Newsletter
Samsung heard all of us over the past year, and has decided to bring back the “Classic” model of the Galaxy Watch. Which, we kind of expected, after Samsung repeatedly told the press last year that the rotating bezel was not dead. It looks like we’ll be getting the Pro and Classic models on rotating years. Which is a good move by Samsung.
The Galaxy Watch 6 Classic doesn’t bring a whole lot of changes over the Galaxy Watch 5, but it does bring a number of features if you’re comparing to its true predecessor, the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, which came out in 2021. And on top of that, it’s now starting at a higher price, of $399. We have the 47mm here on loan from Samsung, which is $429. So we’ll be reviewing it with that in mind.
Is the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic worth upgrading to this year? Let’s find out in our full review.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Hardware & Design
The design of the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic isn’t much of a departure from the past two years of design from Samsung. It still has relatively flat sides, with a raised bezel that rotates on the classic. The regular Galaxy Watch 6 has a flat display, much like the Galaxy Watch 5. In fact, it’d be tough to tell the two apart, other than the colors Samsung used each year.
With the rotating bezel, Samsung is making it easier to navigate through the OS here. And that’s why this feature has become such a fan favorite. It’s pretty crazy that no other OEM has adopted something similar. But this also makes the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic look more like a traditional watch – hence the “Classic” name.
The other big change on the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic this year is, a larger display. Now, Samsung is offering the watch in 43mm and 47mm, compared to 42mm and 46mm on the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. That gives you a 1.3-inch display on the 43mm and a 1.5-inch display on the 47mm model. Giving you more room to read notifications, and even make text larger to read it more easier on your wrist.
When it comes to the bands, Samsung has made it easier to swap them out. Sort of adding the same method that Apple has on its watches. There’s now a button on the included band that you can press to easily swap out the band. It will still use traditional watch bands (20mm bands), so that’s a really good move by Samsung, versus what Apple has done.
Now the included band, I actually quite like. Which has not always been the case for smartwatches. It’s a silicon band, but it’s been styled to look like a black leather band. What makes this so great is that you can use this band at the gym when you’re working out, and not worry about destroying the leather band. While still being able to wear this with a nice suit and it fitting in nicely.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Wear OS 4 and One UI Watch 5
Samsung is the first to get Wear OS 4 on a new watch, and the Galaxy Watch 6 series also runs One UI Watch 5, which went into beta last month for the Galaxy Watch 4 and 5 series. One UI Watch gives the Galaxy Watch 6 a pretty distinct Samsung feel, in fact if you put it next to the Pixel Watch, you might not even realize both ran Wear OS. A lot like how Android works on phones. Samsung wanted its watches to basically mirror their phones look and feel, and they’ve done a good job with One UI Watch, which also mirrors your settings across both devices.
As you might expect, Wear OS 4 doesn’t change a whole lot on the Galaxy Watch this year. The big changes include the Google Calendar and Gmail apps which aren’t yet available. Those will likely come out closer to the Pixel Watch 2 launch – which is expected to be mid-October.
As usual with Samsung’s watches and really any Wear OS watch, you can use tiles to bring widgets onto your watch face. So you can swipe left or right (or rotate the bezel on this Classic model), to switch between them. Samsung has quite a few tiles too, even more than the Pixel Watch. Including a number of options for Samsung Health. Including things like your steps, shortcuts to starting an exercise, your sleep from the previous night, starting an ECG and even a body composition measurement.
There are other tiles available, including the Weather, timers, battery status, media controller, and so much more. Samsung has more than enough tiles on the Galaxy Watch 6, to keep you happy.
Galaxy Watch Faces
Samsung has also included a number of watch faces for the Galaxy Watch 6, and since this is Wear OS, you can download additional watch faces from the Google Play Store or Galaxy Store. My favorites are the Kinetic Digits (which is what you see throughout this review), as well as the Digital Dashboard. These both give you a bunch of information on your watch face, so you can see things at a glance without jumping into tiles or apps.
Samsung provides plenty of health-oriented watch faces here, as well as some more “classic” watch faces, and even more simple ones. I’m fairly certain that everyone can find a watch face that they’d like on the Galaxy Wearable app. But of course, you an download more.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Health features
One of the big selling points for a smartwatch is, the health features. And much like its phones, Samsung goes above and beyond with features on the Galaxy Watch 6.
One of the cooler options that Samsung offers is the Body Composition measurement. Basically, you slide your watch further up on your wrist, then touch the buttons with your ring finger and middle finger from the other hand. It takes about a minute or so to do the measurement. Now before you start the measurement, you update your weight, which makes this a bit more accurate. This will give you your skeletal muscle, fat mass, and body water. If you scroll down a bit more, you’ll also see your body fat, BMI, and BMR numbers. Now, you might be wondering, how accurate is this? Obviously, it’s not going to be 100% accurate, but it’s pretty close to a smart scale that can measure all of this.
I compared it to my Withings scale, and it was pretty accurate. Of course, you will only get the 100% accurate number if you go to a doctor or health spa where they physically measure this stuff. But this is a good way to keep track of your progress over time.
Another feature it has is an ECG. Which takes about 30 seconds, and you need to place your index finger on the button to measure. Samsung is very adamant that this does not check for heart attacks. But it can help diagnose an arrhythmia.
Of course, the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic still has all of the usual health features you’d expect. That includes your steps taken, exercises, miles traveled and much more. And since this is water resistant, it can also track your swimming. Of course, Samsung added this feature before they even switched to the “Galaxy Watch” branding, so this is nothing new.
The Galaxy Watch 6 does have a good amount of health and fitness features included, and it’s all part of the Samsung Health app, which works on any Android device.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Battery life
Battery life on the Galaxy Watch 6 series is rather interesting this year. Despite having larger displays and smaller batteries, the entire series is being marketed as getting 30 hours with AOD on and 40 hours with AOD off. That is pretty similar to what we have seen in our testing.
On the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic 47mm that we’ve been testing, we’ve been getting about a day and a half on a charge with AOD on. That’s about 36 hours. Of course, there’s a lot of factors there, like the number of notifications you get, how many workouts you have it tracking and so forth.
We did also test it with AOD off, and it was averaging about 45-50 hours on a charge. So it’s good to see that the Galaxy Watch 6 series is exceeding what Samsung is marketing on these watches.
Now what about charging? Well, it takes about an hour to charge from almost dead to 100%. Typically, I was charging it from around 20% up to 100% and that was closer to about 45 minutes. And since this watch does last more than 24 hours, you could place it on the charger before you get in the shower and have enough juice for the next 24 hours. So charging isn’t really a problem.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6?
The Galaxy Watch 6 is a really good watch, in fact, I’d go out on a limb here and say it’s still the best Wear OS watch on the market. Of course, there’s not a whole lot of competition there. It’s basically Fossil’s models, and the Pixel Watch. But it’s a good all-around watch. It’s good for health and fitness, it’s also good for notifications, and has plenty of great apps that you can use, and pull out your phone less.
You should buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 if:
– You have a Galaxy Watch 4 or older, it’s not much of an upgrade from the Galaxy Watch 5.
– You really want the rotating bezel on the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic.
– You have a Samsung phone and want the best smartwatch for that phone.
You should not buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 if:
– You have a Galaxy Watch 5 series.
– You have an iPhone, Wear OS does not work with the iPhone now.
– You don’t want to use Samsung Health for tracking health and fitness.