Review: Samsung Galaxy Watch8 and Watch8 Classic

Julian says the bigger Watch8 Classic got close to two full days on one charge. That’s with a few auto-tracked activities per day, too. Naturally, expect the 44-mm Watch8 to sit somewhere in the middle, likely a day and then a few hours extra. (You could extend that battery life a bit if you also purchased a Galaxy Ring, as the ring and the watch share health-monitoring tasks when used together.)

In addition to brighter screens, there’s also the by-now standard dual-frequency location tracking, which helps with fitness tracking, and the new Running Coach feature, which copies what Google introduced last year on the Pixel Watch 3. Google Assistant has also been replaced with Gemini, but I mostly used it as I would Siri, for simple verbal commands like turning on the flashlight or starting a timer.

It’s also worth noting here that Samsung recently switched to a new Dynamic Lug system. Instead of using a tiny pin to swap bands, you just slide and click to swap proprietary bands in and out. I first failed to notice this because this is how you swap the bands on last year’s Samsung Watch Ultra, as well as the Apple Watches.

Personally, I like this system a lot because I find using the tiny pins to be horrible and annoying, and they break my nails. But I’m sorry for everyone who was expecting to be able to use your old round watch bands on the new squircle watch. Samsung offers four new bands with Dynamic Lugs, but that’s not many if you’ve been building your collection for a while now.

Eat Your Veggies

I compared basics like my step count, sleep tracking, and heart rate to my Oura ring and was shocked by how closely the two matched. On one day, the Watch8 tracked me as having walked 14,100 steps; the Oura, 14,099 (thanks, dual-frequency GPS!). Sleep counts and heart rates were tallied mostly, too. Automatic activity tracking worked well, as it usually does with Samsung watches. Dog walks got picked up within a minute or two, as did runs and pool swims.