Samsung has been upping the ante with each passing generation in terms of smartphones, and the wearables that were designed to complement them are keeping up exceptionally well. Case in point: the Samsung Galaxy Watch8 Classic, the South Korean brand’s premium offering for the smartwatch category that features a more elegant look with the functionalities that we all know and love.
I was allowed to take the watch for a spin, allowing myself ample time to uncover the wearable’s strengths and how it was able to streamline and improve my daily routine, if at all.
What Am I Looking At?
As a quick primer, the wearable is running on Samsung’s very own 3nm Exynos W1000 chipset, with a 445mAh battery that has support for wireless fast charging. It also comes with 2GB RAM and 64GB of storage, both non-expandable. It is also running on the new Wear OS 6 and One UI 8 Watch, which is advertised to provide access to health metrics, a better interface, and more customisation options.
The watch itself has a diametre of 46mm while the face comes in at a 1.34-inch Super AMOLED Sapphire Crystal display with a resolution of 438 x 438 pixels and a peak brightness of 3,000 nits. All of it is housed in a stainless steel body, capable of handling up to 5ATM, has an IP68 dust and water resistance rating, and has a MIL-STD-810H rating. The rotating bezel also makes a comeback after it was previously missing from last year’s Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 series, the Watch Ultra included.
The Galaxy Watch8 Classic, unfortunately, does not come in any other sizes, but you can purchase various straps to suit your preference. By default, the watch comes with a Hybrid Band, which features a leather-like exterior and silicone interior for a sleeker look while still providing that grippy feel. You can get other options such as the Sport Band, Fabric Band, and the Athleisure Band, for an additional fee.
What’s Good About It?
Easily the most impressive upgrades done to the Galaxy Watch8 Classic are the One UI 8 and Wear OS 6. I never really thought about how much Samsung could improve upon the already fluid yet functional OS and UI, but it followed through.
From multi-info tiles that you can customise to your liking, to having a flurry of health and fitness programs at the push of a button, both the OS and the UI have made using the watch’s multitude of features so much easier and more convenient. This also allows you to create your own stacks of different widgets, allowing you to personalise other tiles to suit your needs
The reintroduction of a physical rotating bezel is a godsend when it comes to navigating the new widgets and tiles. It is far more responsive and satisfying than simply swiping away at the tiny screen or running your finger around the edge of the Watch8 Classic, which also gives a nice physical click or vibration feedback on your wrist. You can also use the dial to set the alarm, adjust screen brightness, and hone in on the volume.
It is quite on point with its health tracking as well. It is smart enough to know when I’ve been walking for extended periods of time or doing intense exercises. Even though it takes some time to automatically identify the sport or activity I’m engaging in, it tracks all of the important metrics from the time I start working out till I stop.
From the workout activity to my media player, even down to my watch-bound alarms, all of this is neatly recorded at the Watch8 Classic’s Now Bar. It’s another one of my most favourite additions to the wearables’ arsenal, allowing me to quickly navigate to whatever apps are currently active right from the watch face.
What’s The Catch?
For all the perks, there are glaring flaws to match. Despite the impressive display, there were instances where my touch was not registering at all. Rarer still are those occasions when the screen would freak out the moment I made contact with it, which I found incredibly weird, especially for a premium accessory. Additionally, the ability to send replies with the Watch8 Classic is welcome, but there were moments when it just failed to send, which sucks after spending a good minute cramming my fingers on the small display.
On that note, gestures, be it the pinch, knock, or twist, rarely worked, and no amount of setting optimisation was able to fix that. The double pinch was the worst offender among the three, to the point I’ve ignored the gesture altogether, while I have to get pretty aggressive with the double knock and twist in order for it to register anything. To put in another way, it felt like I was actively fighting the wearable at times.
The watch also restricts a few features, namely the ECG and blood pressure monitor, when it detects you’re not using a Samsung phone. This can be quite annoying to a degree, but not a deal breaker, as the company has to massage their dedicated customers with some exclusive features.
Af for the exterior, the hybrid strap really doesn’t work for me and my (sensitive) skin. To be clear, it’s comfortable for the first 30 minutes or so but after that, the strap starts to irritate my skin, at which point I have to remove it. To counteract this, I simply loosen the strap, but doing this is problematic during a workout, when the watch not only gets in the way, but also fails to measure most of your health metrics.
But the crippling flaw of the Galaxy Watch8 Classic is, like its predecessors, the battery life. Though it is the latest entry in Samsung’s long list of wrist-mounted accessories, Samsung clearly hasn’t made any improvement since the last generation. At most, the wearable can only endure a day and a half of use rather than the two full days that were advertised. Even after hours of optimising the device, there has not been an instance where I was able to reach the advertised two days; the best I got was only a few hours more. Even then, less than the two full days as advertised is, in my opinion, atrocious when other brands can do more for less.
No amount of power-saving modes or app shuffling is enough to compensate for the mediocre battery life. And much like the Galaxy Watch Ultra, you can use Watch Only mode to extend the battery life to more than two weeks but it defeats the purpose of getting a smartwatch in the first place. It’s nice that it only takes an hour and a half to fully recharge the smartwatch, but that is cold comfort when you are forking out at least RM1,799 for this watch.
Should I Buy It?
By delivering a premium smartwatch experience both in terms of form and function, there is no denying that the Galaxy Watch8 Classic gets a lot of things right. From the physical rotating bezel to the improved OS and UI, if you are in the market for a versatile smartwatch to be your daily driver, then you should consider the Galaxy Watch8 Classic as a worthy contender.
However, you should also consider the lacklustre battery life — the fact that it was advertised to have a two-day battery life and still failed to reach one and a half days is a massive blow and makes it very difficult to recommend. Add on the fact that navigation, be it through swipe or gesture, doesn’t always work in my experience. Wrap this up with a starting price tag of RM1,799 for the base version, and you may understand why people would shy away from this watch. That said, if you’re already invested in Samsung’s digital ecosystem or simply like a cool-looking smartwatch with great functionality, this might just serve you well.
