Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 review: Elegant design lifted by modern features

 

Priced at Rs 38,990, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 (45mm LTE variant, black body and leather straps) is a capable smartwatch that doubles up as a feature-rich health and fitness device.

Samsung seems to be one brand in the Android ecosystem that is making true smartwatches, even as many others simply pass off wristwatch-shaped health and fitness trackers as smartwatches. Samsung’s recently launched Galaxy Watch 3 justifies its smartwatch moniker, and it works right on point. It does double up as a health and fitness tracker, too, but its overall utility goes far beyond that.

Unlike smartphones, smartwatches are a lifestyle accessory, so their design plays an important role. Thankfully, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 (45mm mystic black variant with leather straps) manages to impress with its classic circular design, which looks retro but premium and polished.

The watch has a 1.4-inch super AMOLED touchscreen which is bright and vivid. It supports gesture-based navigation; swipe down from top to access quick settings, swipe inwards from left for notifications, and swipe inwards from right for quick-view windows. It also supports the wrist gesture for the screen wake function, which works like a charm. As part of its upgrade, the Galaxy Watch 3 gets an always-on display mode, which keeps the screen active to show basic information. However, the always-on display mode causes the watch’s on-battery time to drop drastically.

The design and display of the watch are complemented by a rotating wheel on the bezel which looks very much part of the package and makes it easy to navigate and operate the user interface, especially when you need to move quickly from one screen to another or scroll through the features.

Coming to the Galaxy Watch 3’s smartwatch capabilities, the LTE variant (which we reviewed) supports e-SIM for telephony services. The network connectivity makes it a standalone watch which can also be used in conjunction with a smartphone. Important to note that the e-SIM can be enabled only through supported Samsung smartphones from the Galaxy Wearables app. With e-SIM enabled, you can attend calls directly on the watch, even when it is not connected with a smartphone or if the phone is switched off. Though the e-SIM could have enabled a lot more functions, the lack of supported apps and features limits its usage to voice calls only.