The Samsung Galaxy Watch6 Classic is part of the brand’s latest lineup of wearables, offering the same specs as the vanilla variant but with bigger size options and a rotating bezel as part of the controls. I’ll be reviewing the watch over the next few weeks but until then, here are my initial impressions of it.
The Watch6 Classic comes in 43mm and 47mm size options and the one I have in my position is the former. As someone with a small wrist, I have no complaints about the 43mm model but if you’re a bigger person with chunky fingers, you might wanna spend that extra RM100 for the bigger watch.
For protection, the display is made of sapphire crystal and the watch itself is rated at IP68 for dust and water resistance as well as a 5ATM rating, which means you could shower without taking it off or even go swimming with it. The body is made of stainless steel and so far, it feels solid without being too heavy, though it is admittedly quite thick.
The AMOLED display is vivid and boasts a peak brightness of 2,000 nits for better outdoor visibility. It features always-on display and you can even increase the touch sensitivity to use the smartwatch while wearing gloves. Surprisingly, typing on the watch is quite accurate despite the comically small space for the full QWERTY keyboard.
When it comes to controls, the Watch6 Classic has a home button and a back button on one side alongside the smooth rotating bezel that is used not only to navigate the app, but to also adjust most settings such as volume and brightness. Not only is navigating using the bezel more convenient, but the physical component of the clickiness makes it so satisfying to use that I sometimes fidget around with it just because.
Running everything is Samsung’s new Exynos W930 chipset with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, with the ability to store music files for offline listening. The Watch6 Classic has a built-in speaker for on-watch phone calls and, oddly enough, even watching videos on it.
On the software side, it ships with Google’s Wear OS 4 out of the box. The model that I have is the non-LTE variant, meaning that it only supports Bluetooth 5.3 and dual-band Wi-Fi. Additionally, it comes with built-in GPS as well as NFC for Samsung Pay.
For health and fitness, it comes with sensors that can track your steps and sleep along with measuring your heart rate, blood pressure, and even ECG. Unfortunately, some of the watch’s most exciting or useful features exclusively work only with Samsung phones, which I’ll get more into in my upcoming review. I don’t have a Samsung phone so I’ll be testing out whether the Galaxy Watch6 Classic is even worth buying if you only use it with a non-Samsung Android smartphone.
