The new Galaxy Watch 3 has been around for roughly 3 months now which has given me plenty
of time to do an in depth review, and there's plenty to talk about with Samsung's latest
smart watch offering, widely considered one of the best smartwatches of this year, alongside
the apple watch series 6.
So is it a worthwhile upgrade from the first generation, original galaxy watch?
lets take a look, but first lets dive into a quick unboxing of the galaxy watch 3, which
I will say is a huge step up from the their last galaxy watch, it felt better thought
out and a little more special, but still nothing in comparison to the apple watch series 6
unboxing.. come on Samsung step up your game!
Anyway inside the box we do of course get the Galaxy watch 3 itself, as well as a strap,
but this time its a leather strap which i thought was quite nice, since the original
galaxy watch came with a rubber one.
You'll also be provided with a charger, this time its a small disk shape, I'm personally
not too bothered about this, but the last version did come with a sort of stand charger,
so you could prop the watch up, which was nice if you were using it as a clock on your
bedside table, but yeah, really not the end of the world I guess, it was just a nice thing
to have
. Also worth mentioning you can charge the galaxy watch 3 with a normal wireless charger,
whether it be from Samsung or a 3rd party.
Anyway aside from a few manuals, this is just about everything, Only one watch strap was
provided, in one size so bare that in mind, I would imagine that most will be fine with
this, but again the apple watch series 6 did come with 2 different sized straps which Samsung
could have at least done here.
That being said my overall first impressions are excellent, the watch feels light, and
has a more traditional feel about it that the last one, certainly feels a lot less bulky.
Hello everyone, welcome back to tech it easy, so we've just unboxed the galaxy watch 3 and
I want to continue talking about the design and some of its exterior features.
So as mentioned the galaxy watch 3 does have a much slimmer, lighter form factor than the
original, 1st generation galaxy watch which was an improvement I sort of expected to see.
We can also see the return of that famous rotating bezel, it was intuitive on the original
galaxy watch, and its still a clever way to navigate your smartwatch now.
A couple of other changes, the buttons on the side have changes, to some rounder, more
clicky buttons if you like, which Is a great touch, it makes the watch look more classic
and traditional, and I will say they feel a lot more tactile than Samsung last galaxy
watch.
Lastly watch sizes are slightly different this time, this here is the 45mm galaxy watch
3, it also comes in a 41mm version, as opposed to the 46mm and 42mm the last version came
in.
Now don't panic, although they are smaller, the screen size its actually bigger, they've
just worked on making everything else a bit smaller and less chunky.
Now I think that covers all of the physical changes, so lets move onto some of the important
Galaxy watch 3 specifications, starting with the battery life, which I'm sure everyone
is wondering about.
Before we do that though if you could quickly hit that like button, and subscribe to the
channel if you're new here, that would be awesome!
Anyway, galaxy watch 3 battery life, Samsung state that the watch will last for up to 56
hours, just over 2 days with 'typical usage' and up to 151 hours with 'low usage'.
Which is actually less than the last galaxy watch's 4 days.
This will be due to a slimmed down design which I don't mind too much, as long as I
get a full day out of it.
So how does Samsung's statements compare against my own usage?
Well I feel like 2 days is the maximum I've ever got out of it with normal usage, so doing
some running, walking and just every day things.
So its not impressive by any means, for my life style though, its fine, for me as long
as it lasts the full day I'm happy, which it does do with ease.
Until smartwatches start lasing 7 or so days between charges, an extra day or two wont
matter.
I say this because generally we want to make use of all features such as sleep tracking
at night, and step counting in the day, so really you're always going to be faced with
that question, when do I charge this thing?!
That does bring me onto my point I made in my Samsung Galaxy Fit 2 video though, that
perhaps buying both a smartwatch, and a fitness tracker would be a good Idea, as you can sync
data from both devices seamlessly in the Samsung health app, so for those of you who want to
track sleep, you could wear the galaxy fit 2 in the evening whilst your watch is charging.
Head over to the channel after this video to watch the review on the galaxy fit 2 if
I've peaked your interest.
Anyway lets move on to some other features, this time I want to focus on the fitness tracking,
what can it actually track?
So much like the 1st gen galaxy watch it can track your steps and floors climbed, it will
give you a daily total, as well as automatically compare it to the previous weeks average,
you can also set a personal daily steps target which is really nice for those who are a bit
competitive, it definitely encourages you to get out a bit more.
If you did want to change your steps target just go to the settings icon at the bottom
of the steps page and tap that.
