Samsung Updates The Galaxy Watch Family for 2023

Along with updating its line of Foldable phones, Samsung also updated two of its smartwatch lines today with the Watch 6 and Watch 6 Classic. With the Watch 6 Classic Samsung is bringing back the rotating bezel, and both receive larger screens, with newer more efficient chipsets, let’s look at the more interesting one first shall we?

The Galaxy Watch 6 Classic as always comes in two sizes, but those sizes are both slightly larger this year, being 43mm and 47mm, up from 42mm and 46mm. The resolution of both models goes up as well, the 47mm model is now 480×480 instead of 450×450, and the 43mm model is 432×432 instead of 396×396. The bezels on both watches are 30% smaller than on the Watch 4 Classic (remember there was no Watch 5 classic) and the rotating bezel itself is 12% smaller with less play in it, feeling substantially nicer in use. Now, if you take everything I just said, and remove any mention of the rotating bezel, you have the Galaxy Watch 6. You swap stainless steel for Armor Aluminum, and the knurled rotating bezel for flat glass, the 43mm and 47mm bodies are 40mm and 44mm this time but they have the same 1.3” and 1.5” screens with identical resolutions, in fact, the rest of the watches are nigh on identical too, so let’s get into that.

Swapping out the Exynos W920 we now have the Exynos W930, with a higher clockspeed at 1.4ghz over 1.18Ghz. Samsung has upped the RAM from 1.5GB to 2GB, though internal storage of both stays the same at 16GB, though that should be plenty for some apps and music. Both watches have the same 425mAh and 300mAh batteries and “WPC-based wireless charging” so, likely a slightly modified version of Qi. They both have Bluetooth 5.3, support for LTE (in a separate version) NFC, Beidou, GLONASS and GPS and everything else you would likely want in a watch.

Speaking of apps, this is WearOS 4 with OneUI watch 5.0, with all the Google-y goodness and Samsung flair on top, this is once again more like the Tizen UI with wearOS underpinnings and the Google Play Store, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I think it works quite well and that Samsung has made their UI work well with the rotating bezel paradigm better than most integrate a rotating crown, so good on them.

Pricing-wise, they are as follows:

• Galaxy Watch 6 40mm BT – £289
• Galaxy Watch 6 44mm BT – £319
• Galaxy Watch 6 40mm LTE – £339
• Galaxy Watch 6 44mm LTE – £369

In colours, Graphite, Silver and gold, with Gold being exclusive to the 40mm and Silver being exclusive to the 44mm, graphite is available on Both. The Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, it’s available in Black and silver colours, with either an eco-leather strap and pricing is as follows:

• Galaxy Watch 6 Classic 43mm BT – £369
• Galaxy Watch 6 Classic 47mm BT – £399
• Galaxy Watch 6 Classic 43mm LTE – £429
• Galaxy Watch 6 Classic 47mm LTE – £459

Much the same as the phones, the Watch 6 series will be available to pre-order today July 26th and will be available to buy on August 11th.