Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: One minute review

Unveiled at Samsung Unpacked 2023, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic was overshadowed by those new foldables (the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5) and probably didn't get all the love it deserves. This bold, big-faced WearOS smartwatch is as adept at delivering you the time, weather, and alerts as it is tracking your activities, workouts, and overall health in a way few wearables have attempted before.

This is a statement watch that offers a massive 37.3mm screen and the return of the rotatable bezel. As an old-school watch collector, I love the look of the bezel, even as I acknowledge that there is no practical reason for it to exist. The touch screen lets you swipe through modes, apps, and notifications. The action of turning the physical rotating dial does the same thing.

You don't buy the large Samsung Galaxy 6 Classic for extra features or even more battery life. They're all the same as the standard Galaxy Watch 6. This is about a love of big watches and the enjoyment of other people noticing the big, bright smartwatch on your wrist.

Samsung has packed the 59g (the 43mm Classic weighs just 33.3g) with features and sensors. It can track your activity, heartbeat, ECG, and temperature, and analyze your body composition and sleep habits, although good luck wearing such an obtrusive watch in your sleep. Otherwise, it's a perfect companion for your best Samsung Galaxy Phone. I tested it with the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5; while it delivers notifications from the phone to the watch, at other times you can start your journey on the watch and have it open on the phone.

It's a tough watch, ready to go for a swim and take a drop on the floor. Battery life improved over a series of days to the point where I could finally wear it, sleep with it, and then keep wearing it the next day without having to charge it until midday. That impressive battery might be due, in part, to the new Exynos W930 chipset, which might be doing some better power management, even with the giant always-on display. It certainly makes it a good performer, as the watch is peppy and responsive.

I don't love the size but that may be a personal preference. It'll be hard to find a better really-big WearOS smartwatch than this one.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Specifications

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Price and availability

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic debuted during Samsung Unpacked on July 26, alongside the Watch 6, the Tab S9 series, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 phones.

In the US, we have prices for the Bluetooth-only Watch 6 Classic models, which costs $399.99 for the 43mm model, and $429.99 for the 47mm model. The LTE-enabled watches, which do not require a smartphone to access the internet, cost a little extra: $449.99 for the 43mm model, and $479.99 for the 47mm.

In the UK, prices start at £369 for the Bluetooth-only 43mm model and £429 for the 43mm LTE option. The 47mm size costs £399 for Bluetooth-only and £459 for the LTE-capable watch.

Australian Samsung users can expect to pay AU$699 for the 43mm Bluetooth-only watch, AU$799 for a 43mm LTE-capable model, AU$749 for 47mm Bluetooth-only option, and AU $849 for a 47mm LTE-capable watch. 

Remember, all the prices above are for the Watch 6 Classic: for the standard Watch 6 prices, you'll need to check out our Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 review. 

Value score: 4/5

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Design

• Larger 47mm sizes
• Rotating bezel looks great
• Stylish and bold

I have drawers full of classic analog, windup watches, and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic would look at home next to any of them. Even though a lot of smartwatch designs started as variations of traditional watch themes including crowns and complications, they have over time moved away from that. Even Samsung's baseline Galaxy Watch 6 has shed many of the analog watch accouterments in favor of sleek clean lines and a perfectly flat watch face.

The Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, though, goes in a different direction, adopting the retro look of a beefy analog windup. Separating the watch's two main, customizable buttons, for example, is an island of metal that serves no functional purpose but is clearly a callback to watch designs of old. Then there's the bezel. Early Samsung smartwatches had it but it was gone in Galaxy Watch 5. Now our knurled, rotatable friend is back, and it has control of the watch features. 

You can turn it counterclockwise to see notifications or the right to access key watch features like exercise modes. Once inside each feature, the bezel can walk you through app controls and settings. More on this in my software section.

Samsung redesigned the watch band release and now uses an on-band button to retract the pins so you can pull off the band. I found the button a bit confusing because there's no physical indication that you can freely remove the band, you just have to press and pull. 

On the curved back are sensors to track your heart, ECG, and temperature. It also has a barometer, gyroscope, and light sensor. This is a big watch, measuring 47mm: 46.5 x 46.5 x 10.9 mm, and weighing 59g. To put that in perspective. the smaller 40mm Galaxy Watch 6 weighs just 28.7g, and for comparison, the 45mm Apple Watch 8 weighs 51.5g with GPS and cellular support. You can check out our Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 vs Apple Watch 8 comparison piece for more info there.

