Samsung Galaxy Watch8 review: Top-class fitness companion

Besides the premium Galaxy Z Fold7 and Flip7 series, Samsung also launched the Galaxy Watch8 and Watch8 Classic.

The new Galaxy Watch8 and Watch8 Classic are available in India with prices starting at Rs 32,999 and Rs 46,999, respectively.

I used the standard Watch8 series for a little over a week, and here are my thoughts on Samsung's latest flagship wearable.

Design, build quality and display

The Watch8 borrows some design elements from Samsung's super premium rugged Watch Ultra. It features a curved, squarish casing with a classic circular display dial. It is lighter in weight, almost 11 per cent less than the predecessor, but more sturdy. It is made of aerospace-grade armour aluminium and can survive daily wear and tear.

The design ensures the display is protected from angles. Even when you accidentally brush your wrist against a wall or any structure, the display never gets scratched.

Samsung Galaxy Watch8.

Further, the Watch8 comes with MIL-STD-810H for military-grade durability rating in addition to 5ATM for water resistance and IP68 water-and-dust ingress rating. The device can survive water pressure up to a depth of 50 metres.

The strap is of top-class quality, it firmly attaches to the watch and wraps around the wrist comfortably and doesn't move around much. Samsung calls it the 'dynamic lug system', and I love it. The optimised weight distribution of the watch and super comfy wrist band made me forget I was wearing it. Even during the afternoon with high humid conditions of the monsoon, I never felt any irritation at all.

The regular Galaxy Watch8 comes in two variants-- 40mm and 44mm-- with 1.47-inch and 1.34-inch screen sizes, respectively. The screens are really bright and vibrant compared to most of the premium watches in the market. All messages and notifications can be viewed without any hassle right from waist height.

However, outdoors with direct sunlight, one has to take the wrist a little closer to the face to view the content or time.

Performance

The Galaxy Watch8 series is powered by a 3nm class Exynos W1000 penta-core chipset with 2GB RAM and 32GB storage. It runs WearOS-based One UI 8 operating system, co-developed by Samsung and Google.

The user interface is user-friendly. Even for a rookie first-time user, he/she can get the hang of it in a day or two. It supports swipe gestures and works smoothly. It is really easy to get around to find the widgets to start tracking a physical activity. Also, it is capable of auto-detecting walking and other sporting activities within 10 minutes of starting it.

The Galaxy Watch8 is the world's first smart wearable to support Gemini Live assistant. Users can directly summon the Gemini AI bot for any information without having to use the companion smartphone.

Google Pixel 4, which is yet to make its way to the Indian market, is the only other smart wearable to boast a digital assistant feature.

Samsung Galaxy Watch8 comes with advanced heart health tracking features.

Another noteworthy feature of the Galaxy Watch8 is the new optical electrocardiogram (ECG), which can track and record ectopic beats.

For the uninitiated, ectopic beats are premature heartbeats in the form of fluttering, thumping, or skipped sensations. They often go undetected in routine checkups as they frequently occur without noticeable symptoms.

The frequent ectopic beats are considered clinically significant and are known symptoms of a heart condition, and may lead to arrhythmias that can lead to a stroke and heart failure.

Samsung Galaxy Watch8 can offer energy score to show how energised the owner ahead of the new day.

Also, the Watch8 series can measure the owner's circadian rhythm (internal body clock) and sleep pressure (how much your body needs sleep). And, the watch can interpret this data as a differential equation to calculate the optimal bedtime. This way, the user feels refreshed and is full of energy to start the new day.

The algorithm uses changes in sleep threshold and individual sleep needs throughout the day to deliver personalised guidance.

This algorithm is said to have been developed by KAIST and clinically tested at Samsung Medical Center. This is a really good value-added feature to improve the health of the owner.

Samsung Galaxy Watch8 comes with several new ground-breaking health tracking features.

It also features new advanced heart health tracking features, such as atrial fibrillation (AFib) with IHRN (Irregular Heart Rhythm Notification).

It also boasts of improved version of the BioActive sensor, which offers an advanced glycation end products (AGEs) index. It provides deep insights into the body’s metabolic health and biological ageing, which are strongly influenced by the overall lifestyle and dietary habits of the user.

Additionally, the BioActive sensor is now capable of measuring skin carotenoids in five seconds using multi-wavelength absorption spectroscopy.

Samsung Galaxy Watch8 supports 25 plus sport activities.

The user has to place the thumb on the back of the watch for a few seconds. After analysing these carotenoids, the Watch8 will share insights on antioxidants in the blood, which reflect fruit and vegetable intake. Antioxidant index will be offered in a score of 0–100, which is categorised into one of three levels. This score shows how diet, UV light, alcohol and stress are impacting your antioxidant levels. With this information, the device owner can make changes to the daily routine to reduce the rate of ageing.

Samsung Galaxy Watch8 can calculate antioxident index.

As you can see from the results (above), it is very low. I'll definitely increase my fruit intake more this week and hopefully reduce ageing speed.

Another new feature that is debuting with Galaxy Watch8 is the Running Coach. It is capable of calculating the user's fitness level from 1 to 10 and developing a tailored training plan complete with real-time guidance and motivational insights.

The Galaxy Watch8 can also track the stress of the user, called Vascular load. Thanks to advanced sensors, it can detect high levels of stress-based heartbeats during sleep. It offers deep insights into various lifestyle factors, including sleep, stress and activity. This can assist the owner to adopt a more comprehensive approach to managing his/her health.

It can also track stress in active hours. If it senses the stress persists for a few hours, it sends out a High Stress Alert, so that the user can take a break to help manage the stress levels in real-time.

Samsung Galaxy Watch8 can auto-detect walking.

It also has a Mindfulness Tracker. With this, users can record his/her mood and receive guidance on breathing exercises to relieve stress.

Further, the Galaxy Watch8 boasts of AI-powered Energy Score. It offers concise details in a simple-to-understand format of the user's energy level, combining physical and mental energy metrics so the user can develop a healthier lifestyle.

For the uninitiated, Galaxy Watch8--40mm and 44mm-- models come with a 325mAh cell and a 435mAh battery, respectively.

As far as the battery life is concerned, it can easily last a whole day and night under normal usage. Even if you do a half hour or 45 minutes of workouts and wear it all through the night, it will still have 10 per cent battery life. And, by the time, come from the shower and get ready for the office or college, it will be fully charged to 100 per cent.

Final thoughts

The new Samsung Watch8 comes with not just big upgrades over the predecessor, but also several new ground-breaking health tracking features, which make it stand apart from the rival brands.

Samsung's Galaxy Watch8 is a well-packaged fitness companion device for an Android phone. It can accurately track walking and several other activities. It houses reliable health monitoring features, including blood pressure, sleep score, vascular load, antioxidant index and more.

Samsung Galaxy Watch8.

It is undeniably the best smart wearable for fitness and health tracking available in the market for those with Android phones.

Galaxy Watch8 40mm Bluetooth(BT)-only is priced at Rs 32,999, while the 40mm BT+LTE version is available for Rs 36,999. The larger 44mm BT and BT+LTE variants are priced at Rs 35,999 and Rs 39,999, respectively.

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