Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 review: an excellent watch, but an iterative update

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: One minute review

I’ve spent a full week with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. I’ve been using it to track my sleeping, running, general activity level, water consumption and more via Samsung Health. I’ve used Whatsapp, Spotify, Strava and other third-party apps to test out their functionality on Samsung’s One UI Watch 5. 

The fast screen refresh rate and response time for the apps we were able to use mean the overall experience is butter-smooth, and the design is nice – both externally and internally. Crucially, I’ve drained the battery down and monitored how much battery life GPS workouts drain from the watch.

The end result? We can clearly see the potential for it to knock the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 off the top of our best smartwatches list. It’s packing some nifty new features: notably, the processing power and RAM have been boosted, and Samsung Wallet has expanded to be able to include documents other than cards, such as airline tickets. 

A new Custom Workout option allows you to put together multi-stage workouts, and a redesigned Sleep app experience makes the Watch 6, in Samsung’s words, “the best device on the market for monitoring your sleep”.

It’s an iterative upgrade in many ways, but an upgrade nonetheless, even if it doesn’t quite improve on the Watch 5’s flaws enough to earn a rare five stars. In isolation, the Watch 6 an excellent device, perhaps the best Wear OS watch I’ve yet tried. 

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 review: Specifications

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 review: Price and availability

• 40mm model in the US starts from $299.99, 44mm from $299.99
• Starts from £289 in the UK (40mm) and £319 (44mm)
• Starts from AU$549 (40mm) and AU$599 (44mm) in Australia 

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 was announced at Samsung’s July 26 Unpacked event in Seoul, alongside the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, Galaxy Z Fold 5, and Galaxy Tab S9 series. 

The Galaxy Watch 6 comes in four variants, and that’s before you consider the alternative Classic model. You have the 40mm and 44mm sizes, with each available as Bluetooth-only or LTE models, the latter of which grants you internet access independent of your phone.

In the US, the 40mm models start at $299 for Bluetooth-only and $349 for LTE, while the 44mm models are $329.99 for Bluetooth-only and $379.99 for LTE connectivity.

In the UK, prices start from £289 for the 40mm Bluetooth model and £339 for the 40mm LTE option, and from £319 and £369 for the 44mm Bluetooth-only and 44mm LTE models, respectively. 

In Australia, the 40mm watches go for AU$549 (Bluetooth) and AU$649 (LTE), with the 44mm models going for AU$599 (Bluetooth) and AU$699 (LTE). 

These prices put the various Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 models in the same ballpark as current-generation Apple Watches and the Google Pixel Watch, although obviously dependent on sizes, models and deals available. Considering that the Watch 5 started at £269 / $279.99 / AU$499 for a 40mm Bluetooth-only model, a small price increase over last year is to be expected. 

Having now used the watch, I’d say the price is pretty much bang-on: an iterative price increase for a decent upgrade. However, there's not enough bang for your buck here that I’d recommend existing Samsung Galaxy Watch owners rush out and get the Watch 6.

• Value score: 4/5

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 review: Design and display

• New Exynos W930 processor
• Redesigned strap-swapping functionality
• Butter-smooth super AMOLED screen

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 sports a slightly thinner bezel than the Watch 5, which has also necessitated a slight tweak to the case. However, the screen sizes and button functionalities remain identical, so the watch does look very similar to its predecessor. This is no bad thing: the Samsung Galaxy line are good-looking watches with the right face choice, and the super AMOLED screen is excellent, with smooth transitions and a high refresh rate. 

The watch’s screen remains a high point, from the little workout animations available on previous Samsung Galaxy Watches, to using the Watch as a viewfinder to take selfies and group shots when your phone is propped up on a table or other surface. Not only can you use the watch as a remote shutter button; you can see a tiny picture of what the camera sees to ensure the composition is as you want. It’s a neat trick, and I was surprised how good the picture-in-picture camera view looked on the watch when I tried it with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. 

The Watch 6 looks smart thanks to its stainless steel case and a variety of straps which now have a quick-swap functionality. Like its predecessor, the Watch 6 has two physical buttons (which can also be used as sensors for taking body composition readings), which can be used to navigate the watch, pause workouts, or switch the Watch off manually by holding the upper button. They don’t have up and down functions, so you’re still reliant on the touchscreen for actually cycling through screens, which can prove an irritation if you want to pause your watch mid-workout to check something with sweaty hands.

