Despite earning high praise for last year’s Tizen-based Galaxy Watch3, Samsung ranked third in the global smartwatch market, behind Apple and Huawei. This year, Samsung is hoping deeper Google integration will help attract more buyers to its latest flagship smartwatch, the $349.99 Galaxy Watch4 Classic. Featuring the unified Google/Samsung Wear OS platform, the Watch4 Classic brings Google Maps, the Play Store, and a better selection of third-party apps to your wrist than any of Samsung’s previous Tizen watches. Though its battery life remains the same, the Watch4 Classic offers a few other notable updates from last year’s model, including a faster processor for smoother scrolling, a higher-resolution display for crisper visuals, expanded memory for music and app storage, a sensor that can measure your body fat, and a useful snore-tracking feature. It’s the best high-end Wear OS we’ve tested, though we give slight preference to the standard Watch4, which costs $100 less and sports a more streamlined design. Either way, if you’re in the market for an Android-compatible smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy Watch4 series is hard to beat.
A Stainless Steel Design With a Rotating Bezel
Samsung’s 2021 smartwatch lineup includes two models: the flagship Galaxy Watch4 Classic featured in this review, and the more affordable Watch4. The watches are compatible with smartphones running Android 6.0 or later with 1.5GB of RAM (sorry, iPhone users, they don’t work with Apple’s iOS).
The Galaxy Watch4 Classic features a stainless steel case and the same rotating bezel as the Watch3. It comes in 42mm and 46mm sizes in black or silver, starting at $349.99 for the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi model or $399.99 for one with LTE connectivity. The company also plans to offer a limited edition rhodium-plated Watch4, created in collaboration with fashion designer Thom Browne, in September.
The standard Watch4, which replaces the Galaxy Watch Active line Samsung last updated in 2019, sports a minimalist design with no rotating bezel and an aluminum case. It starts at $249.99 for the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi model, or $50 more if you want LTE connectivity. It comes in 40mm and 44mm sizes in black or silver; the 40mm model also comes in pink gold while the 44mm one is also available in green.
For this review, Samsung sent me the 42mm Bluetooth-only Watch4 Classic in black, as well as a Galaxy Note20 Ultra phone to pair with the wearable for testing.
The Watch4 Classic comes with a Ridge Sport fluoroelastomer (FKM) rubber band in size small/medium (which fits wrists ranging from 5.1 inches to 7.5 inches) or medium/large (for wrists 5.7 to 8.1 inches). The Watch4 comes with a plain FKM Sport Band with no ridge detail. Samsung sells a variety of accessory straps for the Watch4 series, including a $49.99 Hybrid Leather band for a classier look, and a $39.99 Extreme Sport model with air holes for sweaty workouts.
Aside from the Watch4 Classic’s rotating bezel and stainless steel case, there are no other upgrades from the standard Watch4. Both have the same battery, connectivity, internal memory, operating system, processor, sensors, and user interface. They have 5ATM and IP68 ratings, meaning they are waterproof to a depth of 164 feet for 10 minutes, and can withstand dust, dirt, and sand. They also meet the MIL-STD-810G military standard, so they shouldn’t have any trouble withstanding drops, extreme temperatures, shock, vibration, low pressure, or high altitude.
Samsung says the 42mm Watch4 Classic measures 1.63 by 1.63 by 0.44 (HWD) and weighs 1.66 ounces (sans strap), while the 46mm model measures 1.79 by 1.79 by 0.43 inches and weighs 1.83 ounces. But there’s a catch: Samsung’s depth measurements exclude the health sensor that protrudes slightly off the back, so the watches are actually a bit thicker than stated. Including the sensor, my 42mm review unit is almost 0.5 inches thick. It’s noticeably thicker than the Apple Watch Series 6, which measures 0.42 inches in depth.
For everyday wear, the watch should feel “snug but comfortable,” with enough room to let the skin underneath breathe, Samsung says. During workouts, the company recommends tightening the watch for the most accurate health measurements.
The 42mm Watch4 Classic has a 1.2-inch, 396-by-396 Super AMOLED display, while the 46mm model features a 1.4-inch, 450-by-450 screen. No matter the size, the display is bright and beautiful, offering a resolution bump from last generation’s already vibrant and easy-to-read 360-by-360 screen.
Scrolling is smooth and responsive thanks to the Exynos W920 processor. Samsung says the 5nm chip delivers 20% faster CPU performance and 10 times better graphics performance than the Watch3’s Exynos 9110. As for memory, it packs 1.5GB of RAM (a 50% boost from last year’s model) and 16GB of internal storage (up from 8GB).
