Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
Unique $50 Samsung credit thru 8/11
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 is one of Samsung’s new wearables for 2023, introduced at Galaxy Unpacked. It sports a very familiar look to the Galaxy Watch 5, but packs upgrades in its display, chipset, and battery.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 5
Last year’s best Wear OS watch is still great
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 isn’t Samsung’s latest wearable anymore, but it still offers great performance in a package that looks alotlike the new Watch 6. It’s also in line to get One UI 5 Watch (based on Wear OS) 4 in the near future.
Another year, another generation of Samsung wearables. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 series has been officially unveiled at Samsung’s Unpacked event in Korea, and it offers what looks like moderate upgrades over last year’s Watch 5 devices. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: the Galaxy Watch 5 has beenour favorite Wear OS watchfor nearly a year now, and a better version is, well, better. If you’re wondering whether the year-over-year differences are worth springing for an upgrade, you’re in the right place. Here’s how Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch 6 stacks up to last year’s Galaxy Watch 5.
Price, availability, and specs
The new Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 starts at $300 for the 40mm “Small” version, while the 44mm “Large” model costs $330. That’s a $20 to $30 bump from last year’s Watch 5, which debuted at $280 and $300 for the same 40mm and 44mm case sizes. And of course, being a year old, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 series is frequently discounted: we’ve deals as low as $160 on the base-model Watch 5, and sale prices around $200 are increasingly common.
Samsung’s newest watches are available for pre-order now directly from Samsung, as well as at Amazon, Best Buy, and the other usual suspects. Samsung will give you $150 for your Galaxy Watch 5 if you trade it in for the Galaxy Watch 6. General availability starts on August 11. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 is available from all the same sellers.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 is surely one of the best Android watches available, especially if you are already in the Samsung ecosystem. With a sapphire crystal display, Exynos W930 processor, 2GB of RAM, and up to a 425mAh battery, this watch is built to be a solid performer.
The new Galaxy Watch 6’s case is the same size as the Watch 5’s, but the Watch 6’s display is just a little larger and higher resolution at both sizes. Battery sizes have also increased slightly from last year, and the Watch 6 is packing 2GB of RAM — an upgrade from the Watch 5’s 1.5GB. Each watch has the same suite of health sensors and all the same durability ratings.
The biggest spec difference is in the chipset: while the Watch 5 series reused the Watch 4’s Exynos W920 chipset, the Watch 6 series debuts the brand-new Exynos W930. We can’t definitively say what that means for performance or battery life — we haven’t spent enough time with the new watches yet — but we expect the Watch 6 will be a little faster and last a little longer on a charge than the Watch 5.
Hardware and design
Samsung’s wearable hardware design has been very consistent for a few years now, which means the Galaxy Watch 6 looks a lot like the Galaxy Watch 5 — which itself looked a lot like the Galaxy Watch 4. But it’s a simple, attractive look, and the watches are allcompatible with standard 20mm watch bands. Both generations feature cases made from aluminum, plus sapphire crystal over the display. All Watch 5 and Watch 6 devices meet the same durability standards, as well: they have IP68 certification and are water-resistant to 5 ATM. Samsung says they’re all MIL-STD-810H compliant, too.
The Watch 6 is very similar in size and shape to the Watch 5, but the newer wearable has a slightly larger display with slightly smaller bezels. The 40mm Watch 6 has a 1.3" display; the 44mm version has a 1.5" screen. The like-sized Watch 5 models had 1.19" and 1.36" screens, respectively.
Color selection differs from generation to generation, too. The 40mm Watch 6 is available in Graphite and Gold colorways; the 44mm comes in Graphite or Silver. Last year’s Watch 5 came in Graphite, Pink Gold, and Silver for the 40mm version and Graphite, Sapphire, and Silver for the 44mm.
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 6 series comprises the first watches to launch with Wear OS 4, the very latest version of Google’s wearable software, running under Samsung’s One UI 5 Watch skin. The software skin takes aesthetic cues from Samsung’s older Galaxy Watch devices that ran on the company’s proprietary Tizen operating system, giving menus and UI elements a distinct flavor compared to more “stock” implementations on wearables from the likes of Google and Mobvoi.
One UI 5 Watch isn’t a major overhaul from the Wear OS 3.5-based software currently running on the Watch 5 series. It brings some minor helpful features, like the ability to pair your smartwatch with a new phone without resetting the wearable, plus some new health and fitness features (more on that in a bit). The Galaxy Watch 5 is also eligible to participate in aOne UI 5 Watch beta that’s already begun, and we expect to see the latest software officially land on both the Watch 5 series and the Watch 4 series soon after the Galaxy Watch 6 is released.
Health and fitness
Health and fitness features on both the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 and the Galaxy Watch 5 are managed through the Samsung Health app. Both watches can track activity, heart rate, sleep quantity and quality, body fat percentage, and skin temperature (the Watch 5 always had the required hardware for skin temperature tracking, but it was only activated in a software update this spring).
One UI 5 Watch brings with it Fitbit-style Heart Rate Zones that classify activity into one of five categories based on how hard your heart is pumping, plus new sleep coaching features that aim to provide actionable advice about how to improve the quality of your nightly rest. The newer Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 will have these features at launch, but Watch 5 users will have to wait for another upcoming software update before trying them out. That update should be coming soon, however.
Battery life
Samsung claims that both the Galaxy Watch 6 and the Galaxy Watch 5 can last about 40 hours on a charge if you don’t use the always-on display, or 30 hours if you do. That 30-hour figure is pretty close to reality, in our experience — with mixed use, the Watch 5 typically makes it a full day and a bit more. We haven’t had enough time with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 to know how Samsung’s battery estimates hold up there, but considering the updated watch has a newer chipset and a larger battery, we expect 30 to 40 hours will still be accurate.
Which is right for you?
If you need a new Wear OS watch, it’s going to be hard to beat the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. The existing Watch 5 was already our top smartwatch recommendation, and the Watch 6 comes with a number of upgrades: a larger, higher-resolution screen inside the same size body, a slightly bigger battery, out-of-the-box access to Wear OS 4, plus Samsung’s first wearable chipset upgrade since 2021’s Galaxy Watch 4.
If you already have a Galaxy Watch 5 in good condition, it really comes down to how much watch envy you have for the latest model. You absolutely shouldn’t drop $300 for the new watch, but if you can get it for $150 with a Watch 5 trade in, that’s suddenly much more reasonable. (Especially if you signed up for $50 reservation bonus like we told you last week — which would net you the Watch 6 for $100!) The new Watch 6 is objectively the better wearable, having all the best features of the previous generation and more — but the “more” really boils down to marginal improvements in areas like display quality and performance. The Watch 6’s newer software is coming to the Watch 5 soon, too.
And if you’re coming from an older wearable, you’re able to save some cash by going for the year-old Watch 5 rather than the brand-new Watch 6. You’ll have to live with knowing you don’t have the newest watch around, but you’ll also likely save at least a hundred bucks or more and end up with a very similar experience for the money.