With IP68 and military-spec ratings for withstanding dips, shocks, drops, and wide temperature variations, the smartwatch is ready for a dive (50 meters for 10 minutes) and a climb up your nearest mountain. I didn't go climbing but did dunk the smartwatch in some water, after which it was no worse for the wear.

Design-wise, this is a watch to get you noticed. Subtlety is discarded for a readable-at-a-distance watch face and an aggressive design. If you're already wearing a large watch, the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic might be a perfect fit.

Design score: 4/5

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Display

• Perfectly round
• Big and bold
• Sharp, colorful, and bright

Samsung fitted the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic with a big, 1.5-inch AMOLED, Always-On display. The round screen is beautiful to look at and quite sharp thanks to a 480x480 resolution, which, in one way, beats our Apple Watch 8's 396 by 484 pixels.

As a touch screen, it's fast and responsive. Plus, it's well-protected under a Sapphire crystal cover.

Display score: 4.5/5

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Software and key features

• Improved Sleep features
• Custom Workouts
• Comprehensive heart health information

While email, meeting, weather, and other app notifications are table stakes for most smartwatches, companies like Samsung are still innovating on wearable health, wellness, and fitness features. 

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic is packed with features that track all manner of your physical well-being. On the fitness front, Samsung manages to be somewhat more proactive than Apple. I wore both the Apple Watch 8 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 classic whenever I went for a walk. Both watches can detect when I'm engaged in physical activity, but only the Galaxy Watch would automatically begin tracking the walk without any intervention from me and end it when I stopped, again without me having to tap the screen or hit a button. I loved this.

Samsung has most of the fitness routines covered including running, walking, cycling, hiking, swimming (indoor and out), treadmill, exercise bike, circuit training, weight machines, and other. For my free weights, pushups, and pullups, I tended to use "other." While Samsung doesn't have a studio full of trainers, a la Apple's Fitness Plus, it does offer an on-watch running trainer. I'm not a runner, so I didn't try this out.

There's also passive activity tracking that looks at steps, time spent, and calories burned. Instead of closing rings as you do on an Apple Watch, you're closing colorful heart-shaped bands. Like the Apple Watch, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic (and its siblings) will remind you to stand up and get moving and will cheer you when you've done so.

The watch can even assess your body composition, which is something I've never done before. You enter details like your height and weight and then awkwardly carefully place your middle and ring fingers against the watch's two buttons without touching your arm. This is so it can send a low-power electrical current through your body to measure your bone, fat and muscle mass, just like one of the best smart scales. The process is called bioelectric impedance analysis, and it's awkward but works. 

The watch guides you to stay still and extend your arms so your armpits are open. I know, it's all a bit weird. Sometimes, it didn't work, and the watch recommended I moisturize my fingers.

When it works, though, you get some fascinating insights. I found that, according to the watch, I have 66.6 lbs of muscle, 28.2 lbs of fat mass, and 92.6 pounds of body water, and my BMI is 21.5 which was dead center in the green zone (my body fat was in the lower end of the green zone, yay me).

Samsung also enhanced Sleep tracking with deeper info, temperature, and snoring monitoring. The latter, though, requires you to keep your phone nearby as it uses those mics to pick up the snoring sounds.

To be clear, I hate wearing watches to track my sleep habits, None of them are comfortable but the 47mm Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic is a true edge case. Throughout the night, I would wake up, feeling the uncomfortable pressure on my wrist, usually because my hand was under my pillow and my head was pressing down on the pillow and the watch underneath.

Still, I wore it for a few nights. The first time, the battery still seemed to be adjusting and it ran out of power before morning. The second time, it effectively tracked all my sleeping patterns (I have so little deep sleep) but I forgot my phone, so it missed my snoring. By the third night, I had everything in place, it got my light, deep, and REM sleep, my blood oxygen levels which vary widely through the night, and even my temperature range. Oddly, it also said I hadn't snored at all. My wife often complains about my snoring, so I find this surprising. I have not done the sleep tracking often enough to acquire a sleep animal designation from Samsung. Not sure why I would care about that anyway.

I did use the watch to check my ECG, which always came up normal, and to see my heart rate hold steady in the low 60s.

Overall, I really like the WearOS 4, OneUI 5 interface. It's clean, clear, colorful, and makes sense. I had no trouble navigating to find my information, track my activities, or read and react to notifications. I can also use Samsung's rich Wear app to manage all my watch's settings and features, including choosing from among an extensive collection of watch faces that include graphical and animated treatments, faces devoted to health and information, your photos, and classic watch style faces.

