watch 4 is available in 40mm and 44mm sizes, while the Classic is slightly larger at 42mm and 46mm. The former retains the Active’s digital bezel, while the Classic sports Samsung’s iconic physical rotating bezel.

I got to hang out with the watches at a Samsung event, and all four look stylish on the wrist. While I was skeptical of the design based on the renderings, in person they are much more stylish and the lugs integrated do look good when you wear the devices. The screen is beautiful, enough said. The straps are also interchangeable, in case you want a leather strap with the Watch 4 and a silicone option for the Classic. Overall, I found the 40mm Galaxy Watch 4 and 42mm Classic not overpowering my wrists, but I’ll have to do some more testing to see how they hold up.

The improvements under the hood are more significant. First of all, these babies pack the new Exynos W920, which Samsung claims is the industry’s first 5nm portable chip. This is a huge case for Wear OS smartwatches, because so far they have stumbled on Qualcomm’s older 28nm Snapdragon Wear chips. Samsung says this translates to a 20% faster processor, 50% more RAM, and a 10x faster GPU than its previous chip. It also makes these Wear OS watches the most rugged you can get right now, with 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. All this extra processing power is immediately noticeable. Animations are smooth, apps launch quickly, and scrolling through your widgets is a snap. I couldn’t try the LTE connectivity of the watches, but you have this option for every watch.

Both watches have about 40 hours of battery life on a single charge, which is roughly equivalent to Watch 3. A 30 minute charge will also give you an estimated 10 hour battery life.

A new 3-in-1 sensor capable of measuring body composition

The other big hardware upgrade is the BioActive sensor, a 3-in-1 chip that enables optical heart rate monitoring, ECGs, and bioelectric impedance analysis for body composition. Samsung claims the sensor fits into a more compact design without sacrificing precision. I can’t yet say if this warrants activity tracking or ECGs, but the heart rate seemed comparable to my Apple Watch SE.

The new sensor activates a new body composition function, which takes around 15 seconds to break down your muscle mass, body fat and body water percentage, and your basal metabolic rate. The units I saw weren’t running the final software, so I won’t comment on the accuracy of this feature yet. That said, it’s a bit tricky to measure body composition if you’re wearing your watch on your right wrist. You should place your middle and ring fingers on each of the two buttons, then extend your arms out in front of you. Hopefully there is a way to change the screen orientation, but I was unable to configure the watches myself.

A quick note: like other gadgets with BIA sensors, this feature is not recommended for anyone with an implanted device like a pacemaker.

Another novelty this time around is snoring detection and more in-depth sleep monitoring. Otherwise, you get the typical sensor array: built-in GPS, accelerometer, barometer, gyroscope, light sensor, as well as a geomagnetic sensor. NFC payments are also supported, as are Bluetooth 5.0 and wifi.

But what about the new Wear operating system?

First of all, the Wear operating system running on the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic is “Wear OS Powered by Samsung”. The Wear OS that come to other watches next year is Wear OS 3. Ultimately all it means is that Wear OS running on these smartwatches has a little more Samsung flavor.

Most of this is the A UI Watch experience Samsung detailed earlier this year at Mobile World Congress. The bottom line is that when paired with a Galaxy smartphone, Samsung watches automatically download apps from your phone, sync important settings, and switch audio between different Samsung devices. It’s more of a passive feature, however, and I haven’t really had the chance to see it in action firsthand.

Wear OS Powered by Samsung takes a little getting used to. It’s really a mishmash of Tizen and Wear OS, which sometimes means you have to relearn how to use it. For example, swiping up doesn’t give you notifications like with current Wear OS watches. Instead, it takes you to an Apple-like app grid that can be changed either on your wrist or on your phone. This is a marked improvement over the Tizen app circular menu. Swiping to the left still lets you scroll through your widgets, but they look a lot more like what you would find on a Tizen watch than on previous Wear OS watches.

The Samsung Health app has also been refreshed. The app itself looks a lot cleaner, is easier to navigate, and presents metrics in a simpler way. There’s also a new tab dedicated to Guided Workouts, which you can stream to Samsung TVs with real-time measurements from your watch.

It’s not all Samsung though. Google also said today that the apps will mirror the new Material You design language for Google Maps, Messages by Google, the Google Pay apps and YouTube Music, with each launch later this year. And as promised on Google I / O, there will be more third-party apps and tiles, including Calm, Komoot, MyFitnessPal, Period Tracker, Sleep Cycle, Spotify, Strava, and Adidas Running. (Everything except Google Maps will also arrive in the next few weeks on Wear OS 2.)

The great thing to note about Google’s announcement is that it explicitly states that you can download apps from Google to Samsung watches. This has not been the case in the past. Samsung has also confirmed that users will be able to choose which company service they want to use. So if you prefer Google Maps, Messages by Google, Google Pay, or if you are a YouTube Music subscriber, you don’t to have to use Samsung’s preloaded apps. We’ll have to see how this works in real life, but hey, at least we know the upcoming YouTube Music app will support offline downloads.

Futzing with a few features and menu screens is far from a complete test of the new Wear OS. I cannot render a final verdict on this alone. However, what I have seen and experienced so far is extremely promising. We’ll have a closer look soon, so stay tuned.

Pricing and availability

Both watches are available for pre-order starting today and are expected to ship on August 27. If you pre-order before this date, you will also get a Samsung credit of $ 50.

The Galaxy Watch 4 starts at $ 250, the LTE version costs $ 300. The 40mm version will be available in black, silver and rose gold. The 44mm version is available in black, silver and green.

The Galaxy Watch 4 Classic costs $ 350 for Bluetooth only and $ 400 for LTE. You are, however, a bit more limited in terms of colors. At launch, the watch will be available in black and silver. If you’re ready to wait until September, you can also opt for a rhodium-plated Thom Browne Limited Edition.