listen up android users for years there
has not been a truly great smart watch
for you
but now samsung and google have combined
forces to make wear os 3 and the galaxy
watch 4. the thing hopefully we've all
been waiting for is finally here plus it
has a huge set of new health features
we might finally have a smartwatch that
i can recommend to any android user
nah i'm just kidding this might be
google's os but it is samsung's watch
through and through it's good but only
if you are living a samsung life
anyway let's review this thing actually
these things because there's two models
the galaxy watch 4 and the galaxy watch
for classic
let's just get the basics out of the way
if you haven't heard samsung has agreed
to ditch tizen os for its smart watches
and switch to wear os
but samsung is contributing stuff to
wear os now including watch faces and
you know
actually good hardware with
actually fast processors what that means
is that this is a wear os watch but
without as many of the problems that
either wear os or tizen have had so it's
faster than any wear os watch has ever
been and it has better app support than
any tizen watch has ever had so for
example it has google maps plus now that
google and samsung seem to actually be i
don't know trying to make watches happen
for android users there's more
third-party app support coming
in terms of prices and sizing there is a
lot to keep track of the basic galaxy
watch 4 starts at 249 for this little 40
millimeter model you can pay more for a
44 millimeter model the watch 4 classic
starts at 349 for slightly nicer
hardware and that's a 42 millimeter
model or you can get a 46 millimeter
model and you can also get lte on either
one bottom line they're really not
overpriced for what they offer the
hardware is good it's not quite to apple
watch levels of fit and finish but i
like having round watch faces and i like
that you can use any 20 millimeter strap
the regular galaxy watch 4 has a touch
sensitive bezel that you can use to
scroll around and it's
fine but the galaxy watch classic has a
physical rotating bezel with little
clicks on it that's just so much nicer
than swiping around on the watch face
google and samsung have also figured out
a pretty good core user interface you
swipe up for apps right for
notifications down for quick settings
and left for tiles and you can customize
all these tiles for the stuff that you
care about which means that you don't
have to cram every single complication
you want onto the main watch face oh and
watch faces the defaults available on
the galaxy watch are way better than
what you can get on say fossil smart
watches i love this fun bear buddy one
you can also get a bunch of custom watch
faces too if you want
battery life is good
enough i decided to test the hardest one
so i use the smallest watch and i've
been able to turn on the always on
screen do some gps track workouts
receive a ton of notifications because
everybody does and still have just
enough to track my sleep that night and
then have to charge it in the morning if
you use it more lightly you could maybe
get two days out of it it's not amazing
battery life but again it's enough
bottom line for the first time in
forever we finally have a solid
foundation upon which to build a
credible smart watch for android users
and only android by the way unlike older
watches this is not going to work with
an iphone
but a foundation isn't a whole house and
the software on the galaxy watch 4 well
it's the house that samsung built
[Music]
most of the default apps on this watch
are samsung apps and just like on
samsung phones some of them you can
replace with google stuff and some of
them you really just
can't or you're gonna need to wait for
hacky solutions
the buttons on this watch are hard-coded
to samsung pay and samsung bixby and you
know bixby is improving to the point
where it's almost as good as siri was
like three years ago so
not great i mean look it can't set
multiple alarms yet if that's any
indication
now you can use this watch with any
android phone not just galaxy phones but
to do so you need to install samsung's
wearable app on your phone to use it
and then install the galaxy watch plugin
and then if you want to use bixby you've
got to sign into a samsung account and
then if you want to use samsung pay to
pay for stuff you have to install
samsung pay on your phone and then if
you want to use the advanced health
features you're going to need to install
samsung health
i just don't think it's a good choice
for anybody that isn't already using a
samsung galaxy phone
but if you do live in samsung's house
you're going to find that the home gym
has gotten a huge upgrade
the galaxy watch 4 has all the standard
health stuff it can do step counting
exercise tracking for 95 different kinds
of workouts gps and so on there's also
ecg for checking for afib and it can do
blood oxygen just like the apple watch
samsung uses that to assist with its
sleep tracking feature which also can
use a phone to listen for snoring and
then sync all of that data up it has a
bioelectric impedance sensor which lets
you measure body composition stats like
body fat percentage or skeletal muscle
mass and so on
so it's a lot and i think in a proper
context all of these health features are
useful but that context is very
complicated like other wrist mounted
health sensors this thing has given me
troubling readings that i know aren't
accurate like it said i had atrial
fibrillation once when i didn't and
similarly it's done a similar thing that
the apple watch does which is provide
low blood oxygen readings when really
it's fine as long as you fully
understand what's happening when you
turn these sensors on you can get some
use out of all of this quantified health
stuff but the context matters and these
are not diagnostic tools don't use them
that way that also goes for the new body
composition tool that works like some
smart scales to it sends an electrical
signal through your body to measure the
impedance and use that to determine the
percentage of body fat and water that
you've got in here but as nicole
wetsmann has written on theverge.com
that accuracy can be all over the place
now what could be useful for all these
metrics is trend lines over time but if
you're going to do that that means
you're committing yourself to using
samsung health now if you're a samsung
user and intend to stay one that'll be
fine but you should know that samsung
health's privacy policy is not very
reassuring it says that samsung can
obtain data like heart rate body fat
glucose blood pressure oxygen saturation
information related to your menstrual
cycle sleep-related information and more
yikes
i asked samsung and a spokesperson
assured me that all of this information
is end-to-end encrypted and protected by
samsung knox and that samsung will only
be able to access it if you choose to
share it
but it's a lot and if you accidentally
do opt-in samsung could use it for
anything from creating customized
workouts for you to improving the app to
marketing promotions
apple does a better job of explaining
that it cannot access your health data
it just doesn't have the keys
and i do trust samsung way more than i
trust a lot of other companies that make
you know fly-by-night wearables but
wow
they need to do a much better job
explaining their privacy and encryption
policies now if you are willing to give
samsung health a go its features and
functionality are surprisingly robust
its workout tracking for biking for
example has as much detail as i could
probably ask for it has all sorts of
stats and geo tracking and heart zones
and whatever it also can track your
sleep it can do stress level stuff and
it has social features to let you
compete with your friends and family if
they also happen to be samsung health
users
now in terms of accuracy i compared it
to an apple watch and a garmin bike
computer with a little you know chest
mounted heart rate monitor and the
galaxy watch 4 was basically the same
for heart rate and speed pretty good but
it was consistently off for distance by
about five percent
really my biggest complaint is that
samsung health's third-party app
integration is
weak it's pretty much just strava and
then nothing else that i would want and
again there's just the fact that you are
committing to using samsung health for a
long time and trusting samsung to keep
your data private just like with apple
health or fitbit or google fit or
whatever committing to a health tracking
platform means a little bit of lock-in
[Music]
okay after all that here is my take on
the galaxy watch 4 and the galaxy watch
4 classic
i like them
it's the first time in forever that i
have actually enjoyed using a smartwatch
with an android phone
but only because the android phone that
i was using them with was a samsung
phone and for that time i lived entirely
in samsung's house if you don't want to
walk through that door this isn't the
watch for you
we have been waiting for a long time and
unfortunately i have no idea when
there's going to be a werews watch that
doesn't lock you into samsung's house if
you're a samsung user go for it if
you're not
keep waiting
hey everybody thanks so much for
watching i wanted to get the watch
review out as soon as i could because
it's the new platform but i am also
reviewing the galaxy z fold 3. so if
you've got questions about that folding
phone let me know
down in the comments and i'll try and
answer them in the next review