Meet Maggie, PCMag'sStarting at $379.99, the Galaxy Watch 9 brings a faster processor and several new preventive health features, including a Fitness Index that measures the impact of your workouts, a Cardio Load metric to help guide training intensity, and a Heart Health score. However, these additions are tempered by occasional sleep-tracking inconsistencies and battery life that remains largely unchanged from the previous generation. The Galaxy Watch 9 is a solid choice if you want Samsung's latest health and wellness features, but starting at $299.99, the Galaxy Watch 8 continues to offer better overall value with a nearly identical experience. If you're not committed to Samsung, it might also be worth waiting for Google's Pixel Watch 5, which is expected to launch soon and could be another strong smartwatch option for Android users.
The Galaxy Watch 9 starts at $379.99 for the Bluetooth-only 40mm model, a $30 increase over the Galaxy Watch 8's $349.99 base price at launch. The base Galaxy Watch 7 cost $299.99 when it launched in 2024. The price increase puts the Galaxy Watch 9 above its main Android rival, the Pixel Watch 4, which starts at $349.99.
Like the Galaxy Watch 8, the Galaxy Watch 9 is available with a 40mm or 44mm case. The base model comes with Bluetooth only, or you can add LTE support to stay connected without your phone. The larger 44mm size costs an extra $30 over the smaller version, and adding LTE to either size costs an extra $50. Aside from the higher starting cost, the Watch 9 follows the same pricing structure as older models.
The 40mm Watch 9 comes in cream or graphite, while the 44mm version comes in graphite or silver. The Watch 8 comes in graphite or silver in both sizes. For this review, Samsung sent me the 40mm, Bluetooth-only model in cream, which has more of a silver finish despite its name.
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The Galaxy Watch 9 comes with a 60-day trial to the Strava app and a two-month trial to iFit’s premium workouts, which you can access via the Samsung Health app.
For better or worse, the Galaxy Watch 9 looks just like its predecessor. The circular watch face is surrounded by a squared bezel with rounded corners, aka a squircle. Samsung calls it a “cushion shape,” and it uses a dynamic lug system to keep the watch in close contact with your skin for accurate health tracking throughout the day. I prefer the simple circular shape of the Galaxy Watch 7, but the current look isn’t a big detractor for me.
The Galaxy Watch 9 features new, lighter bands with air pockets designed to increase comfort compared with the previous generation. I don't notice much difference in feel between the Galaxy Watch 8 and 9, and both fit well without causing me any irritation.
As with the previous generation, the Galaxy Watch 9 case measures 0.3 inches thick; the smaller version weighs 1.1 ounces, and the bigger 1.2 ounces. The 40mm version has a 1.3-inch, 432-by-432-pixel Super AMOLED screen while the 44mm model bumps that to 1.5 inches and 480 by 480 pixels. Regardless of size, the screen features adaptive brightness for automatic adjustments based on ambient lighting, topping out at 3,000 nits, which is more than bright enough to see even in direct sunlight.
You can wear the Galaxy Watch 9 in inclement weather without worrying about its durability. It is rated IP68 for dust and water resistance and 5ATM, meaning it can be safely submerged in up to 164 feet of fresh or salt water for 10 minutes. It also has a MIL-STD-810H certification, meaning it can survive extreme temperature changes, blowing sand, and other environmental stressors, such as vibration and shock.
The Galaxy Watch 9 has a new chip, the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear Elite, offering increased efficiency and a boost in CPU and GPU performance over the two-year-old Exynos W1000 processor in the Galaxy Watch 8. The same Qualcomm chip also powers the $699.99 Galaxy Watch Ultra 2.
The Galaxy Watch 9 and the Ultra 2 ship with Wear OS 7 and Samsung’s One UI 9 interface overlaid on top. Wear OS 7 offers improved efficiency, more customizable widgets, and live updates from supported apps versus the previous-gen software.
Like the Galaxy Watch 8, the Galaxy Watch 9 has 2GB of memory and 32GB of storage. It has the same sensor array as the previous gen as well: A BioActive sensor for optical heart monitoring, electrocardiogram (ECG) readings, and Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) functionality for body fat measurements (similar to a smart scale). It also features an accelerometer, barometer, geomagnetic sensor, gyro sensor, light sensor, and temperature sensor.
The Galaxy Watch 9 is only compatible with phones running Android 13.0 and up. Lots of the AI-based health features that make the watch appealing are only available when it's paired with a Samsung phone.
