Despite its late start, Apple alone transformed the smartwatch market from a category dedicated to enthusiasts to a must-have product. However, its eye-catching product Apple Watch has a major caveat. It only works on iPhone. In other words, you cannot pair it with "any" Android phone.

This leaves a large number of smartphone users with "alternatives", although this number is considerable and growing-that is, there are many options-none of them can come close to giving you that cohesive one-stop experience Apple Watch can. This leads people to generally think that "other" smart watches are bad.

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Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 series wants to change this situation. Galaxy Watch/Gear hardware has never had any big red flags. Their Tizen software has also withstood the test of time, but has always lacked third-party application support-this is a better area for Apple Watch. Over time, the situation has not improved.

Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic officially acknowledged this to a certain extent, because Samsung finally abandoned Tizen and joined hands with Google to introduce "Wear OS" into these smart watches. This requires a lot of things, but the most important update is the native support for the Google Play Store, which means you can download and install more apps (the apps you might use) on these smart watches. YouTube Music is one of them. Google Maps is another. The list is long. More should be added in due course, such as Google Assistant.

These applications have not only been redesigned from the ground up, but they have also been better optimized.

In other words, on these smart watches, the functions of Wear OS (this is version 3.0) are far more than what you see. Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic are still "Samsung" watches in terms of aesthetics and working methods. No wonder it is called "Wear OS powered by Samsung" on the official website, and on the watch itself, it is described as "a UI watch." If anything, the software here can give you a deeper understanding of Samsung's ecosystem and then lock you in.

Let's start with the basics. As with every Samsung wearable device, Galaxy Watch 4 works best with Samsung phones. These phones usually come with all the features—Galaxy Wearable, Samsung Health, etc.—that can be paired as soon as they go out, very similar to the way the Apple Watch connects to the iPhone.

If you choose to pair your Galaxy Watch 4 with another Android phone, the process will take more time. You need to install the two applications mentioned above, as well as some additional plugins. Your use case also requires some spring cleaning, because most of the pre-installed apps are Samsung's.

In either case, if you are serious about using the watch for its intended purpose, you will need a Samsung account-a lot of fitness tracking and all the data organized to give you a more comprehensive understanding of your goals and achievements. You also need Bixby to use it. It is—like it or not—the default voice assistant on the Galaxy Watch 4, at least for now.

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As anyone who knows the data will tell you, once you decide to share that data with Samsung (this is an opt-in), the company can use it to achieve many things, from providing you with a more personalized experience to providing you with Show targeted ads. The general rule of thumb should be, choose what you trust and stick to it.

The last but important thing to note about Galaxy Watch 4 is that it is the first Samsung watch that does not support iPhone. This may also be the only watch equipped with Google software and "specially" for Android phones.

If you have used one of the newer Galaxy watches, the user interface is largely familiar. Samsung cracked the code a few years ago and has been sticking to it ever since. The entire user interface is designed around the circular shape of the watch, and you can control it with touch (the rotating bezel in the Galaxy Watch 4 or Watch 4 Classic). The classic "physical" dial is as satisfying as ever. The ordinary Watch 4 tries to imitate it through software, but it is a solution and works like a method.

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Swiping down will take you to the quick settings, while swiping up will reveal the app drawer. Swipe to the right to receive a notification, and swipe to the left to open the widget. The home button is configurable: double-click to open any application/open the most recent application, press and hold to wake up the Bixby/shutdown menu. At the time of writing this review, for some reason, the back key only supports one function-go to the previous screen/show recent apps-in India. In other places, it can also be programmed to open Google Pay/Samsung Pay.

Galaxy Watch 4 Classic has a 1.4-inch screen and a stainless steel case. It has two sizes-42 mm and 46 mm. Watch 4 has a smaller 1.2-inch display made of aluminum. It is available in two sizes of 40 and 44 mm. No matter which version, you will get a clear and bright Super AMOLED panel and IP68 waterproof and dustproof functions. The design is reminiscent of past models, that is, it is both beautiful and practical. Both are compatible with standard 20mm shoulder straps.

