hi everyone welcome back to wesknows tech news and reviews today we'll be talking about the samsung
galaxy watch active 2 so i think it is one of the best smart watches on the market today but
with every good there's always a bad or something that could have been improved on or done
better so today we'll be talking about the galaxy watch active two and its five
pros as well as its five cons so back to back anyways let's get into this review let's do it
so before we kick off with the pros and the cons let me give you a quick summary of what the watch
is all about because you really need to see it in perspective before we get into the details
so let's talk about the samsung galaxy watch 2 in action this is a 44 millimeter version so the
bigger one you can also get the small one the 40 millimeter one but having a seven inch wrist size
this one looks the part and it looks just right so i think that the 46 millimeter watches are
slightly too big the 44 is just the right balance between medium to slightly larger but it does give
you a 1.4 inch display size and the resolution here is wow this is top of the range 418 by 418
pixels this is basically top of the range and you'd expect that on a watch that does cost
419 pounds or just under 500 bucks now what can i say it's round it's got an absolutely amazing
clasp it's got an absolutely amazing strap that comes as basic with it but of course you can
upgrade to almost anything because it only has the generic 20 millimeter straps so you can either go
and get them from samsung or you can get them anywhere on the net so get yourself a leather
strap get yourself a steel strap whatever it might be it might look slightly better but i
doubt it's going to get more convenient and more comfortable than the original tpu rubber strap
that it comes with it's soft the clip and tuck clasp is absolutely spot-on you get enough holes
just to find the right fit and what i like about this strap the original samsung strap is that no
matter how long you wear this during the night during the day your wrist does not get sweaty
you do not get any irritation marks this is top class strap anyways enough about the strap if we
talk about the watch case so again it's round it's all steel and you get an option of either steel
or aluminium so i've got the aluminium blue aluminium case here you've got two
buttons on the right hand side that's it so you get two buttons as well as a touch activated
display and you will absolutely adore the thin bezels on this watch face now these are not
the thin bezels of the fitbit versa oh no because they're they're mighty thick they're not as thick
as the apple watch series 6 even like these bezels are paper thin like that definitely love that
if you look on top of the watch so this is rounded 3d glass so you can see it rounds not just to the
center but at the edges of the watch case as well feels solid feels lovely and the viewing
angles on this watch are also very good so you can almost see when you have it almost at 180
degrees you can still see the crisp display in regards to the features and functions this watch
has a lot to offer so something as basic as continuous heart rate monitoring yes of course
what about actually downloading apps easy go to your galaxy app gallery and download
many many faces as well as apps games useful apps you can get almost anything on this watch because
the ecosystem for samsung wearables is quite wide and varied you also have a good community here
the app well we're gonna get onto that you get plenty of sport modes but you can have a bit more
but i think we've said enough about the watch in general let's get into the specifics so now we'll
be covering off five positives and five negatives and these are the back to back positives and
negatives because you can look at either side well depending on how much you like the samsung watch
anyways let's get into it first of all let's start with the biggest pro as well as the biggest
con in the samsung galaxy watch active and not just the samsung i think this relates to quite
a few smartwatch manufacturers out there and that is battery life so in this rather large case well
44 millimeter case you've got well it's not that thick but it's not that thin either so it's just
over 14 millimeters high on your wrist now it doesn't catch up on anything but that does mean
that there's a lot of space for a big battery and this battery well as the manufacturer claims
will last you up to three days that is okay for a powerful smartwatch these days but then again
when you've got the garments to go against which can last a week two weeks or even up to a month
if they're solar activated three days is not much and let me just say and that's without the always
on display now i've been using the watch having all the notifications switched on i've been using
gps i've been tracking some exercises and of course sleep tracking because of sleep tracking
on this watch is spectacular you get very good visuals in your app you get good recommendation
and you get a lot of good detail but we'll talk about that in another review now the battery size
so the claimed battery life is three days really all i'm getting out of it is a day
and maybe another five six hours so i usually charge it up just before i go to sleep so when i'm
not actually exercising where i'm not taking too much steps so i don't have much to actually track
