The Samsung Galaxy Watch 3, which Samsung announced at its virtual Unpacked event, is the sleeker, yet brainier sequel to our current pick for the best smartwatch you can buy – so it should be a shoe-in for our top pick of 2020. Of course, we’ve only had a brief time with it, so we have more testing to do to find out – among other things – if it has just as much endurance (read: battery life).
It’s an update that looks better than 2018’s Galaxy Watch in every way. The main draw is that the Galaxy Watch 3 looks like a real wristwatch – and a fashionable one at that. That’s not something you can say about most of today’s smartwatches, including Apple’s latest, the Apple Watch 5.
Samsung has stuck with a traditional-looking circular display shape and rotatable raised bezel that enables you to physically cycle through on-screen menus. It’s neat, and that click, click, click as you navigate the round interface feels satisfying, more so now than two years ago because the design is less of a chunky distraction.
This new watch is 14% slimmer and 15% lighter than the original, according to Samsung. I could certainly feel that difference on my wrist. Even though the style-first Galaxy Watch 3 is marketed as Samsung’s ‘lifestyle watch’, it takes cues from last year’s Galaxy Watch Active 2 ‘sport watch’, which exchanged the rotatable bezel (and a little weight) for additional fitness features.
Essentially, with the Watch 3 you’re getting style married to fitness features, as long as you don’t mind the 10g of extra weight compared to the Active 2. We have some other concerns, though. Battery capacity is just two days – down from the four to five days of the original Galaxy Watch – and not all health sensors, like ECG and blood pressure monitoring, will be active worldwide at launch.
How will the Galaxy Watch 3 perform day-to-day? That’s what we’re putting to the test here, in the lead-up to our full review.
Want to hear all about Samsung’s Unpacked? These are the highlights of the Galaxy Watch 3 launch:
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Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 price and release date
The Galaxy Watch 3 release date is Thursday, August 6 2020, and it instantly becomes Samsung’s flagship smartwatch for 2020, skipping the non-existent ‘Galaxy Watch 2’ name altogether. A sequel is finally here – but it sure isn’t cheap.
Price is the one thing that Samsung didn’t slim down. It costs $399 / £419 / AU$649 for the smaller 41mm Galaxy Watch 3, and $329 / £429 / AU$699 for the bigger 45mm version (the version we recommend due to its larger battery). Versions with LTE connectivity make the price go even higher: $449 / £439 / AU$799 for the 41mm version, and $479 / £459 / AU$849 for the 46mm version in the US.
Now compare that Watch 3 base price – $399 / £419 for the 41mm size – to the original Galaxy Watch base price of $329 / £279 for the 42mm size. That’s quite the hike, especially if you’re in the UK, and we see a similar price jump for all versions. Samsung’s smartwatch has gotten expensive in the intervening two year gap.
The company can claim that its watch is still cheaper than the Apple Watch 5 at most price points.
Design and display
Samsung’s design team has engineered another smartwatch masterpiece – the Galaxy Watch 3 is 14% slimmer than the original Galaxy Watch, yet keeps the same attractive circular screen shape and size. The ornate bezel that doubles as a way to navigate the on-screen menus also remains, albeit in a less chunky state.
You’re getting the same 1.2-inch (41mm) or 1.3-inch (45mm) Circular Super AMOLED panel, with a full-color always-on display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass DX (for some reason not DX+ like the original Watch – we’re not sure why, or what it means and we’ve asked Samsung).
The Galaxy Watch 3 is shrunken down at every dimension, and ends up being 15% lighter than the original in the case of most versions – there’s a new extra-light titanium model only in the 45mm size that weighs in 43g, compared to the 53.8g 45mm stainless steel model. We’re expecting titanium to cost extra, of course.
There’s no 41mm titanium edition, but the smaller of the two Galaxy Watch 3 sizes is the only one to come in the Mystic Bronze color. In the right light, this copper tone appears to be a darker shade of the original Galaxy Watch’s rose gold option. Both the 41mm and 45mm sizes are available in the Mystic Silver color, while Mystic Black is exclusive to the 45mm size.
If you go for 45mm titanium version, black is the only color option – you also get a metal strap, whereas the stainless steel options come with a leather strap in the box. You can always swap the default strap out for any third-party 20mm (41mm) or 22mm (45mm) watch band.
Health, fitness and software
Here’s where we’re going to have fun with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 in the lead up to our full review: testing out the fitness capabilities and the automatic activity tracking. There are new sensors onboard, and this smartwatch borrows a lot from the fitness-focused Watch Active 2.
Seven activities will auto-trigger Galaxy Watch 3 fitness tracking – whether or not you forget to start the tracking, which is super-handy. These are: running, walking, swimming, cycling, rowing, elliptical workouts, and dynamic workouts (basically aerobics, or anything with big movements).
In total, there are 40 workouts that can be tracked, manually or via a voice command. Samsng’s Bixby voice assistant is on board the Watch 3, and we’re going to pay special attention as to how well it picks up our “Bixby, start a run” commands mid-stride, because stuff like that is important. If it proves frustrating, as it has in our past Bixby run-ins, Samsung has helpfully equipped the Watch 3 with stress tracking, taking into account peak heart rates and suggesting breathing exercises – we expect to see this pop up a lot.
Brand-new here is fall detection, something we’ve seen on the Apple Watch 4 and Apple Watch 5, as well as on-demand VO2 Max readings. The latter is the ability to calculate the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in during exercise, and it’s something that’s been trickling down from high-end fitness trackers to mainstream smartwatches recently.
Sleep tracking on the Galaxy Watch 3 seems promising, even if companies often shoehorn this feature in at the last second. Samsung is touting a partnership with the US National Sleep Institute, which is supposed to offer deeper insights into REM cycles. The watch will also automatically track sleep cycles, and greet you every morning with sleep quality reports and tips on how to get better-quality shut-eye.
Early thoughts
The first Galaxy Watch was a beast. Its chunky bezel was rotatable so that it doubled as a unique menu navigator, its traditional-looking lugs at the top and bottom fooled people into thinking it was a real wristwatch, and it lasted between four and five days on a single charge – at least when we first took it out of the box. If you bought it, then like us, about now you may find that you need a fresh battery – or an upgraded smartwatch. Well, perfect timing.
The new Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 slims down the original watch without erasing what we liked about the old design. That ornate rotating bezel? It’s still here, but with a cleaner-looking, more low-profile build, and Samsung has expanded the fitness functionality. We’re eager to wear this one as much as we’re ready to put it to several fitness tests.
Our hesitation remains obvious, particularly at this first-look stage. The specs show a small battery capacity of 247mAh (41mm) or 340mAh (45mm), with Samsung promising two days on a charge. We were living comfortably with the Galaxy Watch’s 270mAh (42mm) and 472mAh (46mm), offering two times as much power out of the box.
The higher price of the new watch is also going to have us judging it a bit harder. This is truly Samsung’s counter-product to the Apple Watch 5, in terms of its price tag as well as its new features.