Samsung's finest smartwatch yet has converted me in just 3 weeks

I've never been a 'smartwatch person'. I've worn, reviewed and tried out a bunch, yes, but almost without exception, once the test is over and the loan return label arrives in my inbox, I happily pack them up to send back to their maker, without regret or hint of grief.

Which makes the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic a first for me.

I love it. And I want to keep it.

So if Samsung asks you, you haven't seen me, and you haven't heard anything about any watch, okay?

Build and design

New generations of smartwatches are often near-identical to previous generations, mostly because how much can you change, really? It's just a watch, after all. Yes, a fancy digital one, but still just a wrist accessory with a watch face, after.

Turns out Samsung can push that envelope further than I thought, and in a surprising direction, too. The Watch8 Classic is very noticeably different from its most direct predecessor, the Watch6 Classic, mostly because they've made it look more like a watch?

Yes, Samsung has made the revolutionary call to make their flagship smartwatch look as much as a classic analogue timepiece as possible, with a circular silver frame (and one that you can rotate too, like I can with my 'proper' watch) and a leather-feel hybrid band that emulates the look and feel of a classic watch. It's available in five colours, and other, more sporty alternatives are available for those who prefer, but I'm a fan of the Proper Looking Watch Band (patent pending) that comes as standard.

Weighing 63.5 grams, the casing is all-metal, with a Quick Button and two additional function buttons on the side, along with the rotating bezel that you can use to toggle through its on-screen menu. The screen reaches a maximum of 3000 nits, and can become an astonishingly bright torch (that's 'flashlight' for the Americans in here) when needed. All put together, it's a big upgrade from the cheaper, sportier aesthetics of the Watch6 Classic.

There are hundreds of watch faces available, as tradition dictates, but my favourites are all subtle variations on the 12-hour analogue watch face. Like the Apple Watch, you can feature a selection of quick-reference menus within your watch face, the circles we all try so hard to close every day here presented as a heart, which I find rather fitting, considering Samsung's heavy focus on a holistic health-tracking suite of features here.

Features and performance

There are more sensors hidden underneath this 46mm screen than on some early-era spacecraft.

The sensors in the Watch8 Classic include [deep breath]: an accelerometer, barometer, bioelectrical impedance analysis sensor, electrical heart sensor, gyro sensor, geomagnetic sensor, hall sensor, infrared temperature sensor, light sensor, and an optical heart rate sensor.

What these sensors have done, in as plain an English as I can put it, in my three weeks with the watch, is, erm, monitor my overall health.

Now, I currently suffer from suspected Long Covid, which for example has an effect on my blood oxygen saturation and my stamina, so I was fascinated to see whether it could help me monitor and perhaps have a positive effect on my overall health. In addition, Samsung boasts of stress-measuring features in the watch (which combine measurements from various sensors), to provide stress alerts and guidance to reduce stress levels. As someone with clinical depression and anxiety, I was both intrigued and dubious.

I took the watch through a comprehensive measurement of all my various vitals, including vascular load, blood pressure, and heart rhythm measurements while awake, as well as snore detection and sleep stage measurements while sleeping.

All of these claim to then employ the assistance of the onboard Gemini AI agent to provide health and wellness tips, including mindfulness exercises, bedtime suggestions and sleep coaching tips.

And when it comes to real-life applications, the basic features, such as step counter, GPS tracker, exercise logger (which automatically detects walks, jogs and biking and will record and log it without me having to do a thing) and heart rate sensor all work as well as on any smartwatch I've used. The GPS on-board also logs my bicycle and walking routes, Garmin-stylez, so I can see nice map overlays of how my very gradual steps to battle my Long Covid symptoms are increasing my range and stamina, day by day.

I also get activity reminders, nudging me to get up off my lazy arse every now and then as I sit in front of this computer, writing and editing reviews like this one here.

As for the stress sensor, I had forgotten about it until I had a very frazzled evening about a week in. I'd had a busy day with lots of unexpected side quests, and was running around trying to get dinner done while hanging up laundry and dealing with mess that my cat had made, when the Watch8 buzzed to let me know it was detecting heightened stress levels, suggesting I do a breathing exercise. After a few choice words in the watch's direction, I composed myself, did the stupid breathing exercise for my stupid mental and physical health, and then got on with my busy evening.

Later that same evening, I realised one thing. The watch had alerted me using a feature I set up days earlier, and yes, it had required a quick interaction to acknowledge that I received the message, but that was the only digital-interface interaction it demanded in that moment. It didn't push me to a website, or suggest another phone- or screen-based activity, but rather just... helped me? I was very confused. This surely shouldn't happen in today's screen-obsessed, always-on, late-stage capitalist world.

As for telling the time, it does so with atomic-clock-level accuracy, and it does all the things we have somehow come to expect from our wrist accessories, such as telling us how hot it is outside, when someone emails us (a feature that can thankfully be turned off), when I have a meeting coming up, or how many goals Arsenal has scored in today's match, as well as letting me start and stop the music on the speaker in the kitchen and set several concurrent timers for the various items I'm cooking so that once, just one time please, I might be able to get them all ready at broadly the same time for dinner.

It's truly the first smartwatch I've had that does all those things in an effort to get you to spend less time looking at it and more time doing things in the real world. If only all digital gadgets did that, I might be less stressed and full of dread...

Battery life

Samsung states the Watch8 Classic should last up to 30 hours on a single charge with antioxidant detection turned on, and I found it usually lasted 28-30 hours in that setting. When I used it a lot, such as using the exercise tracker, stopwatch, timer and more features extensively in a day, it would go down to about 26 and a half hours, but this is a fair battery life in my mind, especially as it recharges from empty to full in about 70 minutes, and if I charge it while having a shower in the morning, I can always use it at least until pre-bedtime prompts me to give it a quick charge if I want to track my sleep with it on later.

Price

Okay, I need you to sit down, and maybe remove your watch if it has stress detection activated, for this one.

At the time of writing, the Samsung Galaxy Watch8 Classic costs a whiplash-inducing £449 in the UK and $499.99 in the US.

That's [chuckles nervously] a lot of money for a watch. But if you want a smartwatch that actually works as intended, doesn't guilt-trip you into spending all day interacting with it, and you have the budget? There's nothing better on the market right now.

Buy it if...

• You want a first-class smartwatch
• You want one that looks like a classic timepiece
• You want all the health features of a fitness band and the productivity features of a smartwatch in one

Don't buy it if...

• You already have an outstanding mortgage