Samsung has increased the battery capacity of the Galaxy Watch 9 compared with its predecessor, but that spec upgrade does not lead to improved real-world performance. The 40mm version has a 390mAh cell compared with the 40mm Galaxy Watch 8's 325mAh, and the 44mm has 445mAh compared with the larger Watch 8’s 435mAh.
Despite the small bump, Samsung offers the same 30-hour battery life estimate for the Galaxy Watch 9 as the Galaxy Watch 8. That said, given the improved efficiency of both the processor and Wear OS 7, I was hopeful that the Galaxy Watch 9 would surprise on this front and beat the company’s estimates.
It did not. The Galaxy Watch 9 matched its predecessor exactly, falling short of Samsung's estimate and lasting 26 hours with the always-on display enabled. With the always-on display turned off, the Galaxy Watch 9 lasted slightly longer than the Galaxy Watch 8, powering through 41.5 hours compared with 39 hours.
It's also worth noting that I tested the battery life on two separate 40mm Galaxy Watch 9 units, as the first one lasted only 12 to 18 hours on a charge with the always-on display enabled. I told Samsung, and it sent me a second unit, which performed more in line with its estimate. Even so, the Galaxy Watch 9's battery life trails that of competing smartwatches. The Apple Watch Series 11 lasted 43 hours with normal usage and the always-on display enabled in testing, and the Pixel Watch 4 powered through an impressive 56 hours under the same conditions.
The Galaxy Watch 9 also recharges slowly. It took 108 minutes to reach 100% using the included charging stand and my own 18W brick (not included), compared with 64 minutes for the previous model using the same wall adapter. For comparison, the Apple Watch Series 11 recharged in 77 minutes, and the Pixel Watch 4 did so in a snappy 43 minutes, both with the same power brick I used with the Galaxy Watch 9.
The box includes the watch, the band, and the charging cord, along with a quick start guide and warranty info booklet. The top and bottom bands attach to the watch with a snap, and the buttons on the underside of the case release them if you want to swap them for new ones.
To start the setup process, put the watch on the charger and hold the top button to power it on. If you have a Samsung device, you might automatically get a prompt to set up a watch on your phone. If not, download and open the Galaxy Wearable app, and add a device to continue the process.
The app walks you through various permissions to access your texts, calendar, and phone before showing legal documents, including terms and conditions and the privacy policy. Agree to these, and the app will prompt you to sign into your Google account before walking you through more permissions for Google and Google’s generative AI assistant Gemini.
You then select which apps you want to install and specify your preferred wrist and button orientation. At this point, the app gives you an overview of the new watch features and provides a tutorial on the buttons and touch controls as it downloads updates.
In the Galaxy Wearable app, you can browse, download, and customize watch faces; configure the app drawer, quick panel, and Tiles; set up notifications; and access additional settings like gesture controls, safety features, and software updates.
To see all of the data collected by the Galaxy Watch 9, you’ll need two additional apps. The Samsung Health Monitor app is where you'll find ECG and blood pressure readings as well as sleep apnea detection details.
Your exercise and sleep data live in the Samsung Health app. It lets you log workouts and meals, check your activity stats and Fitness Index, track your body composition measurements, and more. You can even share your data with friends through the Together tab.
Once you’re up and running on the Galaxy Watch 9, you won’t need to use the smartphone apps much unless you want a bigger screen to check your data, as the watch itself is more than capable of showing the info it collects.
If you’ve used any Wear OS watch in recent years, you’ll be right at home with the navigation controls on the Galaxy Watch 9. It has two physical buttons on one side. The top button returns to your home screen from any app. You can double-tap the top button to go back to the last app you used, or hold it for a customizable shortcut that launches Gemini by default.
The bottom button moves back one page on any active app. You can hold the bottom button for another customizable shortcut, which defaults to opening Samsung Wallet.
You can also navigate the interface using the touch screen. To go back a page, simply swipe right from the left edge of the screen. Swipe right from the middle of the screen for notifications. Swipe down for a customizable control panel that offers access to settings, power-saver mode, the flashlight, and more. Swipe up for apps. Swipe left for a series of customizable widgets called Tiles, which can offer quick access to most of Samsung’s apps and features on the watch.
The Galaxy Watch 9 offers all the expected lifestyle features, including calling and texting capabilities, as well as built-in NFC for tap-to-pay. You have access to the entire Wear OS app catalog, including Google staples like Maps and Gmail, and helpful third-party options like Spotify and Strava.
With gesture controls, you can make a knocking motion with your hand to open a selected app, double-pinch your thumb and index finger to make selections in certain apps, or shake your wrist to dismiss a call or an alarm. All of these gesture controls worked reliably in testing.
