A WEEK ON MY WRIST: THE SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH9

I was never really a smartwatch person. After a week with Samsung’s Galaxy Watch9, I’m beginning to understand the appeal. It is comfortable, remarkably smooth and genuinely useful, but one familiar smartwatch problem is still stopping it from completely winning me over.

You might have already gone through enough reviews of the Samsung Galaxy Watch9. But let me take you through how I think watches should be looked at, regardless of whether they come from Samsung, Huawei, Apple or even Google’s Pixel family.

To begin with, I was never really a fan of smartwatches. I prefer a watch that works when I need it the most and does what a watch was first meant to do, tell me the time.

REVIEWED BY SRIJITH KN, TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

Time, in my profession, has a slightly different meaning. It relates to thoughts that flow into words, words that become ideas, and ideas that eventually need to be framed, packaged and commercialised as specialised knowledge or information for companies. That’s essentially the world of business journalism — being around people who are building businesses, taking them forward and, in many ways, integrating economies.

For people like us, a watch has tremendous importance. And that is where my relationship with the Galaxy Watch9 begins.

I don’t honestly get many watches to review, and when Samsung reached out asking whether I’d like to try the Galaxy Watch9, it came as a bit of a surprise. It’s not that I haven’t used smartwatches before; they just haven’t pulled me in enough to become something I couldn’t do without. I’ve always been more of a big-screen person — phones, tablets and displays. Not folds, though. That’s another conversation.

First surprise: I actually like wearing it

The unboxing itself isn’t anything particularly special compared with the other gadgets that come through. You get the watch, charging cable, strap and the usual paperwork. I’m just happy Samsung hasn’t thought of taking the strap away yet — we’ve already reached the stage where chargers disappear from smartphone boxes and, strangely enough, the consumer community doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it.

The straps are incredibly easy to attach to the dial, but what surprised me more was how comfortable they are. In fact, the comfort of the Watch9 itself has probably been one of my biggest surprises. I really like how this thing fits on my wrist.

The Watch9 comes in 40mm and 44mm sizes, and I have the smaller 40mm version. For me, it works.

Samsung has gone with a lightweight aluminium casing and its cushion-style design, essentially placing the circular dial within a more squared-off body. I’m still a traditionalist when it comes to watches: give me a completely round watch and that’s my golden choice. But I’ve grown to like this design too.

Oh, I know what some of you are thinking. Let me say it without mincing words: I’ll take this over the Apple Watch design any day.

There, I’ve said it.

Comfortable enough for a 12-hour day

So far, the Watch9 has been a remarkably comfortable companion across my usual 12-hour schedule — office, home, driving around and everything in between. That’s important because no matter how many features manufacturers pack into a smartwatch, none of them matter much if you don’t actually want the thing sitting on your wrist all day.

The 40mm model has a 390mAh battery, while the display can reach up to 3,000 nits of brightness. Samsung is also positioning this generation increasingly around health and wellness, with continuous activity and sleep tracking accompanied by features including Vitals, Heart Health Score, Daily Cardio Load and Fitness Index.

I have more to say about all of that. Just not yet.

I’ve deliberately held back from judging the majority of those health features because I simply haven’t spent enough time with them. I’ve tried some basic workout functionality, but health data isn’t something I want to wear for a few days and then confidently tell you is brilliant. That needs more time.

Smoothness is one of its biggest strengths

One major hardware change is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear Elite platform, and this is an area where I can already form an opinion.

The Watch9 is smooth.

Apps open quickly, scrolling feels buttery, and navigating around the interface doesn’t leave me waiting for the watch to catch up. During my time with it, I’ve encountered very little that makes the Watch9 feel like a miniature computer struggling to operate on your wrist.

I’m still not going to tell you what that means six months from now. That’s something I’d rather come back and tell you after actually using it for six months.

But right now? Performance is certainly not one of my complaints.

Have we made watches smarter or more complicated?

I think most people initially look at a watch for two things: how it looks on the wrist and how reliably it will stay there doing its job.

And this brings me to my fundamental problem with smartwatches.

They demand attention and maintenance from something that, traditionally, required neither.

A regular watch sits on your wrist and does its job. A smartwatch needs charging, syncing, updating and yet another app on your phone.

If I have to remember whether my watch itself has enough battery to get me through tomorrow, I still find myself wondering whether we’ve made the watch smarter or simply more complicated.

The Galaxy Watch9 hasn’t completely changed my mind about that.

But it has made a convincing argument for why I might tolerate it.

The best part? I’m pulling out my phone less

This is where I’ve started to understand the attraction.

I don’t always have to pull my rather large smartphone out of my pocket anymore.

WhatsApp, notifications, Google Maps, voice recording and quite a few other apps can live on my wrist. I’ve been installing and playing around with different applications, and many of them work surprisingly well.

Samsung has also done an excellent job with the interface. Everything feels smooth and interactive, and I’d put Samsung among the better smartwatch experiences I’ve used when it comes to simply moving around the operating system.

What makes my experience slightly more interesting is that I’m not even using a Samsung phone. My daily driver is a Nothing Phone (3), and pairing and syncing the Watch9 with it has been remarkably straightforward. For the everyday things I’ve tried so far, I really can’t complain.

I haven’t yet gone deep enough into some of the more advanced health features to judge the complete experience outside Samsung’s ecosystem. But it does raise a question: if the Watch9 already works this well with another Android phone, how much of the experience really needs to remain exclusive to Samsung smartphones?

I understand Samsung wanting to give its own phone users certain privileges. Ecosystems are part of the technology business. But when it comes to health functionality in particular, I’m less convinced that useful features should be tied to owning another Samsung device.

That’s something I’ll be exploring more closely as I spend more time with the watch.

Samsung, give me seven days

And then we arrive at my biggest problem.

Battery life.

I want a smartwatch to give me a week.

Maybe that’s demanding too much from a watch doing everything the Galaxy Watch9 is doing in the background, but that’s the point at which a smartwatch would start becoming a dream watch for me — when charging stops being something I have to consciously plan around.

With my kind of usage, I’m getting roughly two days at best from the Watch9.

The other day, halfway through my drive home, I realised the watch had died. It was the second day of use, and there I was taking it off my wrist and putting it aside for the remainder of the journey.

That small moment probably explains my frustration with smartwatch battery life better than any laboratory battery test could.

In fact, I’m now considering buying another charger simply to keep in the car. If the solution to my smartwatch running out of battery is for me to start strategically positioning chargers around my life, then part of my original smartwatch problem remains unsolved.

Charging itself could also be more flexible. I’ve tried getting the Watch9 to work with random wireless power banks I already have around me, only to find that it doesn’t sit properly or simply doesn’t charge. I’d like charging away from Samsung’s supplied puck to be considerably easier, and I’d certainly welcome faster charging too.

A smartwatch I’m unexpectedly enjoying

Here’s the strange thing, though.

After all that complaining about smartwatches, I really like the Galaxy Watch9.

It isn’t laggy. It’s exceptionally comfortable, which I genuinely didn’t expect. It looks good on the wrist, the physical buttons feel sturdy, there is an enormous amount of functionality packed into it, and the new processor gives the interface that wonderfully smooth feeling every time I scroll around.

More importantly, I’m beginning to understand how a smartwatch can fit into the life of someone with a genuinely busy schedule. It isn’t necessarily about replacing the smartphone. It’s about reducing the number of times you have to reach for it.

Whether the Galaxy Watch9 ultimately justifies its price is something I’m not ready to answer yet. There are too many features — particularly on the health side — that deserve considerably more time before I make that judgement.

But I already know what Samsung needs to do to completely win me over: