The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is Samsung’s latest smartwatch and yet, it feels like an old friend that you’ve known for a decade. You probably know the one. Maybe you don’t speak too often but every time you do it’s like no time has passed and the friendship is as strong as ever. That’s how the Galaxy Watch 7 feels. Samsung hasn’t changed a whole lot with the watch in the last few generations. The design is the same, the user experience is mostly the same.

These factors might be a letdown for some. Personally, though, I feel like this is what makes the Galaxy Watch 7 one of the best smartwatch options available for the majority of users out there. It’s a familiar staple that you know and love. No wild new design or UI elements. No wild new learning curve. Just a really good smartwatch with improvements in (mostly) all the right places.

Samsung has dialed into the smartwatch market and the Galaxy Watch 7 is proof that the company knows it has a good product on its hands. Not one that doesn’t have any improvements to be made, mind you. Because there’s always room for improvement. It is, however, a product that Samsung knows doesn’t need to be changed too much. Merely fine-tuned. And slowly but surely, Samsung is fine-tuning the Galaxy Watch series and inching it ever closer to perfection. Will it ever reach perfection? Probably not, because nothing is ever perfect.

Still, after using this smartwatch for the past few weeks, it’s more clear now than ever that Samsung is still the king of the mountain in the Wear OS smartwatch space. From design to user experience, it sets the bar high for competitors. There are things I absolutely love about this watch and things I wish would have been a little different. That being said, the overall experience has been one that I appreciate on many levels. And it only solidifies my opinion that the Galaxy Watch 7 is the Wear OS smartwatch for everyone.

Let’s take a closer look at the device in this review and see how it stacks up.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 Review: Design and Bands

The design of the Galaxy Watch 7, while not new, is a solid design. It’s the same sleek look that Samsung has been using for years and quite honestly, it doesn’t need to be changed. The Galaxy Watch 7 looks good because the Galaxy Watch 6, Galaxy Watch 5, and Galaxy Watch 4 all looked good as well. And the design has essentially stayed the same throughout those models.

In short, the Galaxy Watch 7 design is great. This lack of change in design also means that there are no changes to the band connectors. Or more specifically, no change to the types of bands that can be used with the watch. You can still use all those old bands from one or two watch models back. Unlike the Galaxy Watch Ultra which uses a new connector system and locks those old bands out unless you find some adapters.

This is one of my favorite details of the watch because it means your watch bands get some more life. You can continue to use them until you tire of them or they start to break down. As for materials, the watch case itself is no longer made from Stainless Steel. Instead, Samsung used Armor Aluminum, however, it still looks and feels the same as past watches. It is still using a Sapphire Crystal glass display and that’s a good thing. Because it means the display is better protected from dings and scratches and such.

With a clean left side and both buttons still on the right, using the watch should feel familiar when interacting with it. The top button can still be used for powering off the watch and activating things like Google Assistant. While the bottom button can still be used as a back button and to bring up Samsung Pay. It’s still unfortunately not possible to change the default action of the bottom button’s double press. But you can change the quick tap function to show recent apps if you prefer that to having the button go back one screen.

The recent apps access is nice, but I found that I personally prefer going back one screen when pressing this button because that’s what I’m used to using. After trying the recent apps function for a few days, I reverted back to the default previous screen function. But if you multitask, give the recent apps function a shot.

One major design change is the new all-new sensor configuration. With the inclusion of the Optical BioActive Sensor and the Electrical BioActive Sensor, you’ll get more accurate readings for health, sports, sleep, and more. Durability-wise, the watch design doesn’t look or feel more durable, but the durability hasn’t declined either. It will still be able to take the occasional bump thanks to the MIL-STD-810H rating, and it comes with a 5ATM + IP68 rating for water and dust resistance.

A world of band options at your fingertips

I already briefly touched on this but the band connection system hasn’t changed. That leaves you with a world of options. You can find a band that fits your style whether it’s something new from Samsung this year or an old band from a previous model of the watch. This is huge for the longevity of the bands you may have accumulated because you won’t have to get rid of them. You can keep using them with the Galaxy Watch 7.

If you do go with Samsung’s new band options, there are a few new options that you can choose from. They’re quite stylish and by the looks of it, fairly comfortable. Now Samsung only sent me the Sport Band so I have no clue what the Fabric Band or the Athleisure band are like. The Sport Band is pretty comfortable though, and that bodes well for the other two as they seem like they’d be more comfortable to wear for longer periods than silicone. The Fabric Band, in particular, should be great for wearing the watch to bed for sleep tracking purposes.

