the galaxy watch 4 classic came out alongside a bunch of huge changes for the galaxy watch
ecosystem most noticeably were os and many of us snorted at even the idea of samsung ditching tizen
and going full-time google but was it perhaps the right decision or have samsung well and
truly ruin the galaxy watch with this move let's see so it's 2022 it's a good time to revisit the
galaxy watch for classic after around six months or so of pretty intense usage and let me start
by saying that one thing i hated on the galaxy watch 4 classic was that aside from the bezel
there's really nothing that classic about it at least nothing that warrants the slightly higher
price tag even the galaxy watch 3 came with a nice leather strap that helps it better resemble
a more traditional watch and yet i do very much prefer my galaxy watch 4 classic over pretty much
everything especially since i got my silver strap on not like that get your mind out the gutter
anyway something important to remember is that there really aren't that many competitors in the
wearaway space that i feel can take on samsung at the moment yes of course we have things like the
ticwatch which is a brilliant smartwatch but it skimps on features then we have the new fossil gen
6 which has a great design but again is lacking on features in comparison to the galaxy watches so i
guess your only choices are a galaxy watch 4 or an older galaxy watch but then you'd be switching to
tizen which brings me nicely onto the question of the day where os or tizen do you miss the good old
days or have you welcomed wear os with open arms let me know what you think in the comment section
so let's deep dive into the galaxy watch 4 classic by talking performance a regular occurrence with
smart watches is that they get sluggish very quickly and i have to say i can't complain about
the galaxy watch 4 classic at all and it's highly likely that i've got a lot more watch faces and
apps installed than a regular person in the six months or so of usage i haven't noticed anything
that has particularly concerned me with regards to its performance yes it can take a hot minute
to get turned on not like that but once it's up and running it's absolutely fine this is really
important especially for those of you who own an lte smart watch much like this one this is the
46 millimeter lte galaxy watch 4 classic it means that your smart watch is more reliable and you can
genuinely leave the house without your phone you can use your watch for taking calls texts and even
use it as a digital wallet with google pay but i must go on a little bit of a rant here google pay
is just silly on the galaxy watch it makes you put this silly little pin in which really does
not suit a smart watch so perhaps on the galaxy watch 5 samsung can we please have a fingerprint
reader anyway i digress since we mentioned the lte version we probably should talk about it because
this is the lte version of the galaxy watch 4 classic so if i'm being honest i actually no
longer have mine activated i moved to a mobile provider who didn't support e sims i know sucks
but do i miss it not particularly i think lte watches are for a very specific type of person
i found that actually i rarely if at all go out the house without my phone so i guess the features
were kind of wasted on me and therefore i wasted my money on those features and i'd hate for you
to make the same mistake it's certainly something you should consider when buying any smart watch
in terms of functionality though i found it to work absolutely fine one common complaint that's
going around the samsung community at the moment is that the watch is overheating and presenting a
warning message personally i've tried out the lte features a lot i've noticed the watch getting a
little bit hotter but never has it overheated to the point it's giving me a message so personally
i can't really comment on this but still samsung is not really acceptable to be putting out smart
watches if they are going to have that problem performance and lte functions aside for a moment
i guess the talk of the time with the galaxy watch 4 was battery life massive improvements
over the galaxy watch 3 you're getting at least an extra day day and a half with the galaxy watch
4 in comparison to its predecessor samsung state around 40 hours officially which actually i feel
is playing it safe if anything i've definitely stretched this watch to around 48 hours before now
is it enough though um kind of for me yes i actually don't mind the battery life on the
galaxy watch 4. it means i could go out to work with it use it for a bit of sleep tracking and
then the next day possibly pop it on charge whilst i'm working from home for others though battery
life is still a huge downside and i absolutely don't blame you for that i think with the galaxy
watch 5 what we need to be doing is getting closer to that four day mark i think that would
be a really nice good point for the galaxy watch five to aim for now i have a lot of good things to
say about the galaxy watch for classic but if i'm honest is not all playing sailing there's
a lot of things i feel still need to be ironed out and a lot of those issues lie in the play
store many of us have experienced the device not compatible message when downloading a watch face
and then there's a watch face ecosystem itself it's nowhere near as easy to find watch faces
as it was with the galaxy store you basically need to know what you're looking for to be able to find