Software and features score: 4.5/5

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Performance and battery life

The Samsung Galaxy Watch Classic 6's new Exynos W930 dual-core 1.4GHz processor is more than enough juice for this wearable. Every on-watch action is instantaneous and a pleasure to use. More importantly, the mobile CPU seems to manage the watch's processing needs while not sapping battery life.

Samsung rates the watch for up to 30-hour battery life with the Always On display on. With it off, it jumps to a rated 40 hours. In my testing, early disappointment gave way to satisfaction and eventually glee. In the first day or so, the Watch barely made it through a day, By the end of a week, it was always at least a day or more, which, as I mentioned earlier made it well-equipped to go from a day of wear to my bed for sleep tracking.

It can when you need it to charge quickly on the included charger (adapter not included).

Performance and battery life score: 5/5

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: verdict

If you want everything the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 offers but in a much bigger and maybe more traditional-looking package, the 47 mm Galaxy Watch 6 Classic is for you. Otherwise, you can choose from among the Galaxy Watch 6's 40 and 43mm sizes (even the smaller 43mm Classic) and spend less and have something lighter, smaller, and less obtrusive on your wrist. All of them share the same features and battery life, so the choice ultimately comes down to fashion and the flexibility of your pocketbook.

For some, the rotating bezel is a defining and desirable feature. I know I like it but also understand that I don't need it to use the watch.

Aside from the size and weight, I enjoyed wearing this smartwatch. It's full of useful fitness and health features and did a nice job of managing my notifications. The Always On display is excellent: bright when you lift your hand, but just illuminated enough to read at a glance.

Battery life is, in my experience, excellent, as is performance. 

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Scorecard

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Also consider

First reviewed: August 2023

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: One minute review

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic is a great-looking variant of the vanilla Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. We spent around an hour with both of Samsung’s new watches, with equal focus devoted to the Watch 6 as to the Watch 6 Classic. They’re virtually identical watches with a few key design differences. Whether either of them make their way onto the best smartwatch list though, only time will tell. 

 The two biggest differences we have to mention, which we’ll get to in our design section, are the rotating bezel, the different size options, and which capacity batteries were chosen for these. The rotating bezel can be used as a third navigation option in addition to the touchscreen and buttons, and remains a fascinatingly tactile and intuitive experience to use, just like on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. 

Other features arriving on the Watch 6 line include Google’s Wear OS 4 operating system and Samsung’s One UI Watch 5 skin for it, a redesigned on-watch Sleep app, improved heart health features, a Samsung Wallet that can store loyalty cards and airline tickets in addition to credit and debit cards, and a new Custom Workouts profile to help you create multi-stage workouts like triathlons. 

Returning features include a body composition scanner to help you monitor fat and muscle percentages, chronotype sleep profiles to help the watch provide customized sleep guidance and access to the Google Play Store. 

It’s going to be a very good watch, in essentials: we just hope the small batteries and larger sizes can be compensated for by improved performance from the new Exynos W930 chipset. Otherwise, the watch will hardly last long enough for a day’s use and a night’s sleep monitoring.  

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Specifications

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Price and availability

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic debuts during Samsung Unpacked on July 26, alongside the Watch 6, the Tab S9 series, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 phones.

In the US, we have confirmed prices for the Bluetooth-only Watch 6 Classic models, costing $399.99 for the Bluetooth 43mm model, and $429.99 for the Bluetooth 47mm model. 

In the UK and Australia, we have prices for both Bluetooth and LTE models, which do not require a smartphone to access the internet. In the UK, prices start at £369 for the Bluetooth-only 43mm model and £429 for the 43mm LTE option. The 47mm size costs £399 for Bluetooth-only and £459 for the LTE-capable watch.

Australian Samsung users can expect to pay AU$699 for the 43mm Bluetooth-only watch, AU$799 for a 43mm LTE-capable model, AU$749 for 47mm Bluetooth-only option, and AU $849 for a 47mm LTE-capable watch. 

Remember, all the prices above are for the Watch 6 Classic: for the standard Watch 6 prices, you'll need to check out our Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 hands-on review. 

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Design and screen

• Larger 47mm sizes
• Rotating bezel looks great
• Intuitive to navigate

I spent most of my time with the 47mm model of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, although I also tested the 43mm. Both the 43mm black model with a black leather strap, and the 47mm model with a white strap, look fantastic, and wearing them I felt much more like I was wearing a ‘real’ watch than was the case with the baseline Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. 