The Watch4 Classic and the Watch4 both have two physical buttons on the right side: a Power/Home button on top, and a Back button below. You also use these buttons when taking a body composition scan, which I’ll discuss in detail later in this review.
Like the Apple Watch, battery life is a major limitation here. Samsung says the 42mm model’s 247mAh battery and the 46mm’s 361mAh cell offer up to around 40 hours of juice on a charge, similar to the Watch3. In my testing, the Watch4 Classic lasted 29 hours with normal to heavy use and the always-on display disabled before its battery dropped down to 5% and I put it back on its charger. In other words, you should expect to charge the watch daily. With the always-on display enabled during a day of heavy testing, it only lasted 19 hours. The Apple Watch Series 6 lasted around 25.5 hours in testing with the always-on display enabled.
Fortunately, you won’t have to wait around very long for the Watch4 Classic to charge. Samsung says it juices up faster than the Watch3, and just 30 minutes of charging provides 10 hours of battery life. While it’s charging, the watch lets you know how long it will take to get to 100%.
To preserve battery life, the Watch4 Classic offers a power-saving mode that disables the always-on display, limits CPU speed, decreases screen brightness by 10%, limits background processes (including network usage, location, and syncing), reduces the screen time-out to 15 seconds, disables wake-up gestures, and disables software updates. When the battery gets low, it will ask if you want to enable power-saving mode.
If you’re in search of a longer-lasting wearable, the Fitbit Versa 3 promises more than six days of battery life on a charge. In testing, it still had 79% battery life after 24 hours of heavy use with the always-on display enabled, so you definitely don’t need to charge it on a daily basis.
More Google on Your Samsung Watch
One of the biggest changes in this generation of Samsung smartwatches is the switch from the company’s own Tizen mobile operating system, which powers the Watch3 and its predecessors, to the new Wear OS platform.
Earlier this year, Samsung partnered with Google to merge the Tizen and Wear OS systems in an effort to attract more third-party developers and better compete with the Apple Watch and watchOS. The Watch4 Classic and Watch4 are the first wearables to run the new unified platform, which features popular Google apps such as Google Maps and the Play Store, as well as Samsung standbys like Samsung Pay for mobile payments and SmartThings for smart home control. The Google Maps app is a particularly welcome addition to the Watch4 series, bringing turn-by-turn driving, walking, and cycling directions to your wrist.
This is the first time Samsung has used an Android-based smartwatch operating system since the Gear Live in 2014. On Galaxy smartwatches, the new operating system is officially called Wear OS Powered by Samsung. On other smartwatches, it will somewhat confusingly have a different name: Wear OS 3 by Google.
Google says certain previous-generation Wear OS smartwatches, including Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 and TicWatch E3, will be eligible for an upgrade to Wear OS 3, but the update won’t arrive until mid 2022 at the earliest. Whether Galaxy Watch3 and other Tizen-based Galaxy smartwatches will be eligible is still unclear, though Samsung has promised to continue providing software updates for its Tizen-based smartwatches for three years from their launch date. As I detailed in my Watch3 review, third-party app support on Tizen is fairly limited. The new Wear OS platform offers a wider selection.
In the Google Play Store on the Watch4 Classic, you can find some big name apps like Any.do, AccuWeather, Citymapper, Google Fit, Google Keep, Google Pay, Google Slides, IFTTT, iHeartRadio, Lifesum, Nike Run Club, Kamoot, Pandora, Shazam, Telegram, and Todoist. Samsung and Google are also promising new and improved versions of Spotify, Calm, Strava, adidas Running, Swim.com, and Flo Period Tracker in the near future. They say YouTube Music and Bitmoji will also be coming to the platform.
Still, some popular apps available on the Apple Watch are missing from Wear OS, including Audible, CNN, Facebook Messenger, ESPN, Runkeeper, Starbucks, The Weather Channel, and Uber. At this point, Apple’s watchOS still has the widest selection of third-party apps.
The Watch4 series also features Samsung’s new One UI Watch interface, which is designed to offer a more seamless cross-platform experience across Galaxy smartphones and watches. With One UI Watch, compatible apps downloaded to your phone via Google Play are automatically installed on the watch. Certain settings, including Do Not Disturb hours, blocked callers, and world clocks, also automatically sync from your phone.
Setting Up and Getting to Know the Watch4 Classic
In the box, you get the watch, a quick start guide, and a power cord (though you’ll need your own USB port or power adapter).
