I’ve just completed a long journey that involved hiking, sleeping on riverbeds, camping in the foothills of the Himalayas, living in tribal areas, and staying as far away from urban landscapes as possible. It was a necessary change. It was also my first long period of time in which the Apple Watch wasn’t my wrist companion.
This time I gave the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic a chance. Samsung’s $499 smartwatch is a mix of luxurious looks and next-generation health features, all built on solid AI foundations.
Aside from the usual strengths like diverse activity tracking, improved biosensor accuracy, customizable action button, and more, there’s a lot to like about this smartwatch. But over the course of a month, I realized that the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic represents a step forward in a few important ways.
It can actually get work done
“I don’t want another screen on my wrist.”
This is a sentiment I hear often in the smartwatch community. There is also clear FOMO in this segment. I know many people who will spend between $200 and $400 on a smartwatch and barely use half of the features available, let alone the full range of health and wellness monitoring capabilities.
Soon they’ll have enough of “yet another device” demanding their attention with annoying charging issues, notification tasks, and more. This apparent disconnect isn’t because the smartwatches were bad, but simply because the wearable couldn’t serve a purpose that’s fundamentally different (or more convenient) than their trusty phone.
The Galaxy Watch 8 Classic serves this purpose thanks to a much smarter onboard assistant. Say hello to twins! This next-generation AI agent is a big step forward from Google Assistant, Bixby or Siri on the Apple Watch. In fact, it can accomplish a handful of tasks with far less effort than using a phone.
But it’s not just Gemini’s advantages on paper that make it stand out. It’s only when you try hard in difficult situations that you realize how helpful it can be. You see, this is not a robot answering machine. Gemini is a powerful language model that manages natural conversations with human-like ease and native access to rich knowledge.
It understands complex, multi-step questions and open-ended requests – while Siri often falls short or simply redirects you to a web search. “Hey Gemini, find me the nearest clinic and open a map navigation view there.” Riding as a pillion on a scooter in a cool, rural landscape and completing the task directly on the smartwatch is a huge relief.
Not having to take my phone out of my jeans pocket for a variety of tasks is a huge convenience. From perusing the latest news, the twins’ narration of a tribal land’s food history while strolling through a quaint village to having a natural conversation with seamless follow-up questions is extremely practical.
When traveling, your itinerary notes are a lifesaver. Gemini can use these and a host of other key Google services like Gmail to access important information with just a voice command. I also liked how it could handle my WhatsApp conversations while all I had to do was speak the voice commands in my earbuds without ever touching my phone.
An assistant on your wrist that is smarter, more talkative and takes advantage of all the services that people use every day is a real savior. I only realized the sheer convenience when I took the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic outside of my comfort zone, and it exceeded my practical expectations.
Feeling for the future
We take smartwatches for granted, especially health detection technology. Every single feature, from measuring oxygen saturation to something as advanced as ECG and AFib detection, requires years of engineering work and careful medical validation. It’s not hard to understand why this is, and it also explains the loud “FDA certified” claims from manufacturers like Apple and Samsung.
But the slow and steady approach to wearable sensing technologies also means breakthroughs don’t happen every year. Smartwatches started measuring heart rate, and in 2025 we will have reached a state where they can also detect abnormal changes in blood pressure.
The Galaxy Watch 8 Classic pushes the limits thanks to a next-generation sensor stack and wellness algorithms that can provide additional insights, such as: B. Energy value, vascular strain, ectopic beat detection and an industry-first nutritional measurement system that can measure carotenoid levels.
But these characteristics are not just “another number.” Instead, they provide a more digestible breakdown of your sleep, rest, and body energy status that is easy for a normal person to grasp. Let’s start with the “Vascular Strain” function.
It monitors the blood flow in your vessels while you sleep and how stiff the arteries are during this movement. The general idea is to measure how much “work” the heart does during the time you close your eyes. The results are displayed on three major levels. More importantly, they provide insight into your sleep quality, stress levels, and dietary habits that may impact normal heart activity.
In short, it is a more accessible way to understand heart activity health. Instead of vague numbers, you get a rating on a scale of Higher, Slightly Higher, Constant, Slightly Lower, and Lower. Similarly, there is the Energy Score system, which combines data from sleep quality, stress levels and activity history to give you a daily summary of your physical and mental performance.
Similarly, the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic offers a unique Antioxidant Index system. With a press of a thumb on the light-activated BioActive sensor, the Galaxy Watch 8 classic can measure levels of an important category of antioxidants known as carotenoids.
Broadly speaking, carotenoid levels provide insight into your vegetable and fruit intake, which provides the body with important nutrients that keep us healthy. In just five seconds, the Samsung smartwatch can classify your carotenoid levels into three levels and also offers suggestions such as: E.g. drinking some carrot juice or eating an orange.
It’s not as accurate as those bulky, laser-based antioxidant sensors that rely on Raman spectroscopy. However, Samsung claims that the feature has “a high level of accuracy.” As a regular smartwatch user, it is more important to me that the wearable on my wrist can measure an important biomarker and encourage me to make healthy dietary changes.
I don’t need to explain the importance of an antioxidant-rich diet and how it relates to body health. And if my smartwatch can provide a scientific evaluation of this crucial measurement, I would be happy to use it. For me, this feature was an important reminder to eat a balanced diet when traveling.
The often ignored design situation
I’ve broken or damaged more smartwatches than I can admit. Still, I can’t imagine going out without one. But accidents happen, and unannounced. This is one area where the Galaxy Watch 8 performs far better than its Apple or Google competitors.
On the Apple Watch and Pixel Watch you have a slim display with sloping sides and thin bezels. It’s a feast for the eyes, but quite fragile. A small dent on a railing or wall and you have a crack in the corner that needs expensive replacement. You can add a bumper cover, but it’s terribly ugly.
The Galaxy Watch 8 Classic offers an elegant solution to these durability issues. This one looks more like a well-designed mechanical watch (with stunning dials) than your average smartwatch. But more importantly, it’s worth studying.
To give you an idea, the Apple Watch Series 11 has an IP6X rating, which means it can only withstand exposure to water. The Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, on the other hand, offers an IP68-certified body with military-grade MIL-STD-810H construction.
Instead of exposed glass, you have a metallic platform covering the sides and shielding the display at the top with a rotating bezel. This bezel is not just a feast for the eyes. It’s a physical interface element that can be rotated in either direction to switch between workouts, scroll past notifications, or explore the app gallery and system menu pages.
Touch input can be difficult, especially when the screen is wet (raining or swimming). Or if you wear gloves. Combined with a system-wide gesture control system, the rotating bezel offers a completely different way to control every aspect of the device without ever interacting with the touch-sensitive display.
Speaking of the display, it’s an extremely bright OLED panel that hits an impressive 3,000 nits mark, much more than your average high-end device. Simply put, what you have is a smartwatch that’s more rugged, sleeker, and capable of handling demanding terrain without sacrificing serious usability or endurance.
Overall, the $100 extra you’re paying over a regular Apple Watch gets you a watch that’s stronger, far smarter, and more future-proof when it comes to wellness features. And after taking it on a long adventure, I don’t see myself moving away from the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic anytime soon.