and then i switch it on and then i actually put it onto my wrist just before i go to sleep i sleep
with it i get through the whole day and usually i've got about 10 15 percent left just before i
charge it up again before the next night but this is with a lot of exercises now during the actual
night so i'm not using always on display the battery sink is only by about i don't know five
seven percent so not much at all it all happens during the day because you switch on the screen
and i've got it on gesture control so as soon as i raise the watch to my face it switches on
or i can actually touch it and the screen lights up as well so i usually read a lot of my texts
i read my emails everything from the watch face i've even started taking calls of this watch
because they're so convenient if i don't want to go and get my phone all i do is i pick up the
phone using the bluetooth connection on the watch and i just speak into the microphone on the watch
and the and the speaker is actually quite good here you get a very clear conversation
now i had a couple conversations already on this watch and people just don't know if i'm talking
into the phone into some earphones and they wouldn't even guess that i'm actually talking
to my wrist but because of that the battery drain is significant so your real battery life
on this watch with typical usage is a maximum of one day and maybe just a little bit more
anyways that's the first pro and the con the pro being that it does have a large battery size
and with minimal usage it will take you for two two and a half days of use but with typical
usage you'll be lucky to get a day and a half out of it anyways let's get on to number two
the second pro and at the same time con is all about sport mode because at the end of the day
we are splashing out a lot of dosh for a smart watch obviously it has to be smart but the smarts
are not enough we do want sports and i've been checking the heart rate monitor on here it is
quite accurate now the samsung here does show you more steps than the garments by about seven
eight percent so it's not major but still it's an over count but in regards to actual sport profiles
let's think about it so the pro is there are seven auto tracked activities and that is basics
so you're running you're walking your elliptical you're rowing it's got the dynamic workouts and i
think biking as well so it gives you seven auto recognized activities and usually when you are
walking about and as long as you're doing it for more than 10 minutes so the watch doesn't mix it
up with just some casual activity it will start auto tracking so it will ask you on your watch
face do you want to manually set up the walk or the run or whatever activity you're doing
or do you want the watch to track it automatically and i just click on automatically and it does its
tracking and that is great if we talk about the built-in sport modes there are 39 and you'd think
that 39 is plenty and you'd be right because it does cover off the usual stuff considering
the watch actually has gps well inbuilt gps dual inbuilt gps you are mostly okay with
gps track activity such as your bike such as your cycling you're running you're walking and so forth
you can even do open water swimming in this watch because it is water resistant up to 50 meters
now just yesterday i was on the tennis court and i was doing a heart rate test between
the samsung galaxy watch active as well as a sport watch from saunto and the benchmark was the polar
h-10 ecg chest strap across my chest now the issue that i had with this is that on the chest wrap
using the polar beat app i could choose the tennis workout on the sunto 3 i could also
choose a tennis workout but the samson galaxy watch active which has a whopping 39 sport modes
does not have tennis as a workout instead you've got about 15 workouts
which are specifically leg curls arm curls you've got abs you've got push-ups you've got crunches
you've got all those workouts which should be just encompassed well unless it's a full-on sport watch
into just one sport mode the gym sport mode it also has a lot of the cardio workouts actually
broken out into specific exercises and really on most of the manufacturers
they're just encompassed into one sport mode and that is cardio why are things broken out
one by one in this watch so what you're really left with is a cardio workout gym workout a yoga
and all the core sport modes like you're running walking cycling elliptical trainer rowing machine
swimming so you're really left with about 15 or 20 sport modes everything else is just
a bit irrational so let's say you're in the gym and you're doing a gym workout you'll
be spending more time fiddling with your watch changing the sport mode rather than
working out and keeping up the intensity and i think that's a big con so on one side the
pro is you've got 39 sport modes you've got seven auto track activities that is all great
but considering that some of those sport modes are well pretty much useless and they will waste
your time while setting them up in the gym or while you're working out i think that's a major
con because really you're just left with about 20 core activities that this watch can't track
well even tennis it doesn't have it it doesn't have basketball it doesn't have football and
that is an issue anyway let's get on to the third pro and con of the samsung galaxy watch active 2.