In terms of design, the new Sport Band is pretty stylish. The addition of the different colors of thread towards the connector point is a nice touch. I also feel like the ridged design of the band helps a little bit with airflow around the wrist so it doesn’t end up feeling as sweaty after wearing the watch all day. So while you can use older bands if you have them, these new ones from Samsung are great and worth at least trying before opting to swap them out. You can also check out our guide for the Best Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 Bands if you’re looking for more options.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 Review: Display

If you liked the display on the Galaxy Watch 6, then you’re going to like the display on the Galaxy Watch 7. Why, you might ask? Because it’s the same display. It’s the same size at 1.47 inches, and it uses Sapphire Crystal Glass for the layer that sits on top of the panel for protection. The display also has the same peak brightness as the Galaxy Watch 6 at 2,000 nits. So there are no changes to the display from last year’s model at all.

All of this is to say the display on the Galaxy Watch 7 is good. I wouldn’t call it exceptional because, at the end of the day, it’s just a smartwatch display. It is however better than a lot of other smartwatch displays out there. So Samsung definitely has that going for it. What’s important is that the display gets more than bright enough to see in just about any condition. It’s been pretty bright here in the Northwest these past few weeks and I never had any issues seeing the display while outside.

Even with the sun at its highest point, there was never an issue. The one thing that might impact this is if you turn off the auto display brightness. While I’m not generally a fan of it in most cases, this does ensure two things – that the display is as bright as it needs to be to account for outside light sources that can cause glare, and you aren’t unnecessarily wasting battery life by having the display be brighter than it needs to be.

When it comes to the size I think the display size is perfectly fine for the Galaxy Watch 7. However, I am using the 44mm size option which comes with a larger display. It’s also the same size as the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic 47mm which was fine for me as well. I certainly wouldn’t mind if it was a little bit larger, but I never once wished that it was. I only bring this up because the display is going to be slightly smaller on the 40mm size option. While suitable, the smaller displays do make it a little tougher to see things, so in my opinion, the bigger the better.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 Review: Performance

Ever since the Galaxy Watch 4 we’ve been promised that Wear OS was going to feel snappier and deliver better performance. Things have gotten marginally better each year but the Galaxy Watch 7 feels like the biggest performance upgrade in some time. This is mainly due to Samsung’s use of the new 3nm Exynos W1000 chip inside. It’s more powerful and more power efficient at the same time. Even if the power efficiency isn’t enough to vastly boost the battery life (which we’ll get into later), it’s still a bit better and any improvement is still an improvement.

I’m also a firm believer that no improvement in this area is bad. Again, though, it can always be better. The chipset clocks in at 1.6GHz which is slightly higher than the 1.4GHz W930 that Samsung used in the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. But don’t let this difference fool you. The performance boost isn’t a huge chasm. I’ve been using the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic for most of last year and most of this year. While I wasn’t the one who did the review, it was sent to me after the review was done and it became my main smartwatch.

It was always decent for performance with just a small hiccup here and there. With the Galaxy Watch 7, things are a little different. I haven’t noticed any hiccups on the watch in terms of performance so far. Now I’m only a few weeks in. So that could always change if I were using this watch several months from now. But I don’t think it would. I think that’s an important thing to remember. The performance is nice and smooth and I feel like it’s going to stay that way.

Of course, your experience may vary based on what apps you’re using and how you use the watch. But like I said, so far, I’ve had no problems with performance or things feeling sluggish. The Galaxy Watch and Wear OS are finally starting to feel like the powerful devices they should have been a few years ago. One thing that I do love is the haptics. Particularly with the touch bezel. I still prefer the rotating bezel on the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, and that will never change.

However, the haptics have a very satisfying feel to them as you run your finger around the touch bezel. The haptics have also been good at keeping me alert to incoming notifications. I can often miss them on my phone if I have it in my pocket while I’m driving. And the Galaxy Watch 7 has made it easy to feel that a notification has come in. They don’t feel that much different from the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic but they do feel better. Or perhaps stronger is a more accurate description. Launching apps also feels good and it’s equally good backing out of them. Workout tracking and sleep tracking have been working pretty well too. However, I think that’s more due to the improved sensors. All-in-all, the performance is great and there are no complaints from me in this area, and I think most users will feel the same.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 Review: Battery Life and Charging

Battery life is always one of the most important parts of a smartwatch. The longer-lasting it is, the less you have to charge it. Just like with smartphones. While Samsung’s Galaxy smartwatches have never really been the longest-lasting of any smartwatch on the market, they are longer-lasting than just about every Wear OS smartwatch. Save for maybe the OnePlus Watch 2 which we found to have great battery life.

The 44mm Galaxy Watch 7 uses the same battery size as the 47mm Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, which is a 425mAh battery. With that being said, battery life hasn’t really changed too much between these two models. In my experience with the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, it usually lasts me at least a full day with the always-on-display enabled, maybe two if I’m not using the watch for sleep tracking and I turn the AOD off. The Galaxy Watch 7 has been about the same here if not maybe an extra hour or two.

I’m not using the Galaxy Watch 7 much differently either. So I’m chalking this up to the inclusion of Wear OS 5 and the new Exynoss W1000 chip. With that being said, the battery life still hasn’t really improved. So you’ll get at most two days out of it. More realistically, you’ll be tossing it on the charger either every night or every morning. Depending on if you use it to track your sleep and how many other features or apps you use.

