The Samsung Galaxy Watch3 is, you guessed it, the third generation Samsung Galaxy Watch. Samsung have iterated on the watch each generation and the Galaxy Watch3 is by far the most refined version of the wearable.

Design

The Galaxy Watch3 takes a lot of its design elements from the original Galaxy Watch and non-smart watches. In particular, the bezel look like it is from a traditional watch, with numbers lining the outside of the screen. The rotating bezel has a lovely feel to it and it looks high quality. It rotates smoothly and the way it interacts with the Tizen OS (yes, the Galaxy Watch does NOT run Googles WearOS). Moving through menus and apps is one of the nicer ways to navigate around a wearable, and it would be lovely it it was a feature on Wear OS watches.

 

 

All versions of the Galaxy Watch3 come with a leather band. It’s either 20mm or 22mm depending on the watch size, and they are industry standard fittings, so there are plenty of replacement bands if you don’t like the one in the box.

 

 

Speaking of the box, in the box, you get the Galaxy Watch3, the charging cable, and a quick start guide. There’s no power adapter included in the box, but any USB Type-A charger will work (which is great – looking at you iPhone 12 with your lack of charging and now a USB-C cable).

Software

As mentioned above, the Galaxy Watch 3 runs Samsung’s own Tizen OS. While I’ve owned a WearOS watch now for 5+ years, I have to say i enjoyed using the Galaxy Watch 3. All my notifications came through as expected and I was able to interact with the apps I normally would, so moving from a Wear OS device to a Tizen OS is a much simpler move than it ever was.

The watch is powered by 1.5ghz custom Exynos processor and is paired with 1gb of RAM and 8gb of storage. The 1gb or RAM really makes a difference in the performance of the watch and I never felt like I was going to run out of storage or memory while using the watch.

The only thing I really did miss was access to the Google Assistant as I really don’t have much time for Bixby (and I think a lot of other people feel the same). It’s not often I would speak commands to the watch, but when I tried, Bixby just didn’t provide the response I wanted and it could control my smart home stuff (the main use case I would have for speaking to my watch is when when out walking and it gets dark, I can ask Google (or alexa) to turn on the outside light so its on when I get home, I couldn’t do this with Bixby)

You’ve, obviously, go all the usual health tracking features you would expect from a capable smartwatch in 2020, but the Galaxy Watch 3 also features a Blood Oxygen Monitor, Blood Pressure Monitor and ECG, so it has some of the more advanced methods of monitoring your health on a day to day basis. I didn’t spend much time using these features, but when I did, they seemed to work as expected (note: these are not medical grade devices and you should consult your doctor if you feel you are having any medical issues)

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy Watch3 is a great wearable device, with top end specs, but also a top end price to follow. The 41mm Galaxy Watch 3 is available now on Samsung’s site, HERE, for €450. That’s a lot of cash for a wearable device, but you do get a very nice, refined and well built wearable for that price. If you’re in the Samsung ecosystem, it’s definitely worth considering if you are in the market for a new smartwatch.