Nonetheless, I went for the launch offer, unboxed my Galaxy Watch9 once I got back home, and walked on to the streets (and parks) of Delhi for long walks, short jogs, and a proper testing of the Galaxy Watch9 ( ₹40,999).
For my review period, I had the Galaxy Watch9 paired with my Google Pixel 11 Fold smartphone.
Straight off the bat you’ll notice that the Galaxy Watch9 is thin, lightweight, and almost indistinguishable from its predecessor.
View full Image View full Image The Samsung Galaxy Watch9 is thin and comfortable to wear.
The Galaxy Watch8 was already an accurate and highly capable activity tracker and the Galaxy Watch9 builds upon it.
It seems like Samsung underestimated the demand for the Galaxy Watch9’s Silver colourway. I had walked into a store to buy the 44mm Bluetooth model, and it was only available in graphite. Nonetheless, I went for the launch offer, unboxed my Galaxy Watch9 once I got back home, and walked on to the streets (and parks) of Delhi for long walks, short jogs, and a proper testing of the Galaxy Watch9 ( ₹40,999).
The Galaxy Watch line-up, along with the accompanying Samsung Health app, have been a huge success for Samsung over the past couple of years. I know many who swear by it. Just like Apple though, Samsung wants to lock you into their ecosystem with exclusive features available only for those who have a Galaxy smartphones paired to the smartwatch.
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The Galaxy Watch9 may be one of the best Android smartwatches out there, and one of the most comfortable too, but that’s only if you’re already in the ecosystem. For my review period, I had the Galaxy Watch9 paired with my Google Pixel 11 Fold smartphone.
Comfortable and power-packed The Galaxy Watch9 is powered by the Snapdragon Wear Elite, a proper flagship Qualcomm chip on a smartwatch. Straight off the bat you’ll notice that the Galaxy Watch9 is thin, lightweight, and almost indistinguishable from its predecessor. It has a circular face, surrounded by fixed squared bezels and rounded corners (Samsung calls it a “squircle”) and an aluminum chassis. It’s so light (34g) that I sometimes forget I’m even wearing it. There’s IP68 dust and water resistance along with a ridiculous 50m of water resistance, milspec durability and a slightly bigger battery than before.
View full Image View full Image The Samsung Galaxy Watch9 is thin and comfortable to wear. ( Courtesy Samsung )
It comes with all the health-tracking features you’d expect. There are some new features like monitoring of your overnight vitals, a Fitness Index, Daily Cardio Load, and a heart health checker, while the AI Running Coach feature, introduced last year, has now even better. In order to measure certain things like blood pressure or ECG, you need to own a Samsung phone with the Samsung Health Monitor app.
All these new features though are mere software updates rather than the smartwatch gaining any new sensors. There is a chance that these features will be eventually available on older Galaxy Watch models as well.
How reliable is it? The Galaxy Watch8 was already an accurate and highly capable activity tracker and the Galaxy Watch9 builds upon it. Auto tracking of a wide range of activities, exercises, and sports works like a charm. Walk for ten minutes and it’ll automatically start the tracking. Stop a few seconds at an intersection or to catch a breath, and the tracker pauses, only to resume when you start moving again. While the heart rate readings were fairly accurate (I was wearing the Pixel Watch 5 and Oura Ring on my other hand), it was the step count that was somewhat inflated.
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The Running Coach that I mentioned above requires a calibration test before it can get started on a personalized program for you. It’s a little in your face, but in the end, it is more helpful and useful guidance than not.
With the Galaxy Watch9 you get a sleep score every morning. This is based on your sleep duration, REM sleep, deep sleep, time awake and sleep latency.
It also tracks your blood oxygen, heart rate, skin temperature and respiratory rate. There’s also the AI-powered Sleep Coach which was first introduced last year. For the most part, the watch’s sleep data was accurate except for the time I was ‘awake’ which was constantly way above my actual waking hours.
The downside of thinness While the larger 44mm model gets a heftier 445mAh battery, it doesn’t last as long as users would like it to. The Galaxy Watch9 barely lasts a day with the always-on-display (AOD) and raise-to-wake turned on. I have the Pixel Watch 5, which is equally lightweight, and lasts way longer on a single charge. Samsung gives the same 30-hour battery life estimate as the Galaxy Watch8, and with a new chip and more efficient software I was initially hopeful. My hopes were dashed when I had to constantly reach for the charger. I got around 27 hours of life out of the watch with the AOD on.
Making things worse is the fact that Samsung hasn’t improved charging times: It takes way over an hour to juice up the watch from 0 to 100 percent.
The best Android-based smartwatch? There’s no doubting that the Galaxy Watch9 is comfortable to wear, has a bright display with crisp text, and is packed with advanced health and wellness features. It is a smartwatch that delivers accurate tracking for all your fitness needs, slightly irregular sleep data, and has useful metrics like Fitness Index to provide a deeper insight into your overall health.
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If health and fitness tracking is top-priority and you own a Galaxy smartphone, then the Galaxy Watch9 is the easiest recommendation one can make. It’s got intuitive touch gestures, two physical buttons and is very easy to use.
I just feel that Samsung could have done a lot more with it. The battery life is underwhelming, charging is slow, and some features are unavailable for non-Samsung phone owners.
