Like clockwork, Samsung also released the new Galaxy Watch series of smartwatches alongside the new foldables. Introducing the new Galaxy Watch9 series – available in both 40mm and 44mm. We have the smaller 40mm this time around, and there are some upgrades here and there.
Design
Let’s start with the design. The Galaxy Watch9 series practically has the exact same look and feel as the previous generation. It’s using this squircle design – also known as the cushion design where it’s a square with very rounded corners, and the screen itself is still in a circular shape.
At the right side, we have the microphone and two buttons as usual. I still like the third button added on the Classic and Ultra series of smartwatches – but I guess this is the one distinction that Samsung made across their lineup.
The left side is where the speakers are located. The overall thickness is also the same as before.
Even the sensors at the back of the watch remain the same – so nothing has changed in this regard.
Screen
Even the screen is the same too. It’s the same 1.47-inch Super AMOLED screen. In comparison, the bezels do look a bit big compared to the actual screen itself. It’s just something that I realized.
Strap
As for the strap, we have a new design now. This new silicone strap is not entirely flat. Along the center, there’s a trench. Should I even call it a trench? The middle part is not as thick, and that actually trims down on the weight, making the overall watch lighter than before if we compare it with the previous generation’s strap.
Other than that… the strap remains the same too. Same buckle and lug system, and the included strap with the 40mm size is a little small for my hand.
Features
There are also some new features included. The watch can now report any potential health issues back to us since it logs the the heart rate and its variability, blood oxygen level, skin temperature, respiratory rate, and all of that stuff. It will also give us a heart health score based on our sleep, daily activity, BMI, and vascular load.
Basically, a lot of health stuff. If you use wear the watch 24/7 – including during sleep and workout, then all of this data will be useful for you.
As a quick mention since I use it a lot – notification display is also the same as before, and the vibration motor is still weak. I oftentimes just don’t feel the vibration at all and miss the notification. It was the same issue in the last generation, and it’s the same here too.
Other than that, the watch also skips the “hey Google” phrase to invoke Gemini. We can directly just lift our wrist and speak to it, as indicated by this white glow. Whether it’s reliable or not, that’s another question. The reason why I bring up reliability is because… it’s not always working. Sometimes the white glow appears, sometimes it doesn’t.
New app and watchfaces
On the phone side of things, the Samsung Wearables app got a major overhaul to its UI. It’s a big departure from what we had before and it looks and feels a lot better. However, the features and settings available are more or less the same as before – so we’ll skip ahead.
I do like the new watchfaces available – particularly this one where I can fit in so much more complications compared to the other one I have. The placement of the complications are also kinda organic, making it feel a little playful while being extremely useful at the same time.
Smoothness
With so many features available, how’s the Galaxy Watch9 handling all of it? Samsung made a big deal on everywhere, exclaiming to the world that they’re using the Snapdragon Wear Elite chipset in their new smartwatch. It’s even plastered on the website too, promising 32% better CPU performance and 19% better GPU performance.
Was the Exynos W1000 chipset ever a problem on the older generation of Galaxy Watches? Honestly, no. It’s still smooth to this day. Maybe Samsung LSI gave up on smartwatch chipsets and Samsung MX had no other choice but to go for Snapdragon.
The funny thing is, during our preview session for the new devices, Samsung mentioned that the new Watch Elite chipset brings more CPU and GPU performance, not how much more battery life we can get. Even on stage during the launch, there was no mention about the battery life benefit for switching to the Snapdragon Wear Elite.
Battery life
So, how’s the battery life? The biggest disappointed of the entire Watch9 series and the Watch Ultra2 for that matter – is the battery life. Samsung did bump up the battery size. For this 40mm size in particular, it is raised from 325mAh to 390mAh – a whole 20% larger battery! Does that mean 20% longer battery life?
Well, no. I still only get around 1.5 days at most, which is the same battery life as the previous generation with the Exynos W1000 chipset. Actually for this watch in particular, I’m only mostly getting slightly more than a day.
So, why is this happening? It’s because the new Snapdragon Wear Elite is a power-guzzling chipset, essentially rendering the 20% larger battery to be… the same as before. Even Samsung’s own website advertises larger battery but never once stated any improvement in the hours of usage.
We can also scroll all the way down on the website and look at the comparison part. They’re all rated for the same “up to 30 hours”. Even the Galaxy Watch Ultra has the same trend.
It’s just disappointing that the new Snapdragon Wear Elite is so power-hungry. Software updates could improve the battery life, but since this is the baseline already, the software updates can’t bring that much improvement.
Charging speed
As for the charging speed, Samsung says it supports up to 10W of wireless charging. Thanks to some new ways we discovered, we can now even log how long a smartwatch takes to charge.
The Watch9 charges quite slowly, taking around 97 minutes to charge from 15% to completion. The watch will also only take in around 4.4W at most while hovering around 1W. The reason why it has this kind of square wave looking shape is because it thermal throttled and lowered the wattage for the watch to cool down before ramping up again. Then the cycle repeats.
You might have realised that this graph has a battery percent scale of up to 240% – what’s that about? That’s calculated with respect to the watch’s own battery capacity.
Assuming that the voltage of the battery in this watch is at 3.7V, we arrive at 1.443Wh. Using this watthour value as our “100% battery capacity” value, the fact that it took nearly 240% of power means that it wastes a lot of energy in comparison – about 1.9Wh of energy to be exact. Yeah, efficiency is out the window when it comes to wireless charging.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch9?
So then, should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch9? If you’re coming from the Watch7 or older, then yeah. This is still the smartwatch that the Galaxy Watch users know and love.
There are some new features here and there, mostly focusing on health tracking – and that’s about it. The overall smoothness has improved since the older Exynos W980 chipsets. The battery life, despite having multiple hardware changes over the generations, will mostly be the same too.
At the end of the day, it’s a good choice if you want to update your existing, aging Samsung smartwatch. The price is definitely a little on the high side, as the 40mm version is already at RM1,499, whereby the 44mm version is at RM1,599. If you want the LTE version, then add another RM300 and you’ll also get worse battery life because of cellular connectivity.
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