That bezel, although slimmer than it was on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 to make room for a screen that’s 20% larger, is a really effective way to navigate around the watch, cycling through the options on a list laid out horizontally. Turn it left to cycle to the left, and right to cycle to the right. 

It felt very natural to use, and coupled with the touchscreen and buttons, navigating the watch feels remarkably intuitive. Swapping between options and apps is made faster and easier by the massive super AMOLED screen, smooth refresh rate and powerful processor. 

 The 47mm option is Samsung’s biggest watch ever bec enormous screen, even bigger than last year’s Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. Despite being a big, beefy watch, it’s not marketed in the same way as the Apple Watch Ultra: this is very much a variation of the Galaxy Watch 6 and not a new device in its own right, in the way the 5 Pro was with its own unique features, or the Apple Watch Ultra.

Indeed, I think the Watch 6 Classic could have done with a little more uniqueness. The 43mm gets the same 300mAh battery as the Watch 6 40mm, while the 47mm model gets the same 425mAh battery as the 44mm Watch 6. Given the increased size and power output of the Classic models, that puts even more strain on the batteries – and the battery life of Samsung’s watches is already legendarily meager. Aalthough we only spent an hour with the watch, I’m keen to see how the two batteries compare over several days. The Exynos W930 is said to be 18% faster than the processor in the Watch 5 series, and we’re hoping it translates into more efficiency when it comes to power consumption. 

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Features

• Improved Sleep features
• Custom Workouts
• Comprehensive heart health information

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic is, along with its bezel-less sibling, one of the most comprehensive health watches on the market when it comes to heart health features. Its heart rate monitor is one of the few FDA-certified options available. It reads blood pressure, which even the best Apple Watches can’t do, although that feature isn’t designed for use in a medical setting. It can do ECG scans. It even offers body composition data, with a scanner showing off your skeletal muscle and body fat readings. I tried this latter feature on the Watch 6 Pro as you can see in the picture above, and it’s just as good a feature as it was on the Watch 5. 

When I used the feature on the Watch 5 I checked its accuracy and found it viable, and this time the reading from the Watch 6  Classic compared favorably to the reading I took on the basic Watch 6. 

Both the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 and 6 Classic now also offer heart rate zone notifications during exercise, and can alert you as your heart rate increases and decreases past certain thresholds during exertion. An unnaturally high heart rate hours after exercise will also trigger alerts. Combined with the body composition data, blood pressure monitoring and other health-focused features, it becomes a very comprehensive health tool, one of the best on the market.

This focus on health extends to sleep. In our briefing, Samsung described its watches as the best sleep-monitoring watches on the market. It’s a big claim, but the Watch 6 Classic backs this up with skin temperature sensors that pick up subtle changes throughout the night, and the ability to assign you a sleep profile, represented by a cute ‘sleep animal’, after a few weeks of use. Once you have your profile, the watch can offer customized guidance on ways to improve your sleep. This isn’t new, but you no longer have to switch to your watch to get this guidance, as it can all be done on the app.

Otherwise, all the usual comprehensive workout features are here to offer detailed metrics on runs, rides, skiing, swimming and plenty of other workout profiles. A new Custom Workout profile allows you to switch between multiple modes simultaneously, which is great for triathlons – but whether the battery will hold up over hours of GPS use is something we’ll need to test. Athletes may prefer to stick with the Watch 5 Pro.

Wear OS extras are here, with the Google Play store offering third-party apps on-watch including WhatsApp, Spotify and all the usual goodies.    

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic: Early verdict

There's not much that’s unique about the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. The rotating bezel is straight out of the Watch 4 Classic, and other than the differences in size, it's the same as the vanilla Watch 6 beat-for-beat.

The chief difference lies in the 47mm Classic being the biggest Samsung watch yet created, even more so than the Pro. There's a lot of screen real estate, and I was able to navigate it effortlessly using a combination of the twisting bezel, the touchscreen and the buttons. It's a premium experience. 

My main concern is whether the battery life can withstand the average user's energy demands. The Custom Workout modes allow you to assemble a triathlon workout, which requires a long time in GPS mode, heavily draining power (its GPS qualifications, by the way, are excellent with access to GLONASS and BEIDOU networks, as on a Garmin device). It promises best-in-class sleep tracking, although this requires the watch to be on all night, taking a further toll on battery life. 

Thank god for fast charging, but I'm curious if we'll need to adopt some careful timing and daily charging strategies in order to be able to use the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, especially the larger 47mm model, to its full potential.