In terms of charging speed, it’s not going to take you quite an hour but it will be close. So if you wear the watch to bed, you might need to plan to get up at least an hour before you have to leave, so you can toss the watch on its charger. That way it’s ready to go as you walk out the door. For me, this generally isn’t an issue since I work from home and I just charge the watch whenever it suits me. For anyone who doesn’t work from home, just give yourself an hour to charge the watch and you should be good to go.

I do wish the charging speeds were a bit quicker but alas, it wasn’t in the cards this year. Maybe with the Galaxy Watch 8 series, we’ll finally get the faster charging speeds we want and deserve. Overall though, battery life and charging speeds aren’t terrible. They’re not great, but they’re not terrible. I’d say they’re “passable.” You’ll get a full day out of them, and as long as you aren’t just leaping out of bed moments before you leave, you will have enough time to charge the watch up.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 Review: Software, Fitness, and Health Tracking

Since Samsung’s design and hardware components haven’t changed a ton from the previous model, the software is going to be a big part of what makes the Galaxy Watch 7 a worthy device if you’re thinking about buying one. The good news is that there are more than a few new software features in this watch. Much of the software remains unchanged from the Galaxy Watch 6 series but, there is still plenty to differentiate Samsung’s latest from last year’s models.

Particularly the Galaxy AI features like the all-new Energy Score. The way this is intended to work is by giving you an Energy Score that looks at everything you did the day before. It then calculates out a score to tell you how ready you are to take on the day. The goal here is to try and improve your Energy Score a little bit each day until it gets to a point that you’re happy with. Or, ideally, until you reach a score of 100 if you’re a perfectionist.

That being said, anything that’s listed as an excellent score is nothing to scoff at. So far my highest score was 84 which is listed as good. It also tells me that my sleep time average and my sleep time consistency need improvement. I found this to be useful as it’s helping me narrow down what about my sleep I need to improve so I end up more well-rested on future days. You can also see snippets of this information on the watch itself. However, you get a more detailed visualization of the data in the Samsung Health app on your phone.

The downside here is that you need a Galaxy phone for this feature to work. Luckily I had the Galaxy Z Flip 6 for review to test this feature on the watch. The Galaxy Watch 7 is also one of the first smartwatches with Wear OS 5 alongside the Galaxy Watch Ultra. Wear OS 5 doesn’t have a whole lot of different features than Wear OS 4 at the moment, but it does have the new Watch Face Format, and Wear OS 5 does seem to help things run smoother.

Outside of Wear OS 5, some of the software features I’ve found myself using more and more are the double pinch and knock knock features. Now double pinch is technically not new, at least not entirely. It was available on the Galaxy Watch 6 in the form of Universal Gestures. However, it’s changed a little as it’s no longer part of the accessibility menu. It also works quite a bit better now in my opinion. Especially since it’s preconfigured and is now a simple on/off toggle if you want to enable or disable it.

With double pinch, it’s been really easy to just dismiss notifications coming in. I’ve also used a few times to dismiss incoming calls. You can also use it to launch apps but I never used it for this purpose. When it comes to knock knock, this isn’t new either and has been around since the Galaxy Watch 4. This is my first time using it though, and it’s a game changer. I have it set up to launch Google Wallet and have used this for the past several days at store checkouts. I definitely recommend enabling it if you haven’t tried it before.

Another new feature of this watch is the Sleep Apnea detection. You’ll need to be connected to a Galaxy phone for this as well. The way it works is that it checks for signs of sleep apnea while you sleep over a period of two nights. So just like with the Sleep Score and Sleep Animal features, you’ll need to wear it for a set amount of time before receiving any useful information. Now I don’t have sleep apnea so I knew the detection would tell me as much. That being said, if you have trouble sleeping, this is something you’re going to want to turn on and record so you can figure out if you should talk to your doctor or not.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7?

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 is a great smartwatch with some useful new features and a tried and true design. So the question is, should you buy it? As always this comes down to what you’re looking for. Not to mention whether or not you already have the Galaxy Watch 6. I think this will be more of a hard sell for some if you’ve got last year’s watch. However, I also personally think that the upgrades are worth the money. You could always keep the old watch as a backup or trade it in for the discount on the new watch.

But having things like double pinch fleshed out, along with the Energy Score and Sleep Apnea features, not to mention Wear OS 5, are worthy improvements that warrant the purchase. That being said, you don’t need the Galaxy Watch 7 if you have the Galaxy Watch 6 or Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. Yes, the improvements are nice, but there’s not enough there where upgrading is a necessity.

You should buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 if:

• You’re using a Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 or older
• You want the new Galaxy AI features
• You’re someone who likes having the latest and greatest

You shouldn’t buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 if:

• You have a Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 or 6 Classic and can do without the new features
• You like having the rotating bezel