it so i never thought i would say this but hashtag bring back the galaxy store the watch and play
store issues i guess are a drop in the ocean there is so much more to the galaxy watch 4. the main
use cases for a watch like this are sports and health tracking features i'll be perfectly honest
though i find the most basic features the most useful i particularly love the step skulls i like
it when my watch tells me to get up a move they're simple but very effective features that are really
easy to come by if you're less technically adept all my steps info heart rate etc etc is really
easy to access and i think samsung have done a really good job with the ui here the galaxy
watch 4 however bought something new the body composition analysis tool this was something that
i thought was a huge leap for the galaxy watch and to be honest i still do i don't use it as much as
i think i should do but for those of you on a real mission to better themselves it's almost
crucial and arguably a game-changing feature for a smartwatch what this feature did also bring
with it though was a design change for the galaxy watch 4 classic on the galaxy watch 3 we got these
sort of physical crowns that protruded out from the sides now with the galaxy watch 4 we've gone
back to that original galaxy watch design with the flat buttons on the side so i guess that's
my second question of the day did you prefer the buttons on the galaxy watch 3 or do you like the
buttons on the new galaxy watch 4 and galaxy watch 4 classic one of the other fantastic features on
the galaxy watch 4 has been the exercise features another feature that i've been using a lot mostly
for rowing sessions but what it does do is auto detect certain workouts as well most noticeably
walking and running i found this to be great and it eliminated a lot of need to fiddle around and
physically set up a workout and to be honest even when you do have to do that it's a walk in
the park because samsung have made it so easy on top of exercises we of course have sleep tracking
water reminders coffee counters and all sorts of little things to help you keep a closer eye on
your health but as with the watch 3 we have ecg and blood pressure now which again i'll say for
certain people is a life-changing feature there are of course questions about the accuracy of all
these things in the past i've personally tested the sp02 and heart rate accuracy of the galaxy
watch for and it's always pretty much been spot on or extremely close to the medical grade equipment
i've been using to test it with even when i was in hospitals i was noticing that my galaxy watch ecg
wasn't too far off what the hospital machine was showing and that's the thing some people complain
that the watch isn't giving spot-on results every time but i don't think it's meant for
that i think having something on your wrist that can do spo2 heart rate blood pressure
and ecg is potentially life-saving which you could argue warrants the high price tag now i mentioned
ui and i do want to point out that in many ways this new wearaway samsung ui is so much better
than tizen it feels a lot smoother and cleaner for example customizing watch faces i think you get a
little bit more control with it you also have that app tray now which is a lot bigger a lot clearer a
lot easier to read than the old app wheel that we used to have and you can look to the watch 3 and
the first gen galaxy watches to get a reminder of that now something interesting that's happened on
the ui and software front recently is wear os 3.2 which actually bought some pretty crazy changes
i didn't mention this in my battery life section because i don't feel like i've had long enough
to test it out yet but many people are reporting significant improvements in the battery life of
the galaxy watch 4. up to 54 hours in some cases and whilst i'm not quite sure i'm hitting the 54
hour mark on a heavy day i have definitely noticed a change which is a really great news the update
also brought with it some new watch faces and additional fonts and customization features for
existing galaxy watch faces it also brought many changes to exercise and health tracking features
including personal goals and tips for body composition analysis and much more we also
have sleep tracking features now you can get up to five weeks of sleep coaching to help improve
the quality of your sleep the last few bits in the update was the ability to download compatible
apps from your phone to your watch automatically and there's also a feature that lets you select
which wrist you're actually wearing the watch on this will change the orientation of the screen
making it a little bit easier for the lefties out there the only thing that i have left to complain
about i guess is the galaxy watch 4 classic design i don't mind it but as we said at the
start there's nothing particularly classic about the watchful classic this is where the fossil
gen 6 sort of sneaks its way into the market a lot of people want a smartwatch that better
resembles a more traditional watch and i don't think samsung have got even closer i feel like
there's somewhere in the middle between apple watch which is clearly a futuristic smartwatch
and then the gen 6 which again as i said better resembles a more traditional watch that being
said i turned mine into this it was cheap and in my opinion it looks better than the original so
if you want to see how to do this you can check it out over on the side now for now though i've
been alex this has been taken easy thank you so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one