Next we have stress management, again a returning feature, this will bring you to a sort of
colour graph, the cyan colour at the bottom is where you want to be, and the red of course
means you might want to take a breather, which brings me to the breathing cycles feature,
should your watch detect that you are stressed, the you can start some breathing excursuses
like so, these will really help you calm down, don't underestimate the power of breathing
properly.
Lastly much like the steps, you will get a daily/weekly graph at the bottom, definitely
something worth keeping an eye on as stress is one of the biggest killers out there.
Before we move on its worth mentioning by tapping the settings icon on this page you
can choose to measure your heart rate consciously, every10 minutes or just do it manually, bare
in mind that continuous heart rate measuring will likely drain the battery significantly
faster.
Next up is sleep tracking, now I go through phases of using this, as you can tell I haven't
been using it much recently, but the I will say I feel the results are pretty accurate,
it will tell you how much deep or light sleep you had, how long you slept for in total,
and roughly when you went to sleep and woke up, Yu again can compare this to other days,
and the previous week using the chart.
Again another good one to track to keep healthy.
Moving on, we have of course heart rate tracking, at the top you'll have your last recorded
heart rate, a long with a manual measure button.
Then a familiar chart for tracking daily and weekly heart rate, at the bottom right it
will give you your minimum and maximum heart rate, as well as a comparison to the previous
week below that.
The settings icon here will again bring the option to manually measure your heart rate,
or set it up automatically.
Now whilst we are on the subject, it might be worth talking about how accurate the heart
rate monitoring is.
Ive mentioned this in a previous video, but I was actually in hospital a few months back
and was wearing my first gen galaxy watch, and noticed results were constant with that,
so using the 1st gen galaxy watch as a base line I compared that to the galaxy watch 3,
both came out with basically the same result each time, so I'm confident that the galaxy
watch 3, and indeed the original galaxy watch are both extremely accurate.
Now there's lot to cover on the subject of fitness tracking so do feel free to use the
YouTube chapters feature to navigate to specific parts of the video.
So next up we have Samsung's equivalent of the apple activity rings, again something
nice to have as its extremely satisfying to fill all the bars up and it gets you a bit
competitive with yourself.
So, pink represents your activity, green is your workout, so how much time you physically
spend exercising, this could be a walk, run swim, you name it, then blue is the move hourly,
so if you have a desk job like me your watch will buzz at you and remind you to stand up,
and go for a short walk.
Below that you have another chart comparing your previous days that week.
As you can see I've been extremely lazy this week.
Once again in the settings you can change your targets to better suit your life style.
So one more twist to the right, depending on how you have your watch set up, you will
see the Samsung health app on your watch, this is essentially your hub for everything
we've just talked about, you can also get this up on your phone to look at all your
stats in more detail.
But there's more, you might be aware that the Samsung Galaxy watch 3 has blood oxygen
monitoring, and this is where you will find that option, tapping this will bring you to
a similar set up to the heart rate measuring tool, this time you will see a set of instructions,
telling you to place your elbow on the table and tighten your watch strap, then it will
start measuring, its as easy as that.
From what I've seen this will have to be something you set off manually, as I cant see an option
to do it automatically.
Now additionally in the Samsung health app on your watch there are a few other things
we haven't see yet, first being calorie counting, again this is something you will have to enter
manually, so just tap the add button and enter how many calories you've had, you will see
a few different tags, like breakfast lunch, morning snack etc, to help keep a closer eye
on things.
Again you can adjust your target by pressing the settings icon , and your progress will
be tracked across the week on the same chart we've seen on the other health tracking features
a few times already.
Lastly you can track your water intake, again its a manual entry system, with a simple +
button to add 1 cup.
Also worth mentioning for the ladies this is where you can find your women's health
tracking, but you will have to activate this on your phone first.
So to go with all this you of course have your workout tracking features, there's too
many to talk about individually but I'll cycle through them on screen now.
Once clicking your chosen workout you will see stats such as average speed, duration,
distance and heartrate.
You will also see your route as a circuit on a little map at the bottom once you finish
the workout, as of course the watch will use its built in GPS to get this.
Next page will give you your speed, calories and average pace, page after that will give
you your workout duration and distance in KM, lastly this page will give you your average
heart rate and max heart rate which is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Worth noting that a twist to the left of the first page will bring up a quick music controller
which is always nice to have.
Once you've finished your workout you can press the top button on the exterior of your
watch to pause or finish the workout, and get an overview of your stats for the whole
workout.
Of course each workout will be different depending o which exercise you pick, for example you
can click the arm curls exercise and it will tell you sets and reps to do and count them
for you, and there really is a lot of options to explore in the workouts section, from high
intensity cardio workouts, to weight training and yoga, there's something for everyone here.
