GROUP TEST SMARTWATCHESTime to choose a companion from the new wave of lightweight smartwatches
Let’s tick together
What’s the story?
Samsung’s Galaxy Watches
have always offered a fine
blend of performance and
design. The Galaxy Watch3
isn’t cheap, matching the base
price of an Apple Watch 5, but
it’s a handsome mix of leather
and metal with physical buttons
and a rotating bezel to help
you navigate its many features.
There’s a 41mm version for
smaller wrists, but an extra
£20 for the 45mm version
might be money well spent.Is it any good?
The 360x360 Super AMOLED
display is pin-sharp, allowing
even the smallest of text to
be easily read, while the deep
blacks and punchy colours
draw you right in.
It may be running the same
processor as the first Galaxy
Watch, but we found no issues
with speed – and with 1GB of
RAM, Samsung’s Tizen OS runs
slippery-smooth. Navigating
menus is a joy with the rotating
bezel, while a combination oftouchscreen and side buttons
is used to select, go back or
bring up shortcuts.
Fitness features are robust,
tracking plenty of activities plus
calories, steps, heart rate and
blood oxygen level, but ECG
and blood pressure monitoring
are yet to be unlocked outside
of South Korea.
Sleep tracking works well,
made more useful by how light
and comfy the Watch3 is to
wear, even in bed. You can also
set it to monitor stress levelsevery 10 minutes, then suggest
breathing exercises to make
you more zen.
This is one of the hottest
smartwatches around, with
only battery life and the price
tag dousing the flames a little.Price from £399 / stuff.tv/GW 3
O 1.2in (41mm) or 1.3in (45mm)
360x360 AMOLED O Tizen
O 4G, Bluetooth 5, Wi-Fi, NFC,
GPS O 50m water-resistance
O Up to 6 days’ battery O 48.2g
(41mm) or 53.8g (45mm)Samsung Galaxy Watch3
GIGA-BITE
While all models
come with 8GB of
storage, around half
of that is used up
by the OS and
pre-installed apps.
CELL ME SHORT
Samsung has cut
the max battery
size to 340mAh;
the one in the
first Galaxy Watch
was 472mAh.STUFF SAYS A gorgeous blend of form and function – one of the top smartwatches of 2020 +++++