The Galaxy Watch 9 also supports a new gesture. You can simply raise your wrist to talk to Google’s generative AI assistant Gemini, instead of relying on a button shortcut or wake word. The Pixel Watch 4 already has this raise-to-talk feature, so it comes to Samsung’s watches roughly a year later. As on the Galaxy Watch 8, you can use Gemini on your wrist to answer questions, send texts, and interact with Samsung Galaxy Watch apps like Calendar, Clock, Health, and Reminder.
New to this generation, the Galaxy Watch 9 will monitor your overnight vitals, including your blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, and skin temperature, to surface any concerning measurements. After establishing a baseline over seven nights, the watch will notify you if any stat deviates from the norm, which could be a warning sign of a potential illness.
I didn't get sick while testing the Galaxy Watch 9, so my vitals stayed close to their baseline, but my heart rate and heart rate variability fell outside of the normal range on one day, which the watch attributed to stress. Apple and Oura both provide similar vital health stat monitoring on their respective wearables.
Fitness Index shows a chart of your body composition, cardio, endurance, flexibility, and strength, providing an overall view of your well-being. To populate this spider chart, you need to wear the Galaxy Watch 9 for two days while it tracks your steps, record at least one running or walking workout, and measure your body composition.
The watch initially gave me an average fitness score of 39 (out of 100), which climbed by two to 41 during my testing. It showed a high strength level, a medium flexibility level, and low scores in body composition, cardio, and endurance. In my workouts, I tend to run into issues with flexibility more often than endurance, so I’d probably switch those two in a self-assessment. Otherwise, the chart looked anecdotally accurate, and I was happy to take the compliment on my strength.
Daily Cardio Load indicates how much to push your workouts each day to make progress in training without burning out. The Pixel Watch has a metric with the same name that functions similarly, while Oura and Whoop also recommend daily activity levels. Samsung already has a daily holistic Energy Score, but Cardio Load is more focused on workout goals, and the recommendations remained at a baseline level for me during my testing period.
Finally, a Heart Health Score uses blood pressure estimates to provide insights into your circulatory system and advice to improve. This score takes into account your average moderate-to-vigorous activity over the past week, your average sleep over the same period, your body composition (specifically your Body Mass Index, or BMI), and your estimated blood pressure.
Tracking that last criterion is a bit of a pain because it requires you to calibrate your blood pressure data against readings from a separate cuff. I detailed the tedium when Samsung first rolled out blood pressure readings on its smartwatches, but in short, if someone doesn’t know they have a problem, it’s unlikely they’ll bother getting a separate device to set it up. Devices from Apple and Oura monitor for hypertension (high blood pressure) in the background, and don’t require calibration, but you can’t take an active reading like you can with the Galaxy Watch.
After completing the setup process, I was encouraged to see consistently excellent Heart Health Scores. Samsung noted that my BMI could be better, but gave me high grades for my average activity, blood pressure, and sleep time. Samsung's resulting advice encouraged me to eat a more balanced diet.
In addition to the new features, the Galaxy Watch 9 carries forward the wellness features from previous generations, including advanced glycation end products (AGEs) index tracking for a detailed picture of your metabolism, an antioxidant test for dietary health, and vascular load detection for arterial insights. Given that all of the Watch 9’s new features come from software rather than new sensors, I would imagine older models like the Watch 8 could gain access at some point through an update, but Samsung hasn’t specified whether that will happen.
The Galaxy Watch 9 doesn’t add any new activity or exercise-tracking features, but that’s not a bad thing. The Galaxy Watch 8 is a highly capable and accurate activity tracker, and its Bioactive sensor and dynamic lug system fixed the accuracy and GPS issues that I occasionally noticed when testing the Galaxy Watch 7.
The watch supports automatic and/or manual tracking for a wide range of activities, exercises, and sports. I tested the Galaxy Watch 9 alongside the Apple Watch Ultra 3 on my other wrist during a CrossFit workout, a run, and multiple walks in downtown Chicago. I manually tracked the CrossFit and running workouts and let the automatic tracking take over during the walks.
I did the CrossFit workout while the Galaxy Watch 9 was still calibrating, after putting it on only a couple of hours prior. During the first 10 minutes of the workout, its heart rate readings seemed a bit erratic but normalized afterward. For the rest of the workout, it generally stayed within 5 to 10 beats per minute (bpm) of the Ultra 3, even during the most intense periods. Afterward, it showed the same average bpm and calories burned. Its max heart rate value was too high by roughly 10bpm, but again, that’s within a reasonable range, especially for a first outing.
