Samsung Galaxy Watch9 review: great smartwatches with minimal innovation

At first glance, the new Samsung Galaxy Watch9 smartwatches are identical to their previous generation. However, they bring one, potentially significant, new feature. Hidden within them is a Qualcomm chipset. This last happened 12 years ago with the Samsung Gear S watches, which then used a stripped-down Snapdragon 400, a chip originally designed for mobile phones. Did the departure from their own wearable chipset manifest itself in everyday use? And what else do the new Samsung watches offer? We will answer these questions in our review of the Samsung Galaxy Watch9 in the 44mm variant.

Samsung Galaxy Watch9 Review Contents

Design and Wearing Comfort

As mentioned in the introduction, the Samsung Galaxy Watch9 smartwatches do not differ significantly from their predecessor. By that, I mean that the body of the watch itself is identical, with identical dimensions and weight. The only visual difference is the silicone strap with a slightly different design. While last year the strap was smooth on the outside, the new one has a small indentation in the middle. That’s all.

The body itself is again formed by a square with significantly rounded corners, into which a circular display is set. I’ve encountered various opinions on this design, but I personally quite like it. Samsung has found its style among smartwatches, which is not aggressive and is also quite easily recognizable. In addition to the touchscreen, two buttons also serve to control the watch. These are sufficiently large, but have a very low travel and need to be pressed firmly. A microphone is located between the buttons, and the opposite side is occupied by the loud speaker output.

You’ll barely feel them on your wrist

The watch body is made of brushed aluminum, and in the case of the tested unit, it also has a dark gray anodized layer. The display is protected by sapphire glass. The body weight is only 34 grams, and its dimensions are 46 x 43.7 x 8.6 mm. As a result, the Samsung Galaxy Watch9 smartwatches, even in their larger version, are almost imperceptible on the wrist and very comfortable for everyday wear. I didn’t even mind sleeping with the watch on, and I usually take all watches off my wrist at night.

The original strap with a classic clasp is also pleasant to the touch. However, I have two criticisms of it. First, it’s quite short. The watch comes standard with an M/L size strap; I don’t have excessively thick wrists, yet I fastened it on the third hole from the end. I know many people who would have to wear the strap fastened on the last hole or would have to buy a new one immediately.

And that brings me to the second point. The strap uses a proprietary attachment, so you cannot attach classic straps or bracelets here. Fortunately, you are not limited to solutions with the original attachment; adapters can also be purchased. And not to just criticize, compared to some similar clamping systems, this one works very well; the strap is easy to detach and attach and holds securely in place.

It can make itself heard

The watch will then notify you of incoming messages, calls, or other notifications with sufficiently strong but not unpleasant vibrations, or possibly using the loud speaker. This, in combination with the microphone, can naturally also be used for voice calls. As with most smartwatches, this is more of a supplementary feature, but the clarity and volume of the call seemed sufficient even outside a completely quiet environment. The other party also understood me, just keep in mind that for the best call quality, you need to hold your hand with the watch closer to your mouth.

Beautiful display, readable in all conditions

Nothing has changed on the display between generations, but on the other hand, I don’t really know what more to wish for from a smartwatch display. The Samsung Galaxy Watch9 offers a 1.47″ Super AMOLED with a resolution of 480 x 480 pixels. The display thus offers more than sufficient sharpness of 327 pixels per inch and, moreover, a beautifully contrasting display. In addition, its brightness reaches up to 3,000 nits, so you don’t have to worry about readability even in summer sunlight. Automatic brightness control is also present, of course, and I have no complaints about its functioning either.

Watch Hardware

We now come to the biggest intergenerational change already mentioned. The new Qualcomm Snapdragon SW6100 Wear Elite chipset is, as its name suggests, naturally developed specifically for smartwatches and other smart wearables. It is manufactured with modern 3nm technology and contains a processor with four efficient and one powerful core. This new chipset should have a 32% more powerful processor and 19% more powerful graphics while maintaining high energy efficiency. The watch then features 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the opportunity to directly compare last year’s and the current generation side-by-side, but I wouldn’t expect a noticeable difference in system responsiveness and overall user experience. Where there should be an intergenerational improvement, however, is GPS reception. Again, I don’t have the previous generation on hand to confirm the manufacturer’s claims, but I didn’t encounter the slightest problem with GPS during testing. Even in dense urban areas, the watch had no problem determining the exact location or jumping between closely adjacent streets.

A Plethora of Sensors

From the perspective of sensor equipment, there is practically nothing to fault with the watch. Specifically, we find the following here:

• Accelerometer
• Barometer
• BIA sensor
• Electrical Heart Activity Sensor
• Gyro Sensor
• Geomagnetic Sensor
• Optical Heart Rate Sensor
• Temperature Sensor

Health and Fitness Features

Unfortunately, not all sensors can be used with any phone. Samsung continues to keep its Health Monitor app behind a wall of exclusivity. Without a Samsung phone, you cannot officially use features for detecting moderate to severe sleep apnea, blood pressure measurement, or ECG measurement. For the latter, you use electrodes integrated into the control buttons. I cannot assess the exact accuracy of sleep apnea detection and ECG measurement. In the case of blood pressure measurement, the watch’s deviation in successive measurements was up to 6% compared to a classic home blood pressure monitor.

The watch records heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature, and oxygen level measurements during sleep and then provides personalized health data from these readings. Indeed, the watch places great emphasis on monitoring sleep patterns. Based on its regularity and duration, the Samsung Galaxy Watch9 then provides a so-called Energy Score. Based on the information gathered, the watch then gives you tips on what to improve to feel better and have more energy.