the third pro is the extra availability of functions on this particular watch you get a lot
you get your heart rate monitoring you get your ecg monitoring and considering that the ecg graph
is wow you can actually save it down to your app you can share it with your doctor with your gp
with your family with your consultant whoever this is very useful stuff and very advanced it's even
got a blood pressure reading that it can do now of course you do have to calibrate it against a real
blood pressure monitor just to get things going but i've tried this out and the readings
are very accurate with the watch active too so these are not the blood pressure readings that
you would get from some cheaper watch from god knows where now this is the real deal
so you do get a lot of this extra cool functions and features in fact when my mom is gonna come
and visit me i'm gonna have to gift her this watch because this is just going to be so much use for
her when she has to do an ecg and send it off to her doctor when she needs to do a blood pressure
readings well of course this is not a medical device but it does give you ballpark figures
so in regards to health great one big pro but there's a major con a major flaw here
the fact is the galaxy watch active 2 does not measure your spo2 aka blood oxygen saturation
and that is a huge huge minus because spo2 is such a big indicator of your cardiovascular health of
your respiratory health you need that indicator to give you a full picture of your health and this
is what this very expensive samsung is trying to do so there we go now let's get on to the fourth
pro and con of this watch price price is a major consideration when you're getting yourself a smart
gadget considering this watch is beautiful in so many ways it's very useful it's as smart as it can
get you can talk into the watch you can easily control your music player on your phone from
the watch because the screen is so big 1.4 inches that's absolutely huge the resolution is amazing
but 419 pounds or 500 bucks that's a lot of money now apple yes they charge a lot of money
for their smart watches but you still can get much more budget models from the apple platform
the galaxy watch active too costs more than the top of the range galaxy watch
for this is a lot of money to pay for 419 pounds so i could get myself let's say
a garmin venue 2 as well as a great fitness tracker let's say something like the huawei band 6
which does its full day spo2 monitoring but on the other hand the venue 2 from garmin also does that
so i don't know short battery life great features but missing sp02 lots of functionality only one
and a half day battery and all that for almost 500 bucks i think price is a major consideration
for this watch now the pro here is that yes the price does set it apart from the rest of
the players in the market so really you just left with the apple watch as competition so it
does put it in that range of the best of the best that's great but then again you do have a lot of
limitations and restrictions on this watch which maybe don't warrant this huge price but then apple
is faced with exactly the same issue very short battery life and quite a few shortcomings but
you can watch my review of the apple watch series 6 in the link i've left just above me right now
anyways let's get on to the fifth pro and con let's talk apps so of course the samsung galaxy
health app is great it's very informative it's extremely easy to use it's probably one of the
best health apps out there today it's just so simplistic it shows you when you want to see
it doesn't throw these options at you lots of buttons and clicks and pages no it's all very
simple it's basic but yet the visuals are great it's easy to use and that's a pro but the con
is that even though i'm using a samsung phone i still need to download two apps to use a samsung
wearable so you need the actual samsung wearable app and then you need your samsung health app and
that is at least inconvenient because on one app you set up your wearable to how you want it to act
while on the other app you have to go in and see what your health metrics are i don't think that's
convenient i don't think that's the right way to go about things you've got a great wearable device
you've got a great health app but why is your wearable app separate from the health app they go
hand in hand so now you need to go to two places to do one action and i think that's a massive con
anyways thank you for watching this review of the galaxy watch active 2. all in all i think
it's a great device but i do think that there are major considerations that you have to note
before splashing out a lot of dosh for this watch if these pros overweigh the cons then
get it because it is a great smart watch and it's got great fitness tracking capability i love it
but you have to be aware of the cons thank you for watching this
if you did enjoy it please drop me a like and if you want to see more of the same you know what to
do click on the red subscribe button below the video and i'll see you in the next one