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Battery life
Smartwatches need to tread wisely and offer just the right amount of features that don’t hamper either the user experience or battery life. We are glad to report that the Samsung Galaxy Watch nails this equilibrium, providing what is possibly the best battery life we have seen on any full-fledged smartwatch.
While the competition conks out in a day or a little more, the Galaxy Watch would easily pull through 3 or 4 days of real-life use. Finally, we have a smartwatch that you can use over the weekend without having to carry its charger. There’s also a power-saving mode, which stretches the last 15% juice to almost half a day without killing off all the functions (calls, messages, and all notifications), which is mighty impressive.
The 472mAh battery would generally yearn for charging only on the fifth day, which we will gladly take. Charging happens through an included wireless charging dock where the watch fits perfectly and takes a little more than two hours to go from 0 to full. There are two issues here, though. The dock has a micro USB input, which is unacceptable for a futuristic product from 2018. So along with a charger, you will also have to carry its cable.
We thought that this issue would be taken care of if we throw it on any Qi wireless charger, but even that didn’t work. Samsung seems to have fitted the Galaxy Watch with some particular wireless charging standard, or some compatibility checker which will let the watch charge only when used with specific chargers from Samsung.
Verdict
It’s not difficult to understand why we recommend the Samsung Galaxy Watch to any Android user who has a fair budget for a smartwatch; it aces all the aspects you’d want it to, including performance, design, fitness, and most importantly, battery life.
Things are expected to change when the next wave of Wear OS software and hardware drops, but it would be a mammoth task for Google and Qualcomm to fix performance and battery issues by such a significant margin in a generation. The latest software versions have the functionality and usability aspect covered for the most part, and better synergy between the parties mentioned above and OEMs could finally usher in the kind of smartwatches that can share the podium with Apple’s or Samsung’s offerings. That is a conversation for another time, though.
Right now, Android users will be hard-pressed to find a better companion for their smartphone than the Samsung Galaxy Watch. Going into this review, we expected the experience to be marred with a sub-par battery and a size that would seem totally out of place on our slender arms. But the pros were enough to not only win us over but even replace our regular watch, an achievement that was previously held only by the Apple Watch.
If you are hesitant to splurge so much on a smartwatch, want a smaller design, but still want most of the same experience, the Samsung Galaxy Watch is a great alternative.