To set it up, you need to download the Galaxy Wearable app if you don’t already have it on your phone. When I opened the app on the Note20 Ultra, it automatically started searching for devices to add, and quickly found the Watch4 Classic. Next, it displayed a number on the watch’s screen and in the app, and asked me to confirm that they were the same.
During the setup process, the app asks for permission to access your device’s location and link the Watch4 Plugin. In a series of pop-ups, the Watch4 Plugin then asks for permission to access your contacts, calendar, phone call logs, and the photos, media, and files on your device. It also asks for permission to make and manage phone calls and send and view SMS messages. Next, it asks you to agree to Google’s terms of service, optionally link your Google account, and copy your account details to the watch.
Just like with any feature-rich smartwatch, you have to spend some time exploring the Watch4 to figure out where everything is and what it does. You can navigate its interface in several ways: with swipes and taps on the screen, the physical buttons on the side of the watch, the rotating bezel, gesture controls, and by voice with Bixby.
From the watch face, you can swipe left to access the various tiles (including daily activity, workout tracking, body composition, sleep, weather, calendar, ECG, heart rate, and stress), swipe right for notifications, swipe down for the quick panel menu (to enable Bedtime mode, the always-on display, connect Bluetooth headphones, and more), and swipe up for apps (including Google Maps, the Play Store, Samsung Health, Samsung Pay, Bixby, and others, which you can organize as you like).
To go back, swipe right or press the physical Back key (the lower button). To go to your most recently used app, double press the Home key (the upper button).
In Settings, there’s an option to select your favorite app, so you can quickly launch it by double pressing the Home key. You can also optionally change the Back key to show your recent apps when pressed.
The default watch face is pretty cluttered, so changing it was one of the first things I did after setting up the watch. You can easily change and customize your watch face in the Galaxy Wearable app. On the watch itself, you can touch and hold the watch face screen, swipe left and right to browse the various options, then tap the one you like to set it. There are lots of fun, customizable watch faces to pick from, but if you don’t like any of the default options, there are more available for download via the Play Store.
With gesture controls, you can accept calls by waving your forearm up and down, or dismiss calls, notifications, and alarms by rotating your wrist twice.
With Bixby, you can use your voice to open apps, compose messages, and more. To talk to Bixby, just press and hold the Home key. There’s also a Voice Wake-Up option, which when enabled will let you summon the virtual assistant by saying, “Hi, Bixby.”
Connecting wireless headphones to the Watch4 Classic is easy. Just swipe to the quick panel menu, then tap the Bluetooth headphones icon and it will begin scanning for devices. Just make sure you have your wireless headphones in Bluetooth pairing mode and you should be good to go. In testing, I had no problem connecting a pair of OnePlus Buds with the watch.
To take a screenshot on the watch, press the Home and Back keys at the same time. Screenshots are automatically synced to your phone’s Gallery.
For security, it’s a good idea to set a screen lock pattern or pin code to prevent others from accessing your data. To do so, navigate to Settings > Security.
Measure Your Body Composition
On the health front, the Watch4 Series has a new three-in-one BioActive Sensor, which can not only read your heart rate and take an ECG, but also assess your body composition using a process called bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA).
Commonly used in smart scales, BIA involves sending a low-level electrical current through your body to measure fat and other metrics. The BIA current moves quickly through tissue that contains a large amount of fluids and electrolytes like muscle and blood, and faces resistance—or impedance—moving through fat. The watch measures that impedance to assess your body composition.
After a 15-second scan, the watch displays your skeletal muscle mass, fat mass, body fat percentage, body mass index (BMI, a measure of body size based on your weight and height), body water mass, and basal metabolic rate (BMR, or the minimum necessary energy needed in an inactive state). A graph below each metric indicates whether your results fall within the low, normal, or high range.
It’s important to note that the small electric current sent through your body during BIA measurement can affect pacemakers. For this reason, you shouldn’t use the watch to measure your body composition if you have a pacemaker or any other internal medical device. There’s no evidence that this process is dangerous for pregnant women, but Samsung also warns against using the watch to measure your body composition if you’re expecting. Also keep in mind that the measurement results may be inaccurate if you’re under the age of 20.
To take a scan, navigate to the body composition tile and press Measure. It will then ask you to select your gender (there are only options for Female and Male), height, and weight. “Body composition monitoring is for fitness and wellness only, not for diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition,” the watch says.
