So I've had the S, s2 sport, s2 classic, s3 classic and s3 frontier. This one (the galaxy watch, 42mm) is the first I ever bought new. So I've had some experience with the Samsung watches.
This watch really is all about 3 things... Tizen 4.0, battery life, and swim capability. If also so some minor build quality improvements in the rotating bezel.
It's is a shame that Samsung just doesn't software features from new devices to old ones. It's been a fault of theirs since the beginning (I've had a few of their phones and tablets too...) tizen 4.0 has some minor feature improvements, the drop down screen is better, some graphics are improved, but mostly that's it. I think the performance improvements come from the hardware, and maybe my gear s3 just couldn't support the updated OS.
Battery. An hour of working out without GPS took 6% off the battery. Holy crap that's good. We'll see how it goes with a GPS run when my knees are better.
Finally, I did a lap swimming workout. I was eager to start a swimming routine anyway, but unlike running, I have no real lifelong metric to compare my performance to. I don't know what is fast or a good pace, good number of strokes, etc. Here are some screenshots of the data collected. There is one erroneous lap from me stopping ecause of a cramp that registered as me turning around I guess.
What was interesting is that I didn't even know what data to track. Apparently there is something called a "swolf", which is short for swim golf... Which is some composite score of stokes an time.
What was really awesome is that the watch actually measure what type of stroke I took for each lap, I switched between breast stroke and freestyle.
So far, no big surprises. I like this watch because I liked the gear s3. I don't like the styling as much, but that is subjective. I liked the classic most. I am super impressed with the swim function, and glad to have tizen 4.0. I would say if you have a gear s3, keep it. If you have an s2, upgrade if you have the cash. Truthfully, the s2 was a great device, and still is worth having if you don't care about swimming or your altitude (I never cared about altitude).
Oh, and while the Hr data is there, I don't think it is super accurate I'm not a great swimmer, and it was mostly blank while I was under water. It did pick up ok when I took brief breaks, and I had it quite snug against my wrist. Also the 11 second lap is clearly an error. I wish there was a way to delete data for an accurate composite.
This watch really is all about 3 things... Tizen 4.0, battery life, and swim capability. If also so some minor build quality improvements in the rotating bezel.
It's is a shame that Samsung just doesn't software features from new devices to old ones. It's been a fault of theirs since the beginning (I've had a few of their phones and tablets too...) tizen 4.0 has some minor feature improvements, the drop down screen is better, some graphics are improved, but mostly that's it. I think the performance improvements come from the hardware, and maybe my gear s3 just couldn't support the updated OS.
Battery. An hour of working out without GPS took 6% off the battery. Holy crap that's good. We'll see how it goes with a GPS run when my knees are better.
Finally, I did a lap swimming workout. I was eager to start a swimming routine anyway, but unlike running, I have no real lifelong metric to compare my performance to. I don't know what is fast or a good pace, good number of strokes, etc. Here are some screenshots of the data collected. There is one erroneous lap from me stopping ecause of a cramp that registered as me turning around I guess.
What was interesting is that I didn't even know what data to track. Apparently there is something called a "swolf", which is short for swim golf... Which is some composite score of stokes an time.
What was really awesome is that the watch actually measure what type of stroke I took for each lap, I switched between breast stroke and freestyle.
So far, no big surprises. I like this watch because I liked the gear s3. I don't like the styling as much, but that is subjective. I liked the classic most. I am super impressed with the swim function, and glad to have tizen 4.0. I would say if you have a gear s3, keep it. If you have an s2, upgrade if you have the cash. Truthfully, the s2 was a great device, and still is worth having if you don't care about swimming or your altitude (I never cared about altitude).
Oh, and while the Hr data is there, I don't think it is super accurate I'm not a great swimmer, and it was mostly blank while I was under water. It did pick up ok when I took brief breaks, and I had it quite snug against my wrist. Also the 11 second lap is clearly an error. I wish there was a way to delete data for an accurate composite.
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