Minimalistic, Fantastic little Android Wear
Introduction
There is a tremendous number of Smart Watches out there, with different operating system and features on our wrists that we utilize everyday or even every time, even without realizing that certain watches actually measure the user patterns or behavior. Today we will look at the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, which is a WearOS powered Smart Watch that Samsung decided to use after it’s last generation Watch Series that relies on Samsung’s own Tizen OS.
Unboxing and Contents
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 comes with the following:
1 X Watch itself
1 X USB A to magnetic charging cable
1 X User manual and Quick Start Guide, Warranty Statement
Design & Display
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The Galaxy Watch 4 just weighs around 25 Grams with its surrounding body of the watch covered by aluminum, wearing it towards my wrist feels lightweight and comfortable, and I do have a small wrist, so it’s just right for me. The strap portion is removable and easy to maintain, you can just wipe the whole watch and strap with a soft cloth and you are ready again to strap it back to your wrist. The unit that we are reviewing here is all in black color which is sleek and universal across any user’s choice. Over to the display side, the Galaxy Watch 4 that we are reviewing here features a 40mm AMOLED display which is small but well visibly represented, with good display contrast under bright sunlight. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 (40mm) is also waterproof with up to 50 meter depth.
There is only two button on the watch facing towards the right side of the watch, one button that is back to homescreen while the other one is customizable. It comes in three color choices, Black, Silver and Pink Gold, which is the same color design and language to some of it’s flagship Galaxy S and Z series of Smartphone within Samsung’s lineup.
Features and Tracking
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 has a few standout features as below :
- 3-in-1 BioActive Sensor
Enables the watch to monitor heart rate, blood oxygen levels and body composition - Body composition app
Measures weight, skeletal muscles, fat mass, BMI - Samsung Pay App
Takes the advantage of the Galaxy Watch 4 built in NFC chip to make payments by just touching the compatible credit card payment terminal. - Blood Oxygen (Sp02)
Measures Blood oxygen on your body, and it is configurable as manual track or continuous , even can be used together when you are sleeping. - Stress Monitor
Monitor your stress and breathing control, it can be configure as a constant monitoring to provide a much detail results throughout the day - Sports and Exercise Tracking
This Watch can calibrate and customize based on the user’s needs, from Cycling, Walking, Swimming, Yoga, Running, Hiking and more. The tracking is also compatible with gym based exercise and its activities.
Software and Connectivity
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 runs on Google Android Wear with One UI from Samsung, setting up is not hard, all you need is to download Samsung Wearable App from Google Play Store, install it, turn on Bluetooth on both the phone and watch and follow the steps give to connect together. Do take note that the Watch 4 series is only compatible with Android 6.0 and above phones for now.
Once the connection is established via the Wearable App, you can also pair it with other Samsung Accessories such as the Galaxy Buds, which provides seamless integration with all Samsung’s own accessories. Also remember to register with a Samsung account if you don’t have one. All connectivity will be done via Bluetooth connection with BLE. A single charge thru the supplied magnetic USB cable will get you around 3 days of usage, which provides a constant tracking for before recharging it. To my personal preference, I am good with charging once every 3 days since I am turning almost all the features to constant monitoring when experiencing with this Watch, and being a full fledged Android Wear, to me it is considered as a good performance with good amount of 1.5GB RAM and 16GB of internal memory.
Technical Specifications
| . | Galaxy Watch4 | Galaxy Watch4 Classic |
| Color | – 44mm: Black, Green, Silver – 40mm: Black, Pink Gold, Silver | – 46mm: Black, Silver – 42mm: Black, Silver |
| Dimensions & Weight | Aluminium case – 44mm: 44.4 x 43.3 x 9.8 mm, 30.3g – 40mm: 40.4 x 39.3 x 9.8 mm, 25.9g | Stainless steel case – 46mm: 45.5 x 45.5 x 11.0 mm, 52g – 42mm: 41.5 x 41.5 x 11.2 mm, 46.5g |
| Display | – 44mm: 1.4″ (34.6mm) 450×450 Super AMOLED, Full Color Always On Display, Corning® Gorilla® Glass with DX+ – 40mm: 1.2″ (30.4mm) 396×396 Super AMOLED, Full Color Always On Display, Corning® Gorilla® Glass with DX+ | – 46mm: 1.4″ (34.6mm) 450×450 Super AMOLED, Full Color Always On Display, Corning® Gorilla® with Glass DX – 42mm: 1.2″ (30.4mm) 396×396 Super AMOLED, Full Color Always On Display, Corning® Gorilla® with Glass DX |
| Processor | Exynos W920 Dual Core 1.18GHz (5nm Processor) |
| Memory | 1.5GB RAM + 16GB internal storage |
| Battery | 44mm/46mm: 361mAh, 40mm/42mm: 247mAh (typical) WPC-based wireless charging |
| OS | Wear OS Powered by Samsung |
| UI | One UI Watch 3 |
| Sensors | Samsung BioActive Sensor (Optical Heart Rate + Electrical Heart + Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis), Accelerometer, Barometer, Gyro Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Light Sensor |
| Connectivity | LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n 2.4+5GHz, NFC, GPS/Glonass/Beidou/Galileo |
| Durability | 5ATM + IP68 / MIL-STD-810G |
| Compatibility | Android 6.0 or higher and with more than 1.5GB of RAM |
Verdict and thoughts
We felt that the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is an all in one rounded full face Android Wear watch with jam packed fitness, wellness, productivity combined with NFC payment wearable where its just right for everyone, whether you are using some or all of the features, it has it for you. However it comes with no surprise that it comes with a price tag of RM899 for the 40mm model and RM999 for the 44mm model, it’s not overly priced for an Android Wear with all the features and functions included.
For more information and pre-purchase on the Galaxy Watch 4 series, visit HERE to find out.
Special thanks to Samsung for loaning the product for review