Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 review: The ultimate Android watch?

Speaker 1: Samsung just released its latest smart watches. The Samsung galaxy watch four. It comes in two different flavors. The watch four classic and the watch four I'm wearing both of them on my wrists. I've been trying them out for two weeks. Are these the ultimate Android watches? Well, let me talk about it. Speaker 1: Samsung's newest watches are here. The Samsung galaxy watch for is this the ultimate Android watch? Have we finally gotten to the [00:00:30] point where there's one perfect watch to recommend for Android phone owners? Well, it's a little complicated, but this watch is pretty good. I do have a few with thoughts about it though. So Samsung's new watches launched before when the apple watch is expected. This fall, that doesn't factor in though, because the Samsung galaxy watch for is for Android phone owners. It's not for iPhone owners. It's designed to be the ultimate connected watch. And what is new this year in particular is a [00:01:00] partnership with Google. The OS on this watch is new. It's Google where OS three, this is Google's operating system and app store now, but it's also collaborating with Samsung. What does that mean? Exactly? I had high hopes for this watch and I still have high hopes for this watch because Samsung has made some great smart watches in the past. Speaker 1: I've covered them for years and years, but they've had limitations as far as how hooked in. They feel to the rest of the Android and Google ecosystem. Samsung [00:01:30] loves to make its own apps and its own platforms. Well Google's partnership with this suggests that there's gonna be a solution there, but it might end up being a lot more like the way that Samsung phones currently work, which is that they run Android. But Samsung also has all sorts of specialized software. That's designed for Samsung phones. That's good on a phone, but when you get to a watch, then you start having expectations that maybe the phone and the watch will be working best together. Samsung is designed [00:02:00] a lot. It turns out that is really meant to, with a Samsung galaxy phone. Even though these work with Android phones, there are some things I'll get into that. Speaker 1: You're probably better off getting a Samsung phone for first of all, the health ecosystem. You don't need a Samsung phone for that, but it is Samsung health based. So everything that you do on this watch and there's a lot of health and fitness features. These are all funneling into the Samsung health app. Now Samsung's had a really good health fitness ecosystem over the past [00:02:30] bunch of years. You may not choose to use it though. Maybe you want something like Fitbit or you wanna use Google services. Google has not really made it clear how this is all going to shake out because Google has Google fit. Then there is also Fitbit which Google acquired. Samsung is kind of standing off over here saying we've got Samsung health, which has everything from calorie tracking to steps, to activity goals, and puts in some sensor readings, things like blood oxygen readings, [00:03:00] ECG, which is electrocardiogram that's available on the Samsung galaxy watch for and a new sensor. Speaker 1: That's an bioimpedance sensor. This body analysis sensor is totally new to Samsung watches, but it's been on other things before. If you have a scale that does any sort of water, body fat measurement has like a metal contact, similar type of tech way back. I saw it on the Jawbone up three, but it didn't do anything. Then here you hold your two fingers [00:03:30] to the two buttons on the side of the watch for 15 seconds and you get a spot read out on, well, how your body fat it is your body water percentage, your BMI, your skeletal muscle mass. It's a lot of data points and how accurate are they? Well, I've not been comparing it against an actual professional body analysis service. So I don't really know. They do seem to be somewhat consistent in that I need to lose weight and none know the numbers [00:04:00] look good and that's pretty stressful. Speaker 1: So I get a whole bunch of numbers that go from, uh, this green to red end of the spectrum. And I'm in red and the numbers all seem, I guess, not good. What do I do with that though? That's where it's a little less clear. Samsung collects that, charts it out and you can see how you're doing, hopefully getting better, but there's not a lot of guidance as to what to do next, but all that stuff lives in the Samsung health app. So if you wanna take that data and let's say, pick another ecosystem, you can't really right now. So consider that when you're getting a [00:04:30] Samsung galaxy watch four, you can load Google fit and eventually you should be able to load some apps from Fitbit. Who's going to be making a move into a wear OS, which is on this watch. But right now, while you can put Google fit on the galaxy, watch four, it's kind of writing alongside. Speaker 1: It's not the main experience. Okay? Another thing you need to know is that ECG and blood pressure are things that you need a Samsung phone for. So it turns out that electrocardiogram [00:05:00] and blood pressure where that's approved blood pressure, uh, features on this watch are not approved in the us yet. Not cleared by the FDA, those run in a Samsung health monitor app that you can only get on Samsung galaxy phones. I really hope that changes because it means that if you have another Android phone, you can't use the ECG feature. That's a big downer. So let's talk about this. Watch the watch design is very familiar and very nice. Samsung has a bunch of really beautiful watch faces. [00:05:30] I love these old crazy animals that pop up and these interesting animations, a