After walking, Samsung charted my speed and heart rate together for a handy visual reference showing how the two relate. It accurately tracked my heart rate, cadence, calories, and steps during each walk. The Galaxy Watch 9 reliably started tracking a walk whenever I was moving for 10 minutes straight or more. It would even pause and resume promptly when I stopped at an intersection.
During a 30-minute run, the Galaxy Watch 9's heart rate readings stayed within 5bpm of the Ultra 3. Afterward, its average and max heart rate values matched Apple's exactly. In addition to heart rate, calories burned, distance, duration, elevation, and speed, the Galaxy Watch 9 tracks advanced form metrics during outdoor running workouts, including asymmetry, contact time, flight time, regularity, vertical, and stiffness, similar to recent smartwatches from Apple and Google. Plus, the Samsung Health app offers drills to help you improve your form in any area where you're below average.
If you want to improve your endurance and/or pace, the Running Coach introduced last generation is available on the Galaxy Watch 9. To get started, you take a 12-minute calibration test, and then it creates a personalized program to help you increase your fitness and meet a goal like running a 5K. I find the coach can be a little overbearing, but it does provide useful guidance.
The Galaxy Watch 9 gives you a sleep score each morning, based on your sleep duration, deep sleep, REM sleep, time awake, and sleep latency. While you sleep, it also tracks your blood oxygen, heart rate, respiratory rate, and skin temperature, and charts your time in each sleep stage.
Additionally, the AI-powered Sleep Coach, carried over from the last generation, collects data over a few nights and then offers a checklist of steps you can take to get better rest. It doesn’t pester you about this checklist, and it's a nice option if you need the help. Otherwise, while you sleep, the Galaxy Watch 9 can detect sleep apnea and snoring if a Samsung phone is nearby.
To evaluate its sleep data, I wore the Galaxy Watch 9 to bed each night for over a week, again alongside the Apple Watch Ultra 3 on my other wrist. For the most part, Samsung’s sleep data proved accurate across the board. It matched the Ultra 3’s resting heart rate values to a reasonable degree, and its sleep cycle charts also aligned with Apple's.
However, on two different nights, the Galaxy Watch 9 stopped collecting data for more than an hour. That skewed the sleep score and all of Samsung’s assessments of my sleep duration for those nights. I experienced this issue on both Galaxy Watch 9 units I tested. Interestingly, I have experienced this same problem when testing several other Samsung wearables in the past, including the Galaxy Ring, the Galaxy Watch 7, and the original Galaxy Watch Ultra. I thought Samsung had fixed the problem with the dynamic lug system on the Galaxy Watch 8, which didn't exhibit any such data gaps in my testing.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)
Samsung Galaxy Watch 9
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 is a solid smartwatch that stands out for its advanced health and wellness features. While its sleep tracking can occasionally miss data, it delivers accurate workout tracking and introduces useful metrics like Fitness Index and Heart Health Score to provide deeper insights into your overall well-being. For Samsung users, it's an appealing option if health tracking is a top priority. However, with virtually the same design and battery life as its predecessor, the Galaxy Watch 9 doesn't offer enough meaningful improvements to justify its higher starting price. Ultimately, the Galaxy Watch 8 remains the better value, offering more dependable sleep tracking and a nearly identical overall experience at a lower cost. And depending on your allegiance to Samsung, it might be worth waiting to see what Google has in store with the Pixel Watch 5.
SHOULD I UPGRADE?
No. The Galaxy Watch 8 offers much of the same experience as the Galaxy Watch 9 at a lower price, with comparable battery life and nearly identical features. During testing, its sleep tracking proved more consistent, with no noticeable gaps in recorded data. There's also a chance it will receive the Watch 9's new preventive health features through a future software update, making it an even stronger value.
STILL ON THE FENCE?
About Our Expert
I’m PCMag’s senior writer covering smart home and wearable devices. I’ve been reporting on tech professionally for nearly a decade and have been obsessing about it for much longer than that. Prior to joining PCMag, I made educational videos for an electronics store called Abt Electronics in Illinois, and before that, I spent eight years covering the smart home market for CNET.Â
I foster many flavors of nerdom in my personal life. I’m an avid board gamer and video gamer. I love fantasy football, which I view as a combination of role-playing games and sports. Plus, I can talk to you about craft beer for hours and am on a personal quest to have a flight of beer at each microbrewery in my home city of Chicago.
