Newsletter
Samsung has just announced the next generation of its Galaxy Watch smartwatch – the Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. With this launch, Samsung is bringing back a crowd-favorite feature, and that is the rotating bezel on the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. It’s something that many thought was gone last year when Samsung decided to go with a “Pro” smartwatch, and ditch the rotating bezel. But it’s back, and better than ever.
Once again, both models come in two sizes. There’s 40mm and 44mm for the Galaxy Watch 6 and then 43mm and 47mm for the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. Besides the sizes, the only real difference between the two, is the rotating bezel. Since the Classic has that rotating bezel, it’s quite a bit larger than the regular Galaxy Watch 6.
The rotating bezel is back
Arguably one of the best features in a smartwatch, yet, the rotating bezel has made a comeback. While Samsung did say last year that the rotating bezel wasn’t dead, we weren’t too sure if it was coming back. But customers and reviewers made sure to tell Samsung to bring it back. And that they have.
It works just the same as it has on earlier models. So that means you can rotate the bezel to navigate through the operating system on your watch. As well as navigate through the app drawer, the widgets and notifications on your watch as well.
Now during my hands-on time with it, which was about 30 minutes or so, the bezel did seem to be a bit more precise. It was a little tougher to rotate the bezel this time around. Now, that could be due to these being new units that haven’t really been worked in just yet. Or that the bezel is more tight this time around. We’ll have to wait and see in our full review.
However, that Galaxy Watch 6 Classic looks stunning, especially with the metal link band.
Samsung remains the king of Wear OS
After such a short time of using the Galaxy Watch 6, I can comfortably say that the Galaxy Watch 6 series is still the king of Wear OS. And there’s a few reasons for this, the biggest being that there’s not a whole lot of competition out there. There’s the Google Pixel Watch, which looks great, but battery life is atrocious. There’s also a few models from Fossil and TAG Heuer, but Fossil usually lacks a lot of features and battery life, and TAG Heuer is very expensive in its own right. So that leaves Samsung.
Despite these other watches costing more, the Galaxy Watch 6 is starting at $299, with the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic starting at $399. This is a price bump from last year, where the Galaxy Watch 5 was $279, and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic started at $349, so a decent price bump for the two of them. However, it’s still one of the cheaper Wear OS watches on the market.
Additionally, Wear OS runs phenomenally on the Galaxy Watch 6 hardware. Of course, that was what we experience in the short hands-on time here, so you’ll need to wait for our full review to learn more about how well it runs. But so far, so good. And battery life should still be on-par with the Galaxy Watch 5 series. Which was around 2-3 days, depending on usage.
The new bands are stunning
Samsung has also shown off a number of new bands for the Galaxy Watch 6 series. Now, since the lugs are the same size as every other Galaxy Watch model, that means that these also work on the older Galaxy Watch models. So that’s some really good news.
The company also introduced some new one-click bands. Which seems to be a trend for smartwatches these days. after Apple announced something similar with the Solo Loop bands. Though, those are in many different sizes. Google also introduced a sort of one-click band for the Pixel Watch last fall.
So there’s something for everyone, with these new bands.
The Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Watch 6 Classic are both available for pre-order now and will ship by August 11.
Buy the Galaxy Watch 6 (Samsung)
