Modern forms

Review: Samsung Galaxy Watch 8

Some shortcomings in GPS positioning, but otherwise the Galaxy Watch 8 offers a polished, fast system and many possibilities in a new format.

Erik Mörner

Published 25 August 2025 - 11:47 Modified 25 August 2025 - 11:49

I notice that the design of the Galaxy Watch 8 is somewhat divisive. The new watch has adopted a new design language, partly inherited from the Galaxy Ultra, with a round watch face on top of a more square body with rounded edges. Some who see it on my arm dislike the design, others find it refreshingly innovative. I can state that the design is indeed unique and unlike many other watches. I believe, as with many new things, that we will soon get used to it and personally, I think it's positive that not all watches look the same.

On the watch's screen, I can then customise the appearance and style as well as what information should be displayed directly on the watch face. There are quite a few different watch faces to choose from, ones where I can choose an image myself or those that are more filled with information about weather, dice, and my health. In addition to things like shortcuts to email, camera control, health and fitness functions, there are a few shortcuts to third-party functions like Spotify that I can choose to have directly on the home screen.

Modern and easy to navigate

Watch 8 is the first to feature the new Wear OS 6 and it feels like a modern and powerful system that can handle several things at once, I notice this as soon as I swipe past the home screen. By swiping sideways from the watch face, I land on different cards that can provide quick and clear information. These can be individual apps, like Google Maps or Spotify, but there are also cards for health, fitness, Gemini, or Outlook. In several of these cards, I can scroll down to get brief extended information, so under the Simple card, I find weather, calendar entries, battery level, music playback, and more. Simply everything I need and the view is easy to customise.

From the watch face, or from any app, I can also swipe down from the top to bring up the settings field with quick shortcuts, and from the watch face, I swipe to the right to see notifications and upwards to bring up the list of all available apps. When I then start a workout, for example, start Spotify, and want to check a text message or ask Gemini something, it's easy to switch between functions that are all active at the same time. Real multitasking, in other words.

Almost two days per charge

Given the many possibilities in this watch, the battery life is about what I expect. I have been using the watch now for two weeks, both for continuous use during the day, as a sleep tracker at night, and to more specifically measure and analyse my workouts. It has been a long series of walks, some running sessions, and occasional, shorter swims to cool off in the Swedish summer heat. My test unit does not have esim, but I will make sure to test one that does in the future. During the test, of my Watch 8, which does not have esim, I have gotten about one and a half days of use before the watch needs to be charged, sometimes a bit more. This, of course, depends on how actively I use the watch and how much, for example, the GPS is on. One day's use can take about half the battery, and a night's sleep tracking generally takes 30 percent, so if I manage two days without charging, which has happened, it's with just a few percent left on the battery, which makes me prefer to charge in time to be sure it doesn't run out during the night and the sleep recording becomes incomplete.

The watch and its accompanying strap are comfortable and fit snugly around the arm, but when I charge the watch on Samsung's Duo charger, it requires me to remove the strap for it to make contact.

I started testing the watch immediately after the launch in New York and have continued testing it at home in Sweden. On paper, the Galaxy Watch 8 has everything I need in a smartwatch. It is available in a version with e-sim so that I can exercise and stream Spotify directly to a pair of headphones without needing to have the phone with me. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 works with other Androids besides Samsung's, but it works best with Samsung Galaxy phones because only then do you get full access to all features. ECG measurement, for example, is only available via the Samsung Health Monitor app, which is only found in the Galaxy Store and therefore cannot be downloaded to other Android phones.

The GPS under scrutiny

I am particularly interested in how good the GPS is in the watch. Generally, I tend to notice small variations in how different watches map out my training routes. Often it differs by only a few meters when I compare, but the GPS has the most difficulty when there are many skyscrapers that can be in the way between the watch and satellites. When I was previously in Hong Kong with all its skyscrapers, the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra had major problems showing correctly, so I want to challenge the Galaxy Watch 8 now. In Stockholm, I test walking four laps around the skyscrapers at Sergels Torg in Stockholm. When I then examine the route on the map, clear errors are visible, but not so large that they distinguish the watch from other watches or cause any major problems. During the time in New York when I started testing the watch immediately after the launch at Unpacked, I did several workouts among the skyscrapers and had more serious deviations when the watch's route showed peculiar mispositionings, but that is not something I have experienced as clearly here in Sweden with fewer skyscrapers.

Good reports, weak training test

I am pleased with the reports I receive after both sleep and training in the Galaxy Health app. The watch seems to provide accurate data, although it is of course difficult to know exactly how accurate the watch is in its analysis during sleep. It is at least comfortable to wear both during training and when I sleep. To take another step in my training, I am testing the watch's new running coach. This means that I first do a fitness test according to the watch's instructions and then I am supposed to get a training program.

The first time I try this and am ready to run, I get information on the watch that the phone must be with me. So I have to cancel. On the next attempt, I start with the phone close at hand. There are extensive instructions on how to prepare, eat, and rest before the test and to perform it on a flat course without obstacles. The test involves first entering my best time for the longest distance I have run into the phone. I enter my time of just over two hours for a half marathon and then I am supposed to run my fastest, as far as possible, for 12 minutes. The conditions are not the best. I perform the test on the street outside where I live on one of the hottest days of the summer, with just over 30 degrees on the thermometer. Running at maximum speed for 12 minutes is also far from my usual pace, so I find it difficult to plan the race to know my limits. During the session, the watch also loses contact with my Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, so the hard-to-interpret voice instructions in some kind of Swedish with a strong English accent come through the watch's speaker instead of the earbuds, making it difficult to understand. I hear something about “increase the pace if you can” and do my best. Sweaty after the test, my fingers are so wet that the watch's touchscreen has great difficulty registering my taps on it. After the test, I receive a score of 7 out of 10 and a training program. However, it is supposed to guide me to run the half marathon in the same time that I stated I had already run it without any special training program. So I don't see the benefit here at all. Moreover, Samsung Health has several years of training history from me, so I think the data collected then should be a better basis for a training program than the training test now introduced in Watch 8.