Swapping between apps was seamless and pretty responsive, although the main cloud of apps typical of Wear OS watches is looking rather tired, with Apple having switched its best Apple Watch models to displaying the widget stack for its most-used features. I’m a big advocate of widgets in general, so I found myself stacking my favorite functionalities as tiles onto the circular digital bezel and using that to navigate the watch instead. Rarely did I go into the app cloud once I got my tiles set up.

The Exynos W930 processor is said to offer an 18% faster clock speed, and the Watch is packing 2GB of RAM compared to 1.5GB in the Watch 5. Day-to-day the watch was quick and responsive thanks to the increased processing power, and it comfortably handled functionalities such as WhatsApp.

Battery life remains an issue though: at 425mAh for the 44mm model and 300mAh for the 40mm model, battery size is only slightly increased over the Galaxy Watch 5. It’s not a small battery, but Samsung’s watches, like Apple’s and Google’s, are really quite inefficient compared to Fitbits and the best Garmin watches, which will last you through a week of wear at a minimum. At least the Galaxy Watch 6 has WPC-based fast charging. 

The strap-swapping functionality is easier than ever, provided you have decent thumbnails for pressing down and releasing the strap. It makes it extremely simple to swap straps on the fly from, for example, daywear leather (which looks great) to the silicone sport band. With two sizes, a range of colors, and a variety of straps, there are ample options for having your Galaxy Watch, your way. I loved the black leather strap with the black 44mm watch: the word ‘executive’ came to mind when I slipped it on, and I’d consider wearing my Galaxy Watch with this strap in a formal setting, which isn’t something I can say for most smartwatches. But the one I tested over a week was the 40mm watch with the silicon strap, which was comfortable and sized fine for my wrist. 

• Design score: 4/5

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 review: Features

• Lots of new health and fitness features
• Redesigned on-watch sleep app
• Plenty of third-party apps to get stuck into

The Watch is stuffed to the brim with features. Sleep coaching remains similar in functionality to what you get on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 and 5 Pro, and on those devices it’s excellent: after sleeping with your Watch for seven days (two days off work and five work days) you’ll be assigned a ‘sleep animal’ or chronotype, and get sleep-coaching tips based on that analysis. Your chronotype also offers tips on when you’re likely to have the most energy for work or exercise: if your sleep animal is a bear, for instance, you’re more likely to wake with the sun and be productive until around noon. You can view the full list of chronotypes and sleep animals here.

Changes on the Watch 6 mean you’ll see your sleep scores, sleep animal, coaching, and more on the watch directly, rather than having to dive into the app on your phone, so you can access more of your sleep stuff on the watch. It’s not quite as detailed as advertised: for more advanced stuff, you'll have to open up your phone, but it’s fine at a glance. For example, you can see skin temperature and blood oxygen data on-watch, but to interpret this, and discover whether those readings are good or bad, you’ll have to open your phone. 

On the fitness side, Custom Workouts allows you to create multi-stage workouts that you can flick through with a press of the upper button to move yourself onto the next stage, perfect for triathletes. High-heart-rate alerts and mid-workout heart rate zone notifications are both new, and while I got a notification as my heart rate changed zones during a tough run in the August sun, I got no alerts for an excessively high heart rate. Good, I guess? 

The rest of the workouts perform just as they did on older watches in the series, with walking and running detection proving a particular highlight. The watch automatically logs a brisk walk or a run, which is wonderfully freeing: it’s nice to just walk out my front door and start running without pressing a single button. It’s not a new feature, but it's well-implemented here, and as a regular runner, the range of metrics you get is excellent and exceeds expectations. Detailed GPS mapping lays out your route very well, while advanced running metrics include ratings for asymmetry, ground contact time, vertical stiffness and more, with helpful explainers for each. 

During my initial hands-on time with the watch, I was able to try the body composition feature, which uses the same bioelectric impedance analysis process as a smart scale to gauge your skeletal muscle and fat percentages. I tested the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro against a leading smart scale last year, and found it to be pretty accurate, and testing the Watch 6 confirms this. I did, however, have a little trouble getting the feature to work on the smaller 40mm watch at first, as I was continuously prompted to move the watch further up my wrist; it was halfway up my forearm before it triggered, a problem I didn’t have on the 44mm. However, after setting up the 40mm and using it a further three times, I no longer had that issue. Weird. 

Otherwise, the watch is stacked with possibilities thanks to Google Play integration, so you can download all your favorite Wear OS apps, giving the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 an awful lot of potential; WhatsApp, for example, can be used independently of your phone. When synced to a Samsung phone and the Samsung Health app, the watch really shines, with seamless transference of data, although unfortunately you can’t easily share that same data with the Fitbit or Google Fit apps. 