Next, it offers instructions for taking a scan: Move the watch higher on your wrist than usual, then place the middle and ring fingers of your opposite hand on the Home and Back buttons, with your palm facing up. While taking a scan, you need to raise your arms to chest level, hold them away from your body, and make sure that your two hands aren’t touching. The position is a bit awkward, but you only need to hold it for about 15 seconds before you get your results.
For the most accurate results, it’s best to take your scan at the same time each day (preferably in the morning) on an empty stomach and with an empty bladder. Samsung says to avoid taking a scan if you’re on your menstrual cycle, “right after exercise, showering, going to a sauna, or any other activity that might make you hot.”
The first time I took a body composition scan with the Watch4 Classic, it said I had 25.1% body fat, 49 pounds of skeletal muscle, 31.3 pounds of fat mass, 68.6 pounds of body water, a BMI of 20.3, and a BMR of 1,287 calories. According to the watch, my body water mass was slightly low, but the rest of my body composition measurements were within the normal range.
For the sake of comparison, I then stepped on two different smart scales that also use BIA to calculate your body composition. They don’t track all of the same metrics as the watch, but I was able to directly compare my results for a few, including body fat percentage, BMI, and BMR.
The Arboleaf Smart Fitness Scale said I had 15.6% body fat, a BMI of 20.3, and a BMR of 1,403 calories. Meanwhile, the FitTrack Dara said I had 18.6% body fat, 23.6 pounds of fat mass, a BMI of 20.7, and a BMR of 1,339 calories.
Overall, the Watch4 Classic’s body fat percentage calculations were about 6.5 to 9.5 percentage points higher than the measurements from the smart scales, which is a pretty significant difference. Meanwhile, its BMR calculation was a bit low, and its BMI calculation was pretty much spot-on compared with the scales.
“You may notice differences between your watch results and results from other body composition measurement devices,” Samsung acknowledges. The company also says watch results might be “less accurate if you have an unusual body composition, severe obesity, or a very muscular body.”
For fun, I also took a body fat scan using the Amazon Halo app, and this is where things got a bit more interesting. It said I had 25.9% body fat and 32.4 pounds of fat mass, more closely aligning with the results from the Watch4 Classic. Instead of BIA, Amazon uses your smartphone’s front-facing camera along with computer vision and machine learning technology to analyze the shape of your body and calculate your body fat percentage. Amazon says its body fat percentage tool, which requires you to stand in front of your camera in your underwear, is nearly twice as accurate as smart scales that use BIA to estimate your body fat, though we can’t verify these claims.
Since your results can vary widely from one device to the next, I recommend picking one and sticking with it to track your changes over time. Over two days, I took about a half dozen scans using the Watch4 Classic and the results were pretty consistent, each time saying I had between 23% to 26% body fat.
This feature is neat, but I wouldn’t specifically buy the Watch4 Classic for it given the affordability of smart scales, which track more body composition metrics than Samsung’s wearables—most notably, weight. The Wyze Smart Scale, an Editors’ Choice winner, is only $20, tracks 12 metrics, and has a safe mode for pregnant women and people who wear pacemakers.
Track Your Snoring and SpO2 When You Sleep
When you wear it to bed, the Watch4 will automatically track your sleep duration, stages (awake, light, deep, and REM), and calories burned. In the Samsung Health app, you can optionally enable overnight blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) readings. When paired with a compatible smartphone, the watch also lets you keep tabs on a fairly uncommon sleeping metric: snoring.
To record this, you first need to enable snore tracking in the Samsung Health app (available in version 6.18 or higher). When setting it up, there’s an option to have your phone record your snoring audio, just in case you want proof.
Then at night, wear the watch to bed and place your phone on a stable surface within two feet of your head, with the microphone on the bottom of the handset pointed toward you. When the watch detects you’re asleep, your phone’s microphone will listen for your snoring and record it if you have that option enabled. Keep in mind that snore tracking increases battery consumption, so you’ll probably want to charge your phone while you sleep if you enable this feature.
In the morning, you can visit the sleep tile on your watch, or the Samsung Health app to view your data. After enabling snore tracking in the app and sleeping with the Note20 Ultra on my nightstand while wearing the Watch4 Classic to bed, I woke up to no snoring data. On my nightstand, I also have a Google Nest Hub smart display that tracks snoring, and it confirmed that I didn’t make a peep. I’ve worn the watch to bed several nights since and haven’t yet received any snoring data, which I guess is a good thing, but makes it difficult to confirm that the feature actually works.