lot of dynamic watch faces, things that you see on the apple watch. Speaker 1: You don't see a lot on Android. Watch faces. It's a great sign of where Samsung's processor and Google's no OS could maybe take, watch faces. But I find that the customization of them goes on a wide spectrum. Some of them have a lot of room for complications, little bits of data that pop up from other apps like the weather or fitness. Others don't have any at all. [00:06:00] I love them all to have complications because I'm complicated. I like to check all that data. The other thing about this watch is that the interface is pretty cool. Samsung always had this rotating BELE that's back on both models. One has an actual physical bezzle that's super clicky, addictive to use kinda like a fidget toy. The other one, you have to touch the edge of the bezel and you get this buzzing haptic response. It works, but it's not good. Speaker 1: One wet, and it's not quite as easy to activate [00:06:30] those. You don't even need that because move around the interface really you're swiping, which is a Google wears thing. Google's operating system factors in and feel when you look at how you swipe down, swipe up left and right for notifications and get your apps tiles come up as these little quick view, kind of mini apps that pop up when you swipe over to the left. And they're really useful for quickly accessing a lot of health things, checking maybe your ECG or blood oxygen [00:07:00] or checking that body analysis thing. Again, I'd love to see more mini tiles like that pop up. That's how I tended to use them. So the watch feels great, but the things I was looking forward to were really all the googly things and Google play is the app store that runs on this watch, not Samsung on zone app store, which means you can access all the wears apps for the most part that you would be able to get on Google's S watches, but it kind of stops short in one area, Google assistant, Bixby, wheres, [00:07:30] Google assistant. Speaker 2: I didn't Speaker 1: Understand that Google assistant is not here on this watch right now. I don't know why it's a little baffling, hopefully that will change. So the default voice assistant on this watch is Samsung BBY launch, Google assistant. Speaker 2: Hm. That app couldn't be found. Speaker 1: That could be your deal breaker. Now look, I'm not trying to attack Biby too much. B Biby is actually kind of functional when it comes to [00:08:00] voice dictation things like when responding to a message. I actually found that that worked pretty well, but pixie is not hooked into the rest of the Google ecosystem. So if I want to be able to use like something, I would want to check on Google assistant or hook into an app or find out certain information, I feel like it's just not aware of that stuff. And where Bibi's biggest failing is. I would've expected that you would've had Google assistant on this. It's just not there yet. And that's kind of where I get to. Do you wanna jump on board this right now? Because this is [00:08:30] the first Google wear OS three watch and it's a Samsung partnership. There are going to be more Google wear OS watches, including a Fitbit one that could be coming net next year Samsung's looks pretty great, but it has some strange omissions. Speaker 1: And I don't know if there's are going to be addressed on other watches or not, which leaves Samsung writing in the front as probably the best watch right now. I think it's the best Android watch. I can't think of a better one because [00:09:00] the performance feels great. The animations look really cool. The fitness features are pretty deep. It's got Google wear OS support. It's a pretty good set of features, battery life. I would've liked to have been better so far. I've we're in these back and forth alternating and I've gotten about two days of battery life. I've never gotten better and that's with the display off when I'm not looking at it. If I do always on display, it's really a day. And then if you get into some features like running with GPS or you get a [00:09:30] LTE equipped phone model, which I don't have, uh, that turns it basically into a, a phone on your red battery life is gonna dip even further and keep in mind, I've been wearing the larger size. Speaker 1: These are the 44 and 46 millimeter. If you get the smaller ones, battery life may be even worse. Do I like the design? Yeah, I like it, but I kind of feel like I've seen it before. I don't feel like it's wowing me with the look of the round watch. Uh, I kind of prefer the one without the BELE, because I think it's a cleaner look and you save [00:10:00] a hundred dollars. It's $250 versus the classic, which is $350. So you're kind of paying extra hundred dollars for that rotating bezel and not much else. I like to save money and I would go with the original galaxy watch for, or the non classic one. Then again, if you really like the rotating bezzle and the thing about the bezel is it recesses the display a bit. So it could protect the gorilla glass ammo led screen, which could be good for durability, [00:10:30] but I don't really know. Speaker 1: I haven't worn this more than two weeks. The display looks fantastic. All the hardware looks really sharp. The watch feels good. I just don't know how much more hooked in it's going to feel with the rest of Google. And we don't know yet. So right now I think it's the best Android watch, but I have a lot of questions about where Samsung and Google are going to take this. How much of this is Samsung's much of this watch is Googles. We're only gonna [00:11:00] find that out over the next year or so, but the Samsung galaxy watch four does feel like an overdue step for finally kniting together. The entire kind of complicated Android wearable picture.