Overall, the Samsung Health app shows a focus on prevention. However, monitoring a range of exercises is also available. Unlike competitors, Samsung doesn’t chase the highest number of activities; there are specifically 12 basic ones, but they cover a fairly wide spectrum. You’ll find activities from walking to swimming to weight machines. Moreover, you can easily define your own exercises. Based on several categories and other settings, you can thus define an almost unlimited number of exercises.

Mobile Apps are a Must-Have

Up to 3 basic applications belong to the Samsung Galaxy Watch9. One of them is the already mentioned Health Monitor, which provides access to blood pressure measurement, ECG, and sleep apnea detection. Here you have measurement settings and results history. That’s all within Health Monitor.

Next, we have the Samsung Wear app. As the name suggests, it serves to connect and manage Samsung smart wearables. Here you choose a watch face, select shortcuts for the quick launch panel or widgets for individual screens. In the settings, you then have access to everything you find on the watch. As is good practice with Samsung, everything is nicely and clearly divided into three main tabs.

The trio is then concluded by the Samsung Health app. This manages everything related to exercise and your activity. Here you will find your daily overviews of not only physical activity but also sleep. I particularly like the home screen with tiles whose presence and layout you can customize. Most tiles related to measurements can be placed here in a graph format or in a compact version with the latest measurement. Or you can have your favorite exercise pre-set to start here. The possibilities are wide.

Samsung Health also includes various categories such as activity, sleep, or even nutrition, where you can manually enter what you eat, how you drink, or even blood glucose measurements and calculate your BMI. The app provides an indicator of your fitness based on several measured metrics like daily activity and BMI. Along with it, you will also find various recommended training videos.

Wear OS with a Samsung Twist

The watch naturally runs on Wear OS 7 with Samsung’s graphical elements in the form of the OneUI Watch 9 overlay. The system runs completely smoothly, fluidly, and during the period of use, I did not encounter any hint of stuttering. You will recognize that these are Samsung watches practically immediately from the environment by the icons typical for OneUI on smartphones. In addition, the tiles on individual screens are also designed in this typical style – where, by the way, you can stack several tiles one below the other.

Similarly, a number of applications directly from Samsung are pre-installed here. In combination with Google applications, there might be a bit too much pre-installed on the watch for my taste. Nevertheless, out of the 32GB storage, you will still have almost 19 GB remaining right after unboxing – for storing music or installing other applications and watch faces from Google Play. The presence of the Google Wallet application and the ability to pay using NFC are also a given; you just need to set a screen lock, which you must enter every time you put the watch back on.

Control remains classically based on gestures combined with the home button and back button. For the home button, behavior can be set for certain types of presses, such as a double press or a press and hold. This year, we didn’t get any Classic model with a rotating control bezel, so we’ll have to make do with its virtual form. In some situations, I appreciated it, but the comfort of use of these two solutions cannot be compared. There is also a new feature in the form of raise-to-speak. As soon as you raise your wrist with the watch, you will see a signal on the display that the watch is listening, and you can start interacting with Gemini.

Battery Life is No Surprise

Unlike the smaller model, the tested 44mm variant of the Samsung Galaxy Watch9 has practically not improved in terms of capacity. The shift from 435 to 445 mAh is completely negligible. Even with the new, more efficient chipset, I didn’t expect any noticeable improvement, and the watch didn’t surprise me either. When used for daily monitoring of health functions and activity along with notifications, it lasted me 2 days of use, including sleep monitoring, barely.

The moment you include exercise monitoring with continuous heart rate measurement and GPS in your usage, the battery life naturally drops significantly. However, you can manage a full day’s hike with the watch. For charging, you must use a proprietary wireless puck with magnetic attachment. Do not expect to charge the watch on a regular Qi charger. I even tried using a charger from my older Galaxy Watch4 Classic, and even there I was unsuccessful. The actual charging from 10 to 100% then takes approximately 1.5 hours.

Samsung Galaxy Watch9 Price

As I already mentioned, the Samsung Galaxy Watch9 can be purchased in 40mm and 44mm case variants. Each of these then comes in Wi-Fi and LTE versions. As for color variants, the watches are available in the tested dark gray with a black strap, gray with a dark green strap, and light gray with a white strap. The prices are as follows

• Samsung Galaxy Watch9 40mm Wi-Fi – 9,990 CZK including VAT
• Samsung Galaxy Watch9 44mm Wi-Fi – 10,790 CZK including VAT
• Samsung Galaxy Watch9 40mm LTE – 12,990 CZK including VAT
• Samsung Galaxy Watch9 40mm LTE – 11,990 CZK including VAT

Samsung Galaxy Watch9 Review Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy Watch9 smartwatches somewhat disappointed me with their smaller degree of intergenerational innovation. For owners of the previous model, there are practically no reasons to upgrade. The new, modern chipset is nice, but you won’t appreciate the performance much in a watch, and the only real benefit the new solution brings is ultimately better GPS signal reception. On the other hand, these are still top-notch watches that will surprise you especially with their comfort of use.

Whether it’s the wearing comfort or the beautifully smooth and refined system with intuitive controls and a well-executed environment. Especially if you have a Samsung smartphone, you will enjoy the functionality of a connected and harmonized ecosystem. It’s just a shame that some features are still locked behind the necessity of owning a smartphone of the same brand. Battery life could also be better, but that’s the price for an open operating system with many features, including payments via Google Pay.

Editor’s Rating: 80 / 100

Are you interested in the Samsung Galaxy Watch9 smartwatches?