Samsung and google have teamed up for the next generation of wearables, and what we have here today are two of the first watches to use the new platform, the galaxy watch 4 and watch 4 classic theyre watches that bring all the style and fitness features. Youd expect with a new look and wear os app support that still feels like a galaxy wearable, but with the power of google under the hood. Weve had some time with both versions of the watch for ahead of the launch event today. So lets dive in take a sec to subscribe to android central, so you dont miss future videos and well get started. So the galaxy watch 4 series is the natural successor to the sporty galaxy watch active 2 and the more dressy galaxy watch. 3. theres been nothing in the way of a massive redesign here, and the lineage of both watches is plain to see. We have four different sizes to choose from here. The watch 4 made of lightweight aluminium is offered in 40 and 44 millimeter face sizes. The watchful classic, with its rotating bezel edge, comes in at 42 and 46 millimeters both have identical display sizes, though 1.2 and 1.4 inches, respectively, with super amoled resolutions of ‘6 by ‘6 on the smaller variants and 450 by 450 on the larger ones. These are among the sharpest, brightest and most stunning smartwatch displays on the market and theyre covered in callings, gorilla, glass, dx and dx, plus reducing reflectiveness and improving contrast.
But of course, these arent, just the latest, in a very long line of watches, from samsung theyre launching on a brand new platform arriving as the first weros 3.0 wearables from the latest google samsung partnership, so whats new. Well, a lot is going to be pretty familiar to previous galaxy watch. Users theyll be right at home in the new wearable version of one ui. The main new feature for those folks will be the google play store. But if you look a little deeper than the technical side of these watches means they represent the strongest challenge yet to the apple watch. Googles platform gives samsungs watches access to more apps than ever before and samsungs latest five nanometer x and o silicon means theyre an enormous step beyond previous wireless or tizen watches in terms of cpu and gpu power and, more importantly, power efficiency. In fact, battery life. From these watches is quoted at an impressive 40 hours, while the watch 4 and watch 4 classic are powered by the same underlying hardware. The designs share a lot more with their immediate predecessors. The watch 3 and watch 2 active than they do with one another. For starters, the regular watch 4 is light 26 and 30 grams between the two sizes, thanks to an aluminium body. It also encourages navigation around the wear os software through a touch sensitive edge that imitates the physical bezel, but without any additional bulk. The watchful classic. By contrast is made of stainless steel and weighs 36 and 52 grams respectively and comes in a full millimeter thicker, its chunky in either configuration the galaxy watch.
4 is well equipped for health tracking, with a new combination sensor that tracks heart rate, electrical heart data and so called bioelectrical impedance analysis, which is a catch all for measuring overall body health weve seen this before in devices like the fitbit sense, its gon na take A long time to judge that sensors repeated accuracy, but the loadout to readings is at least pretty exhaustive all day heart rate measurement isnt new, nor is ecg or the ability to detect arterial fibrillation blood oxygen saturation is novel and can be useful for detecting early signs Of infections like covert 19, but it wont, be widely used and the watchful can measure blood pressure as well, but this hasnt been approved by us regulators, yet likewise, there are a bunch of sleep tracking improvements like snore detection, which we obviously havent had a chance to Test, yet an interesting caveat is that youll need the samsung health monitor app on your smartphone in order to take advantage of any of these features, since that app is currently only available on the galaxy app store its not immediately clear how well many of these features Will sync on a non samsung phone, all of which ties into the idea that this is a samsung watch first and a wearer west watch? Second, many of samsungs own customizations, including samsung, specific settings and watch faces between the watch and phone, will only work on a samsung branded phone at this time.
But what else is new about wear os 3.0? Well, current galaxy watch owners will have a hard time finding any big differences between the one ui watch on the galaxy watch, 4 series and whats present on previous galaxy watches. That is until they start digging a bit at the heart of this. Is the google play store a fundamentally different way to get a wider variety of apps on your smartwatch? The usual suite of samsung apps are pre loaded on the watch, including a few google ones like google maps messages by google, google pay and youtube music and additional apps can be installed by the play store either on the watch itself or your linked smartphone google maps. In particular, is a huge new addition to galaxy watches that boast great navigation features, but was a little slow in places on these early demo units right now in terms of digital assistance, its all bixby, all the time, but samsung says it will be adding the option To choose between bixby and google assistant at a later date, navigating around these watches will be pretty familiar to existing tizen or wear os users, though with one major addition. The new list of apps is one of the most visually distinct differences in the new wear os theres, a certain visual similarity to apples, staggered grid of app icons for sure icons can be arranged either on the watch or by the wear os app on your smartphone, Meaning its just a quick tap or a swipe to get to your most commonly used apps and, of course, there are countless watch faces too, with personalization options and customizable complications, just as youd expect from wear os.
The galaxy watches hardware is a known quantity and what weve seen from samsungs new watches so far is reassuring. Theres, definitely a lot to like there. Less assured, though, is the transition from tizen to wear os in the short term and long term. How samsung and google will fare managing one of the most important platforms in the industry? Well have a lot more to say on these watches coming very soon in our full review so be sure to subscribe. So you dont miss that and all of our future videos.svYOBvXwE0I
