Samsung Galaxy Watch Active review: Affordable and feature-packed

Strip the Samsung’s Galaxy Watch of its signature rotating bezel, shrink the round display, and ditch all the ornamentation around the case, and what you’re left with is the Galaxy Watch Active.

At $199, the Galaxy Watch Active is a bargain compared to the Apple Watch Series 4, which starts at $399, and Samsung’s own regular Galaxy Watch, which starts at $329.99.

I’ve been wearing the Galaxy Watch Active for the last few weeks, and I really thought I would miss the rotating bezel, but it turns out it’s not essential — swiping on the round touchscreen works just fine. 

That’s not to say that Samsung’s Galaxy Watch is a perfect smartwatch. The battery life is a little lackluster, and even the most basic Fitbit does a better job at fitness-tracking. But at $199, there’s little to truly complain about. 

Although the Galaxy Watch Active works with both iOS and Android, you’ll get more out of it if you pair it to an Android phone. That’s because core iOS features like iMessage, Siri, and Apple Mail simply don’t work on the Galaxy Watch. Don’t get me wrong, you can still see text messages as notifications, but you won’t be able to respond to them directly from the Galaxy Watch Active or send new ones to anyone.

This half-baked iOS experience isn’t entirely exclusive to Apple’s own apps. Some third-party apps, like WhatsApp, are subject to the same limitations — you can view notifications, but not take any action for them.

On Android, these problems don’t exist, and everything works as it should. So, if you own an iPhone I recommend you get an Apple Watch instead. 

Smaller, simpler, and more comfortable

Many tech critics took one look at the Galaxy Watch Active’s smaller 40mm size (the Galaxy Watch, comparatively, comes in 42mm and 46mm sizes) and lack of a rotating bezel and immediately said, “No, thanks.” I felt the complete opposite. 

Sure, the Galaxy Watch Active’s round AMOLED display is a little smaller (1.1 inches compared to 1.2 inches on the 42mm Galaxy Watch and 1.3 inches on the 46mm Galaxy Watch), but I can’t say it’s made reading text or tapping on icons any worse.

As far as pixels on a smartwatch goes, the Galaxy Watch Active’s screen looks really good and is very visible outdoors. In fact, I often dialed the brightness down to a level two or three setting, and it was still plenty sharp.

Besides the smaller screen, a lot of people complained about the missing bezel control. On the Galaxy Watch and past Samsung smartwatches, the bezel rotates and acts as a control ring to navigate around the Tizen OS interface. While a control ring is much faster for flying around the software, I didn’t really miss it because I don’t spend that much time trying to do things on a smartwatch.

For me, at least — and I think this goes for a lot of people — the watch isn’t a device for multitasking, so the speed a control ring brings isn’t necessary. I had no issues swiping between the different notification screens and widgets.

On the right side of the Galaxy Watch Active’s case are two buttons: a “back” button on the top and a button on the bottom that launches Tizen OS’s apps screen (displayed in a ring). Both are clicky and responsive.

The best thing, though, is that the Galaxy Watch Active’s pared-down design makes it more comfortable to wear. I usually hate wearing fitness trackers or smartwatches to sleep because they’re bulky and dig into my skin, but the Galaxy Watch Active’s smooth, curved edges, along with its lightness, made it a comfortable bedtime companion. 

The smartwatch comes with a silicone band (with an extra strap size for larger wrists). You can easily swap that out with a strap of your own liking, so long as it’s 20mm wide.

Not everyone’s gonna like the Galaxy Watch Active’s minimalist design. But if you’ve been waiting for Samsung to make a more understated smartwatch, here it is.

Works just like the Galaxy Watch

Design differences aside, the Galaxy Watch Active works exactly the same as the Galaxy Watch. Both are powered by Samsung’s own custom Exynos 9110 chip, come with 768MB of RAM (the cellular version of the Galaxy Watch has 1.5GB of RAM, but there’s no cellular version of the Galaxy Watch Active), and have 4GB of internal storage.

The Galaxy Watch Active also runs the same Tizen OS 4.0 software as the Galaxy Watch. Tizen OS 4.0 is easy to use and far more elegant than Google’s dilapidated Wear OS platform.

If you’ve used Tizen OS on a smartwatch, you won’t find any new surprises here. Swiping right from the watch face shows all of your notifications and swiping left displays all of the widgets (i.e activity tracking, heart rate monitor, weather, sleep tracking, etc.) you’ve created shortcuts for.

There’s little the Galaxy Watch Active can’t do compared to its larger and pricier Galaxy Watch siblings. Want your heart rate constantly monitored? The Galaxy Watch Active does it. Want to automatically start a workout? Easy. Listen to music with Spotify? No problem. Track your sleep? You got it.

The Galaxy Watch Active can also track things like steps as accurately as a Galaxy Watch. Compared to an Apple Watch or Fitbit Versa, however, the Galaxy Watch Active was always off by anywhere between 150-250 steps. If you’re looking for more accurate fitness-tracking, there are other smartwatches or fitness trackers that are more reliable.

New to the Galaxy Watch Active is blood-pressure monitoring. It’s available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Australia, and Singapore via the My BP Lab app. With this new feature, Samsung’s focusing on body mindfulness to quantify and help users better understand their stress levels. 

My BP Lab is useful to help you get a better picture of your health using the Galaxy Watch Active’s sensors, but it’s not a replacement for a doctor and shouldn’t be treated as one. At best, it’s yet another digital guardian on your wrist to get seemingly always-busy people like myself to pay closer attention to how stress might be impacting our health. If the My BP Lab app shows something unusual, you should visit your physician for a checkup.

The only feature where the Galaxy Watch Active falls short is battery life. It only lasts about a day, unless you turn off things like the GPS and the constant heart rate-monitoring or dial down the brightness setting. Unlike the Galaxy Watch and Apple Watch Series 4, which can go up to two days on a single charge, this is a smartwatch that you’ll need to plop onto its magnetic charger every night.

It’s an affordable, feature-packed smartwatch

The hype around smartwatches isn’t what it used to be. Nowadays, Wear OS smartwatches are hanging on by a thread, saddled with old and slow performance, and the only real smartwatches to consider are made by either Samsung or Apple.

At $199, the Galaxy Watch Active is a really affordable option. Yes, it doesn’t have cellular connectivity, but as far as feature-packed smartwatches go, the Galaxy Watch Active has a lot going for it. And it’s a particularly great companion device for your wrist if you own an Android phone. If you’re an iPhone user, skip it and get an Apple Watch.