• Features score: 4.5/5

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 review: Performance

• I loved the watch’s running experience
• Helpful advice contextualizing data
• Battery life remains frustrating

Over a week of testing, I’ve really enjoyed the running experience on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. I’ve mentioned the advanced running metrics, and how I enjoyed the automatic workout detection already in this review, and even though I’m missing a few things from my usual Garmin watches – like seeing my route with an inbuilt heat map of how high my heart rate was during each area of the route – Samsung’s running workout profile has quietly become a real contender for the best running watch for beginners. 

All of the advanced metrics feature helpful explainers, and while beginners-to-intermediates won’t be fussed about vertical oscillation and ground contact time, the Samsung Health app lays out all its information in a helpful way, and your route ran is displayed above a full-color, beautifully-rendered GPS map. The app might not provide as much info as Garmin's, but it sure does look nicer, and for everyone other than power users the running profile is going to be just fine. There’s a glut of other profiles, such as cycling and swimming, as well as less useful ones such as yoga and weight machines, which tend to use the same metrics of calorie burn and heart rate as so many other watches do. 

The third-party apps meshed well with the Watch 6’s architecture. You can pair certain aspects of popular apps to the digital bezel as easily-accessible tiles; I’m a user of the Calm app, for example, and the watch comes with Calm’s two-minute breathing exercise already loaded. WhatsApp was great to use, as I received messages on my watch and even replied without having to take out my phone. Simple one-word ‘yes’ or ‘no’ options are presented, or you can try your luck with the tiny QWERTY keyboard, draw letters on the watch’s screen until autocorrect gets the word, or record a voice message using the watch’s microphone. Other apps I tried include Strava and Spotify, the latter of which works great, and has a couple of basic on-watch functions as well as a DJ to play you music based on your history. 

Call rejection and acceptance worked a treat, and even using the watch as a viewfinder for your Samsung phone’s camera with the watch’s Camera app felt natural and intuitive, especially when making sure all your friends are in a group shot. My biggest frustration was that battery life: after set-up, I ended up getting around 25 hours on average out of the watch from a full charge. 

I could sleep, do a short workout, and go about my daily routine without issue, and frequently left my charger at home on days I went into the office with no issue. When I went for a 75-minute run in the Watch’s GPS mode, it went from fully charged to 69% battery life: enough to go about the rest of my day, but I wouldn’t wear it for a lengthy event. 

But when I wanted to sleep with the watch over multiple days, I had to charge it every day to ensure it wouldn’t die during the night. The battery charges fast, and in this respect is comparable to the Apple Watch and superior to the Google Pixel Watch, its closest competitors. However, with such an emphasis on sleep, I’d have loved to see the battery life extend to two days of wear – but that's not quite where the smartwatch industry is right now, at least outside of dedicated sports watches. 

• Performance score: 4/5

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 review: Score card

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Also consider

Google Pixel Watch

For a true Wear OS experience without Samsung's One UI Watch 5 skin, go for Google's own Pixel Watch.

Read our Google Pixel Watch review 

Garmin Forerunner 265

One of the best fitness watches in this price range, offering 11 days of battery life, and a great screen to boot. 

Read our Garmin Forerunner 265 review

How I tested the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6

I’ve spent a full week with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. I’ve been using it to track my sleeping, running, general activity level, water consumption and more via Samsung Health. I’ve used WhatsApp, Spotify, Strava and other third-party apps to test out their functionality on Samsung’s One UI Watch 5. 

The fast screen refresh rate and response time for the apps we were able to use mean the overall experience is butter-smooth, and the design is nice – both externally and internally. Crucially, I’ve drained the battery down and monitored how much battery life GPS workouts drain from the watch.

The end result? We can clearly see the potential for it to knock the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 off the top of our best smartwatches list. It’s packing some nifty new features: notably, the processing power and RAM have been boosted, and Samsung Wallet has expanded to be able to include documents other than cards, such as airline tickets. 

A new Custom Workout option allows you to put together multi-stage workouts, and a redesigned Sleep app experience makes the Watch 6, in Samsung’s words, “the best device on the market for monitoring your sleep”.

It’s an iterative upgrade in many ways, but an upgrade nonetheless, even if it doesn’t quite improve on the Watch 5’s flaws enough to earn a rare five stars. In isolation, the Watch 6 an excellent device, perhaps the best Wear OS watch I’ve yet tried.