The Watch4 Classic also gives you a Sleep Score from zero to 100, based on your total sleep time, sleep cycles, movements and awakenings, physical recovery, and mental recovery. The first night I wore it to bed, the watch said I slept for 6 hours, 55 minutes and gave me a sleep score of 50, which falls below the average of 70 for women in my age range.
For that night, the watch said I had a minimum overnight SpO2 level of 84%, which seems low. In general, an SpO2 level between 95 and 100 is considered normal.
In the sleep section of the Samsung Health app, you can also view a graph of your overnight SpO2 level. For that night, the graph showed my blood oxygen saturation level dipped below 90% several times, which I doubt was actually the case.
According to the University of California San Francisco, blood oxygen saturation levels are typically lower during sleep versus when you’re awake. Even so, if your SpO2 level is greater than about 94% while awake, “it is unlikely that your saturation during sleep will fall below 88%,” the school notes.
Concerned by my minimum overnight reading, I took several on-demand SpO2 measurements using the Watch4 Classic and an Apple Watch Series 6 while awake, and all were much higher, between 98% and 100%. The following night, I wore the Watch4 Classic on one wrist, and the Apple Watch Series 6 on the other, to compare my overnight SpO2 measurements from both devices. The Watch4 Classic said my SpO2 level ranged from 93% to 100% while the Series 6 said it ranged from 91% to 100%. That initial low overnight reading seems to be an anomaly, as I haven’t seen an overnight SpO2 measurement less than 90% from the Watch4 Classic since.
Workout Tracking
The Watch4 Classic currently supports 95 different workouts, including the following default tracking options: circuit training, cycling, elliptical trainer, exercise bike, hiking, other workout, running, running coach (which I detailed in last year’s Watch3 review), swimming (outdoor), swimming (pool), treadmill, walking, and weight machine. In the Samsung Health app, you can browse the other workout tracking options—including aerobics, alpine skiing, archery, ballet, baseball, basketball, canoeing, dancing, flying disc, football, golf, hockey, jump rope, kayaking, mountain biking, pilates, rowing machine, step machine, stretching, volleyball, and yoga, to name a few—and add an additional 28 to the watch.
When tracking a workout, you can press the Back key to pause or end. If you pause tracking, just press the Back key again when you’re ready to resume.
In testing, I found the Watch4 Classic’s fitness metrics to be accurate. During a 30-minute workout on the Aviron smart rowing machine, another product I’m testing for an upcoming review, I wore the Watch4 Classic on one wrist and the Apple Watch Series 6 on the other. The Watch4 Classic said I burned 186 calories while the Series 6 said I burned 177. The Watch4 Classic said my average heart rate was 133bpm and the Series 6 said it was 138bpm.
The Watch3 can automatically detect walking, running, elliptical usage, rowing, swimming, and dynamic workouts, a useful feature that in testing worked perfectly during walks with my dog Bradley. Just like the Apple Watch, it automatically starts tracking after you’ve been walking for about 10 minutes (and gives you credit for the time that has already elapsed).
On the downside, the new Wear OS platform doesn’t yet appear to offer much integration with Fitbit. Google has promised to bring “the best of Fitbit,” which it now owns, to the unified smartwatch platform, including health progress tracking and on-wrist goal celebrations, but those features don’t seem to be available at the time of this writing.
Samsung’s Best High-End Smartwatch
The Galaxy Watch4 Classic and its more affordable sibling are the best Android-compatible smartwatches on the market, hands down. The $349.99 Classic model features a rugged stainless steel design with a rotating bezel that’s a pleasure to use. At night, it can track your snoring (when paired with a compatible smartphone) in addition to your blood oxygen saturation. It also features a body composition scanner that can help you keep an eye on your body fat percentage. And the new Wear OS platform delivers more in the way of apps, including Google Maps. Ultimately, this is the closest competitor to the Apple Watch Series 6, but since both watches are specific to either Android or iOS phones, the choice is easy to make.
That said, the Watch4 Classic falls short of earning our Editors’ Choice award, because for most people, the standard Watch4 is the better buy. It’s $100 less than the Watch4 Classic, features a functional digital bezel, and comes in green or pink in addition to black or silver. Unless you like the more rugged design of the Classic and think its rotating bezel is worth the premium, we recommend you go with the Watch4.
Also keep in mind that both models offer limited battery life and requiring daily charging. If you can’t deal with that, the $229.95 Fitbit Versa 3, another favorite non-Apple smartwatch, offers much better battery life and costs less, but feels a bit laggy compared with the snappy Galaxy Watch4 series.