Before we move on I did want to quickly direct you to the running coach, I found this really
handy, the watch will actually talk to you when running, telling you to speed up or slow
down, it will also read out your average pace to you and split the workout up nicely for
you.
when finishing it will compare your results to previous workouts so you can track your
progress.
Now I think that just about covers all the main fitness aspects of the watch, there are
a few other things i will leave you to explore like challenges, where you can compete against
friends and see where you are on the leaderboard, and things like caffeine tracking, which works
very similarly to the water intake tracking feature.
So what else can the galaxy watch 3 do?
Well plenty, you can of course make and receive calls just using the watch itself, on both
the GPS version and 4G version, obviously with the 4Gversion you will be able to do
this without being near your phone, if you've set it up with your provider.
Which, brings me on to an important question Ive seen a lot of people asking, how do you
set up the galaxy watch 3 4g?
Well, unfortunately not all mobile providers support E sims, so I would suggest you check
with your provider whether they will support it or not, and it is important you contact
them directly as some providers, such as 3 in the UK advertise they do not support E
sims on their website, however if you chat to them they will actually tell you to go
into a store to get it set up.
Now once you've found out whether your mobile provider will support e sims, head over to
the galaxy wearable app and go to 'home', scroll down to 'mobile plans' then add your
plan from there.
Now before we move on from the mobile features, lets quickly do a microphone test to see how
the galaxy watch 3 sounds, as of course you can answer calls just using the watch.
This is a microphone test for the galaxy watch 3, it will pick up a bit of background noise
but overall I'm pretty happy with it.
So that was the microphone test for the galaxy watch 3, actually very similar sounding to
the 1st generation galaxy watch, which did impress me at the time, so no complaint from
me.
As well as making and receiving calls, you can send and receive text messages, you can
either type them directly on the watch, which ill admit can be a bit fiddly, use quick replies
or use text to speech which is probably your easiest option.
Now obviously its a tiny screen so those with worse eye sight might struggle a bit here,
but I personally was impressed with how easy it was to see the texts.
I think its really nice having these features as I've actually found it keeps me off my
phone, which is a weird thing to say coming form a tech youtuber, but I have to admit
it is uplifting not reaching for my phone every 2 seconds, i feel more confident leaving
the phone behind, knowing that if I do get an important call, text or email, I can quickly
check my watch to see if its worth my time.
And yes, I did just mention emails, the same way you can receive texts, you can also receive
emails.
So there's definitely a few other tricks the Galaxy watch 3 has up its sleeve, but i think
i will save those for a future video, we've covered a lot of the most important aspects
now, so lets quickly recap over the main specs and discuss whether the galaxy watch 3 is
a worthy successor to the 1st generation galaxy watch.
So the galaxy watch 3 is of course Bluetooth 5.0 running on Samsung's own tyzen OS, currently
version 5.5.
Other features include NFC,340 mah battery and GPS capabilities.
Sensors wise we have An accelerometer, barometer, gyro sensor, light sensor and optical heart
rate sensor.
All of which is kept running by 1GB of Ram and the same exynos cpu as the last galaxy
watch, also you will get 4.3GB of usable on board storage with the galaxy watch 3.
To view all this information you'll be looking at samsungs crisp super amoled display with
a resolution of 360 X360.
Lastly the galaxy watch 3 has an IP68 waterproofing, so you'll be fine taking this for a swim.
So, after 3 months of use, what do i think?
Well its impressive, very impressive, but there's not much that's new from the last
version, just things that appear to have been fine tuned.
The biggest change is the design, along with things like blood oxygen monitoring which
is great don't get me wrong, but would it encourage me to to tell you to upgrade from
the original galaxy watch?
MMM not really, I mean if money wasn't really an issue I would say the design is much more
comfortable, the display is brighter and the Sp02 monitoring is there so yes go ahead,
but this thing will set you back £400 for the 4g version, So I'm inclined to tell you
that the 1st generation galaxy watch is better value here, recently its been going for less
than £200 here in the UK.
The downside there being the 1st gen galaxy watch will stop receiving updates.. but if
you're not a serious athlete then you probably wont need the updates.
Its a really tough one because I want to love it, and in a way I do, but I feel like this
would be good time to either skip a generation, or grab the 1st gen galaxy watch for half
the price, after all what more do you want from a smartwatch that the firs galaxy watch
cant already do?
So yes, very mixed opinion there, I would still recommend this if you're buying your
first smartwatch and have a bit of extra cash though, its crisp and snappy and has a whole
host
of features.