Galaxy Watch 4 - First Impressions

[CrazyTom2k2]

Hey all🙂,

Hope everyone's doing great! Sorry, but it's another long one. You'll need a cuppa!

It's been a while since I last shared anything here. Recently I ordered a Galaxy Watch4 (LTE) version, and had it arrive yesterday (even though it comes out next week!) Thought I'd share some first impressions 

As you probably know, the Watch4 runs WearOS 3 instead of Tizen. And so far, I'm loving the revamped WearOS so far. It's defo more responsive than I remember WearOS 2 being. I'm also loving the integration with the Play Store, as I can download apps and search for Watch Apps at the same time. We're no longer limited to the Galaxy Store! Additionally, for those people who use Google Pay, you should be able to download this on your Watch4!

Other things I love about the watch include the new BIA sensor, which was pretty epic to try (although the result told me I had too much skeletal bone, so I'm consulting with my GP to work out how many limbs need amputating!) Back to the love, I also love how responsive the watch is when I tilt my wrist to turn the screen on. Especially when playing my music with the media controls on display.

However, every product has it's downsides, and there's a couple of things that I had access to on my Watch Active2 that I'm missing on the Watch4.

The first thing I'm missing is the Auto Bedtime Mode - my Watch Active2 used to be pretty on-point with detecting when I was asleep and enabling bedtime mode. Scheduling bedtime mode on the Watch4 is an option, but that doesn't really work for me as I go to sleep at different times each night - I much preferred the way the Watch Active2 handled Bedtime Mode.

The second thing I miss is the animations that used to appear after charging - the jumpy smiley face and star. Now, this one might be a bit of an odd one, but hear me out! I felt there was something comforting when I'd pull my watch off charge and I'd get a smiley face or a jumpy star. It gave the watch personality. 

I'm guessing Samsung's team could possibly bring in the above features, so I really hope this feedback reaches the software team. Because, despite these couple of bits that I miss from Tizen, Samsung have done a really great job here, and I really really like my Galaxy Watch4. But those couple of missing bits really do stop me from "loving" the product!

To those thinking about buying a Galaxy Watch4 - if you want a decent all-round Smartwatch that's compatible with Android, there's no better choice than the Galaxy Watch4!😀

(Also, side note, but if you're looking to buy a 4G/LTE version of the watch, I would strongly recommend buying it through your Mobile Provider. I say this because I spent a couple of hours dealing with O2 yesterday trying to get an eSIM set up.)

Best wishes,

Tom😀

[BandOfBrothers]

Thank you for your thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy Watch ⁴ @CrazyTom2k2  👍

Which model,  colour , size are you using? 

Any chance of some photo uploads of the Watch  ?

I'm impressed that the watch has access to the Playstore which is a fantastic step forward.

And the ability to download Google Pay onto the watch is also 👌

Have you managed to test using this out yet in real life ?

Is it an easy process when making a payment at a self service till etc? 

I found Samsung Pay a bit fiddly and hit and miss on my Frontier Watch. 

As a current user of the Samsung Galaxy Gear ³ Frontier Watch I'd want to choose the Samsung Galaxy Watch ⁴ Classic to retain the rotating bezel. 😎

I know it's early days of your ownership and usage, and I appreciate we all set up our devices differently etc, but how are you finding battery usage ? 

Again thank you for your thoughts on your new Watch. Much appreciated.

[GusB]

Thanks. Looking forward to getting my classic, upgrading from a Huawei watch 2...!

Can you remap the buttons? I've seen that long press on the lower button goes to Samsung pay but I use Google..can this be reassigned?

[LionBerks]

Hi. You can remap both keys, but it's a double press or press and hold with the home key, I have my double press set as Spotify (there are a few options here) and hold as power menu. Note with press and hold you only have 2 options of Bixby and power off menu. You are also limited to 2 options with the back key, either go to previous screen or show recent apps.

[Heanster]

Unfortunately my Watch4 can't seem to access my emails - there is no email app on the watch only Outlook. You would have thought Google would have put Gmail on

[sheplfc74]

Had mine on now for 20hrs, 1st impressions, I thought have I really made the right choice, it's growing on me, only lost 30% battery in all that time and playing with it, the 4G is turned off, apart from that pretty much everything is running, only thing not used yet is the fitness part of it, not that I'm a fitness freak. Used the sleeping app, well, it's recorded me snoring which is kinda funny, no massive downsides that I've come across yet, email needs setting up, no sure if I like the apple way of seeing my apps, the watch feels lot more sturdier than my active 2, I will be sad to see that be sent back, but a £150 trade made it a lot easier, 1st impressions, nice watch, 4G Watch 4 from the Active 2 for £159 ain't bad, while I remember one downside, watch faces, or lack of... never mind, still not a day old give it time, we had it a week early, and come on Samsung with my new strap, you could've sent that with the watch 😉

[Clive7409]

I tried Samsung Pay on my original Samsung Galaxy Watch & had same experience of being hit & miss (more miss than hit) so gave up on it.

Tried using Samsung Pay on my Watch 4 Classic yesterday & must say was impressed him much easier it was, so has definitely come on from the original watch.

[Clive7409]

So far am more impressed with the watch than I thought I would be as was half expecting it to be a learning curve going from Tizen to Wear OS, but so far is intuitive & kept many of the ways Tizen worked.

My only downsides are no YouTube Music & even though I calibrate the BP monitor the watch is still massively off, reads a lot lower, hence if suffer high blood pressure would make it look normal or as if have low BP ... Not good if using it as an indication of how health is.

[CrazyTom2k2]

Here's a photo of the watch on my wrist 😁. I went for the Watch4 46mm Mystic Silver. If you're looking for the physical bezel, yeah you're looking at the Watch4 Classic. I'll be honest, the digital bezel on this one seems to be less responsive than the one on the Watch Active2, but I'm guessing that's something that could be fixed by wellying up the sensitivity. Battery usage - with everything enabled, I'm pretty happy with the battery life. I've had the watch off charge for around 5 hours and it's only used 23%. And I'm guessing that'll go down once the watch has learned my usage patterns 🙂. Wore the watch to bed last night at 23% charge. Woke up and the watch was on 17%, so I'm super happy with that!

[CrazyTom2k2]

Doesn't look like you can remap the Samsung Pay shortcut, but my suggestion would be to set up the home key so a double-press pulls up Google Pay 🙂