With one exception, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic is everything I want from a smartwatch

Introduction

The Galaxy Watch 8 Classic feels like Samsung attempting to please everyone at once. The firm’s latest smartwatch brings back one fan favourite feature, inherits the design from its flagship wearable, and doubles down on fitness features. It’s also first out the door with on-wrist Gemini smarts.

Anyone with a Galaxy Watch 6 Classic – now two years old – will have their head turned by the return of the rotating bezel, while those wanting a more affordable take on the Galaxy Watch Ultra will appreciate the “cushion” design being carried over for significantly less cash. Add in a bigger battery and it could be the new Wear OS watch to beat.

There’s only one size to choose from this year, though, and prices start from $499/£449 – cheaper than an Ultra, but a bigger investment than the $349/£319 Watch 8, and more than most Wear OS rivals to boot. Does the Watch 8 Classic do enough to earn a spot on your wrist?

Design & build: squared away

It’s not quite the dominating presence that the Galaxy Watch Ultra was, but the Watch 8 Classic is still a sizeable bit of wristwear. It reimagines the bigger brother’s styling, again setting a circular screen inside a square bezel, but slimming things down a bit at the sides. A coin-edge bezel then sits on top, rotating with a satisfying click as you bi-directionally scroll through onscreen menus.

I’m convinced this dual approach is the best wearable input method, letting you tap and swipe the touchscreen while stationary but not having to hit tiny touch targets while exercising – or simply when you don’t have both hands free. As for the squircle shape? Personally I’m a fan, because I like my watches to make a statement, and means there’s more case between the screen and anything you might accidentally bash it on. Still, I can imagine there’ll be some Watch 6 Classic owners that liked the more subtle approach. It also collects dust quite quickly; I had to clean it with a Q tip after just a few weeks’ wear.

I do appreciate the Ultra’s three side buttons becoming the norm here. The central button can be customised to launch a specific sports mode or app, or just used as a shortcut to take you to the main exercise page if you like to mix and match your workouts. A protruding crown guard prevents accidental presses, while the two regular buttons assist with navigation.

The polished stainless steel case looks the part, and means the watch feels substantial on your wrist. It’s imperceptibly slimmer than the Watch 6 Classic, and I had no trouble sliding it out from underneath a cuffed shirt sleeve. The way the strap lugs clip into the casing is particularly fiddly, though, and means you can’t snap any old 22mm band on like you could on the Galaxy Watch 7 series. On the plus side, it brings the casing closer to your wrist, which helps boost the accuracy of the heart rate sensor.

If you’re sticking with the default band – a polymer strap that mimics the look of leather – I think my black review unit is probably the version to go for. Samsung has a bunch of different strip styles to pick from, but most are lighter colours that I feel gel better with the white bezel model.

Screen: smaller but shinier

Unlike previous years, there’s only one flavour of Watch 8 Classic. It comes in a 46mm case with a 1.34in screen, which is smaller than the 1.5in display you got on the equivalent Watch 6 Classic. Pixel density has dropped between generations, too, though the 437×437 resolution still looks clear enough at arms’ length. Even watch faces with very small complications appear sharp and legible. You’ve also got to look hard to spot the inner bezel – there’s barely any black bar visible around the circumference of the screen.

It’s an OLED, so of course colours look brilliantly vibrant and blacks are properly black. Pick the right watch face and that inner bezel disappears entirely. That’s doubly true for the always-on display mode, if you don’t mind the associated hit to battery life.

Brightness has jumped up dramatically this year. A peak 3000 nits means this is a serious shiner, with zero visibility issues on even the brightest of days. It helps that viewing angles are excellent. The ambient light sensor is quick to react to changing environments, so you’re not left waiting for it to boost brightness outdoors – or blinded by a bright screen when you step inside.

Sapphire crystal glass should withstand most scrapes and scratches; my review unit still looked box-fresh after several weeks of wear.

Interface: how about Now?

Samsung’s home-grown Exynos W1000 chipset is still running the show; the 3nm silicon hasn’t changed at all from the Watch 7 series, and it’s still paired with 2GB of RAM. Happily there’s still more than enough grunt to keep Wear OS running smoothly, even with Samsung’s extensive One UI customisations on top.