The core hardware is expected to be the top product of Samsung's 5nm Exynos W920 chip-dual Cortex-A55 cores, Mali-G68 GPU-with 1.5GB RAM and 16GB storage space.

In addition to upgraded hardware than its predecessor, Google-Samsung's "unified" software also promises to increase performance by 30% and provide more than one day of battery life, and provide continuous all-day heart rate monitoring and sleep tracking at night.

Galaxy Watch 4 lives up to these claims, making it one of the most exciting smart watches on the market today. It is fast, smooth and responsive. However, battery revenue is more attractive. It can easily last a whole day, and then some, even the most discerning user does not have to fiddle with settings or turn off many things.

Sadly, like many high-end phones, Samsung’s flagship smartwatch does not intend to break any speed barriers when it comes to charging. It takes approximately 2 hours to charge the Galaxy Watch 4 with the bundled magnetic charger. The silver lining is that it supports wireless charging, which is not available in the latest Apple Watch Series 7.

Galaxy Watch 4 can track your usual heart rate and sleep. It can help pay close attention to your blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) and stress level. It can count the number of steps and detect and monitor more than 90 different types of exercises. Due to regulatory restrictions, its other two important functions-electrocardiogram and blood pressure measurement-are not yet available in India.

Samsung has added a bioelectrical impedance sensor to the Galaxy Watch 4, which can measure body composition. This is similar to the working principle of a smart scale, sending electrical signals through your body-when you place your middle and ring fingers on the main and back keys embedded in the electrodes-and then measure the impedance to estimate body fat percentage, skeletal muscle, etc. Indicators, and body moisture. This is a clever trick, but it also requires a lot of patience and trial and error to get a reading, similar to SpO2.

Likewise, it must be understood that smart watches like Galaxy Watch 4 are not diagnostic tools. For example, it cannot replace your tried-and-tested pulse oximeter. It is more like a companion device that can inspire you and allow you to track your body trends through Samsung Health or other third-party apps (such as Strava).

This is not to say that it is useless. It's just that sometimes you get a closed reading. It is not recommended that you rush to see a doctor just because the readings recorded by your smart watch are below 95% (most people’s normal oxygen saturation is between 95% and 99%).

It is worth mentioning that in our tests, the accuracy of Galaxy Watch 4 is quite accurate most of the time. We will certainly believe in countless other "affordable" operating system-based real-time smart watches that have rapidly emerged in the market recently.

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This brings us to the price. Galaxy Watch 4 is not cheap, but that is not to say that it is overpriced. The Bluetooth-only 40mm Galaxy Watch 4 is priced at Rs 23,999, while its 44mm version is priced at Rs 26,999. The LTE version starts at 28,999 rupees (40 mm) and goes up to 31,999 rupees (44 mm). The Bluetooth-only 42mm Galaxy Watch 4 Classic is priced at Rs 31,999, while its 46mm version is priced at Rs 34,999. The LTE version starts at 36,999 rupees (42 mm) and goes up to 39,999 rupees (46 mm).

That being said, Samsung products tend to get a lot of good discounts, so you may buy them at a lower price.

By working closely with Google, Samsung has been able to address some of the most serious shortcomings of Android smartwatches, namely performance, battery life and lack of a compelling application ecosystem. Galaxy Watch 4 is fast, has a long battery life, and third-party app support is better than we expected, making it the best Android smartwatch on the market today. Oops, this is the best Android smartwatch ever.

But as good as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is that it is also a Samsung watch-in fact, it is more like Samsung than any product that Samsung has made before. If this is annoying, then if you don't have a Samsung phone, this is exactly how you feel when you use it. Therefore, this also needs to be kept in mind.

Advantages: beautiful hardware, smooth performance, good battery life, more and more support for third-party applications, many functions, accurate tracking

Disadvantages: No Google Assistant at launch, expensive, a bit frustrating for non-Samsung mobile phone users

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