To the naked eye, the Galaxy Watch 9 has almost no design changes distinguishing it from its predecessor. If you didn’t know any better, you might assume it was, in fact, just last year’s Galaxy Watch 8. But don’t be fooled by this lack of design evolution — Samsung has subtly improved its catch-all smartwatch in a series of impressive and meaningful ways.
Unveiled on Wednesday at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event in London, the $380 (starting price) Galaxy Watch 9 is a classic fitness-focused watch designed to have broad appeal, especially when compared to the more feature-packed (and expensive) Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, which also debuted at the event.
A fresh processor, bigger battery and a suite of health metrics and insights breathe new life into this device. It would be highly surprising if the Watch 9 doesn’t beat the Watch 8 on performance across the board. I was impressed by the new Fitness Index, which gauges your fitness levels and can create a custom training plan (for free), and I’m curious to see how it would assess my current health.
Galaxy Watch 9 design
With a round face and a boxy bevel with rounded corners, the Galaxy Watch 9 splits the difference between being a square and a circle. It’s a squircle, if you will.
It has a relatively subtle look, which is useful for an accessory you’re just as likely to be wearing to the gym as into the office. This isn’t a piece of wearable tech that makes a bold style statement, but it’ll move through almost every outfit change without you having to question whether it looks OK on your wrist.
The Galaxy Watch 9 is available in cream and graphite finishes, which feels like enough choice for such a minimalist device. The straps are where you can really have some fun with this device.
The basic silicone sports bands are just fine, but the “misty” soft-touch two-tone bands are much more appealing. They’re available in a series of fetching shades, including my personal favorite: a pale blue. For the sake of comfort, I would likely opt for one of the fabric bands, which are soft and breathable. Those come in more interesting colors, including a fashionable yellow.
The Galaxy Watch 9 uses Samsung’s proprietary band system, which is a breeze to swap out, and helps the watch sit more flush to your skin to improve sensor accuracy. The downside is that you likely won’t be able to bring your older bands to this design if you have an older Samsung smartwatch model (Watch 8 or earlier).
My personal beef with smartwatches is that in spite of over a decade of innovation, many of them are still uncomfortably bulky. That’s not the case with the Galaxy Watch 9. The 40-mm model provided the ideal fit for me, but I was even happy wearing the larger 44-mm version. I like a watch that’s comfy enough to sleep in, and I can’t imagine ever feeling the need to take this one off, except when it needs recharging.
That jives with what my colleague, CNET principal writer Vanessa Hand Orellana, found when she reviewed the Watch 8 last year. “I usually dread wearing smartwatches to bed, but with this one, I almost forgot I had it on,” she said.
Perhaps it’s no wonder, then that Samsung hasn’t overhauled the watch’s design for this next generation. It’s taken an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach, while prioritizing more meaningful changes that are actually likely to improve people’s experience of using the watch as a gadget.
Galaxy Watch 9 battery and processor
It’s under the hood where the Galaxy Watch 9 has seen the upgrades that most set it apart from its predecessor. The watch has been re-engineered internally to incorporate a beefier battery and a more powerful processor.
The Samsung team seems genuinely excited about Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear Elite chip, which is the engine the Watch 9 (and the Ultra 2) is built upon. The company’s ever-strengthening relationship with the chipmaker has led to more of its processors appearing in Samsung products, and not just the most advanced and expensive ones.
Andrew Lanxon/CNETThe Wear Elite platform speeds everything up, meaning that while the watch packs no new sensors this year, the real-time processing and feedback of your data should be much faster. This will be especially useful for anyone using the Galaxy Watch 9 for insights while working out, as well as AI features such as Gemini.
It should also allow for better battery management. This is in addition to the boost in actual battery capacity that the new 390-mAh and 445-mAh batteries (in the 40-mm and 44-mm models, respectively) should provide. This, according to Samsung, should translate to 30-40 hours of runtime depending on the size of the watch. This is up from the 325-mAh, and 435-mAh capacity batteries on last year’s versions. The company also says the watches use AI to learn your usage patterns, which should optimize battery life even further.
Galaxy Watch 9 AI and fitness features
A subtle but fun AI feature you need to know about on the Galaxy Watch 9 is that if you choose a photo of someone as your watch face, the algorithm will insert time details in the empty space around them.
I had fun using pictures of my cat (dropped by my iPhone via Apple’s AirDrop and Samsung’s now-compatible Quickshare) to test this out. Hopefully, whoever gets to play with the demo model next will enjoy seeing his face pop up.
We’re already impressed with the Gemini experience on Samsung watches, but a new feature is about to take ease of activation up a notch. To activate Gemini on the Galaxy Watch 9, all you need to do is raise the watch toward your mouth and start talking — no wake words required.
This will come in handy if you own multiple Gemini-equipped devices, or even if you’re in the vicinity of one belonging to someone else. It should eliminate those moments when another device erroneously wakes up when you’re trying to talk to your watch. It also makes hands-free interactions on a tiny screen a lot less cumbersome.
A slew of new fitness features include vitals insights, a heart health checker, a feature that measures cardio load (how hard you’re working out) and a “fitness index” that provides a picture of your overall health and how it aligns with your goals. I was impressed by how holistic this is: It includes metrics such as body composition, strength and flexibility. It will then make suggestions for how to improve the specific metrics most important for your training.
If you’re working toward a triathlon, for example (not me, but I salute you if you are), you might need to work on your cardio fitness and endurance. If you’re planning to climb a mountain, on the other hand, you might need to prioritize building your strength and elevation gain.
It feels like Samsung has built a platform that’ll support people in building their own healthy lifestyle, which can be appreciated no matter where you are on your fitness journey.
Samsung hasn’t disclosed yet whether these new health features require hardware that would make them exclusive to the newer models, but if so, it could be yet another reason to upgrade.
Galaxy Watch 9 pricing and availability
If you’re sold on the idea of the Galaxy Watch 9, these are the dates you’ll need to put in your diary. The watch will be available for preorder starting immediately, and will go on general sale from Aug. 7.
The 40-mm Bluetooth version of the device starts at $380 and the LTE model starts at $430. We’ll be running more tests on these watches over the coming weeks, so check back in for a full review of all the new features and battery life testing.