There’s a welcome consistency here with Samsung’s latest smartphones, with familiar icons and pre-installed watch apps. The firm’s in-house apps are the defaults for things like contactless payments, but with full access to the Play Store you can quickly swap to Google Wallet if you like. I’m more than happy with the 64GB of storage the Watch 8 Classic gets standard; there’s enough room for loads of third-party apps, plus more workout playlists than I could possibly get through in a single session.

Tiles are now grouped onto single screens now, saving you a few swipes or twists of the bezel. Notifications are also grouped into the firm’s Now Bar, which also hosts media controls right on your watch face. I definitely found I was spending less time finding relevant information than on previous iterations, which sounds like a job well done by the software team.

This is also the first Wear OS watch to put Google Gemini on your wrist. As well as controlling your smart home appliances with your voice, compatibility with Samsung’s own ecosystem means you can ask Gemini to start a workout based on a metric like burning calories. It also understands multi-step actions, like recommendations on locations near you, paired with messaging invitations to you friends. It’s slick, though I still can’t bring myself to talk into my tech in public.

Health & fitness: catch some Zs

Samsung’s watches have never been short on exercise tracking ability, and the Watch 8 Classic is no exception; it’ll monitor heart rate, blood oxygen levels, skin temperature, step count and exertion levels for any workout, as you’d expect, and goes a lot more granular for certain exercises like running. The ECG monitor now highlights ectopic beats – minor irregular heartbeats that could be a precursor to bigger health issues – in its results.

The new running assessment feature is neat for fitness beginners, tracking you over twelve minutes before serving up over 150 potential running plans. These coached sessions range from a first 5K to training for marathons, with difficulty that dynamically adjusts based on whether you’re under- or over-performing.

GPS accuracy is up there with the best smartwatches, and the biosensor produces figures that closely match more hardcore fitness devices like chest straps.

It’s health and wellbeing that’ve seen the most new additions this year, with the already comprehensive sleeping coach getting bedtime guidance that can suggest when hitting the hay will result in the best night’s rest. So far it hasn’t given me any dramatic insights, but maybe that’s because I’m pretty good at turning in for the night before the early hours. Any bad morning moods are usually reflected in a low Energy Score.

There’s now an option to monitor your vascular load during sleep, and if you’re in the UK or Europe, the Galaxy Watch 8 series also gains certified sleep apnea detection. Basically if you’re losing Zs for any reason, this wearable will clue you in as to why.

I’m less sold on the Antioxidant Index, which measures your carotenoid levels by sticking your thumb over the watch’s rear optical sensor. If you’re low, it’ll suggest you munch some fruits or veggies rich in the stuff.

Battery life: more of the same

With a 445mAh cell stuffed inside, the Watch 8 Classic has a roughly 8% larger battery capacity than the Watch 7 series. With a slightly smaller screen as well, I was expecting it to last a fair bit longer between charges, but the reality was a closer match to the outgoing model.

I typically got to the end of a second day of wear before the Watch needed a trip to its magnetic charging puck. That’s roughly 30 hours, though admittedly that was with the always-on display mode switched on. With it off, you’ll get closer to 40 – or into a third day, depending on when you first strapped it to your wrist.

That means Samsung still lags behind the OnePlus Watch 3, which uses two chipsets to stretch comfortably into a fifth day. It’s still more than the most recent Pixel Watch can manage, though. Samsung’s charging puck is less fussy about placement than OnePlus’ pogo pin cradle, too, so I never worried about it not charging because I hadn’t lined it up perfectly.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic verdict

With most of the feel of a Galaxy Watch Ultra, at a price that’s (a little) kinder to your wallet, the Watch 8 Classic is another Samsung success story. By spacing its Classic-badged wearables, the firm has also sensibly left enough time for existing owners to think about upgrading.

This is about as feature-rich as Android wearables get, and there’s been no skimping on the health and fitness front either. While battery life isn’t class-leading, and some will find the chunkier looks a turn-off, it has no real weak links anywhere else.

It commands a premium over rival smartwatches, so you’ve got to decide if the rotating bezel and distinctive styling are worth paying extra for. If you’re already entrenched in the Samsung ecosystem, I expect they will be.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic technical specifications

Screen	1.34in, 437×437 AMOLED
CPU	Samsung Exynos W1000
Memory	2GB
Storage	64GB
Operating system	Wear OS 16 w/ One UI 8.0 Watch
Battery	445mAh
Durability	IP68/5ATM/MIL-STD-810
Dimensions	46x46x10.6mm, 63.5g