Smart glasses may have stolen the buzz in the wearable space, but the humble smartwatch still evolves, serving up notifications and health tracking in a familiar form factor. If you’re on an Android phone, Samsung’s Galaxy Watch8 series—the Watch8 and the Watch8 Classic—are the latest on offer, now sporting a new Ultra-inspired design with more sensors, brighter displays and a generous dollop of AI smarts, with only the Classic’s rotating bezel and added battery life serving to differentiate the two. Is it worth the additional outlay? I went wrists-on, one on each wrist, to find out.
A quick detour into sizes/variants: the Watch8 comes in 40mm and 44mm sizes ( ₹32,999/ ₹35,999) in graphite or silver, and the Classic in the single 46mm size ( ₹46,999) in black or white, and you can add on 4G connectivity for an extra four thousand on each model.
With the Watch8 series, Samsung has unified the lineup around last year’s Watch Ultra’s cushion design, essentially a round glass display set atop a square-with-rounded-edges (“squircle”) case. Beyond that, which watch you prefer will come down to personal taste—slim and elegant or chunky and functional. The regular Watch8 is the sleeker, more streamlined design, with a fixed bezel and a thinner, lighter (30-34g) aluminum case, allowing the lower profile watch to easily disappear under a sleeve and barely be felt on the wrist.
The Classic, on the other hand, encircles the screen with a notched bezel (atop the bulkier 63.5g stainless-steel case) that you can rotate to cycle through the interface. It’s a flashier, bolder look compared to the elegant Watch8, but adds an extra layer in how you can interact with the watch.
For those who haven’t tried the Classic bezel earlier, it’s a huge improvement over touch-swipe controls and the touch bezel on the standard Watch8. You rarely scroll too far by accident, and there’s something inherently satisfying and reassuring about rotating the bezel to navigate through tiles and menus than swiping at a tiny screen, more so when rain or sweat enter the conversation. It’s what makes the Apple Watch’s Digital Crown so good, and after using the Classic for a week, I wondered why more smartwatches don’t include this nostalgic yet genuinely useful feature. The Watch8 Classic gets an additional ‘Quick Button’, which can be customized to launch workouts or apps, or invoke the Gemini AI Assistant.
Elsewhere, both watches feature a new dynamic lug system that makes the watch strap sit closer and more securely against your wrist, though previous gen owners should note the watch straps aren’t compatible with the latest version. Both watches are quite durable, with 5ATM of water resistance, an IP68 rating for water and dust protection, and a military grade MIL-STD-810H certification.
You’d also want to bear in mind that while all models hit a 3000-nits of brightness outdoors, the Watch8 Classic screen matches the size and resolution of the smaller 40mm Watch 8 (1.34-inch, 438-by-438-pixel, ostensibly to accommodate the bezel), instead of the larger 1.47-inch, 480-by-480-pixel screen on the 44mm Watch8.
Under the hood, the new Exynos W1000 chip keeps everything swimmingly smooth—apps launch quickly, and there’s no discernable lag in swipes or on-screen animations. The slightly bigger battery on the Watch8 Classic sees it last a little over 2.5 days with the always-on-display disabled, or a little under 36 hours with it on—the Watch8 in comparison does two days and a single day in similar circumstances. These figures aren’t bad per se, but I really want to stop having to charge my watch every other day.
When it comes to health and fitness, both watches are evenly specced, with the standard suite of sensors for heart rate, ECG, body composition, sleep apnea detection, vascular load (for stress levels), and the Antioxidant Index that measures carotenoids levels in your skin by requiring you to place your finger on the sensor on the rear. There’s even a Sleep Coach to monitor your habits and help you find the best time to hit the sack, and a Running Coach to offer you feedback along your run. If you submit to it, there’s a 12-minute running test to gauge your current fitness levels and build a specific workout plan, whether you’re aiming for just a fitter version of yourself or you’re working towards a specific goal, say a marathon on a particular date.
Of course, it’s 2025 and you wouldn’t catch a gadget dead without the liberal sprinkling of AI features, and the Watch8 series are the first Wear OS watches with Google Gemini integration for dictation, navigation, quick AI summaries and interaction with Samsung apps hands-free. None of these image generation inanities though, here Gemini is just an assistant, getting you quick answers or performing quick app actions without having to pull your phone out…and that’s just perfect.
Despite the far-from-budget pricing, the Watch8 series are strong contenders in the Android world, with their robust build, best in class fitness features and the unique rotating bezel on the Classic one of those “once you use it, you can’t go back” quality of life improvements. Even so, the bulkier and flashier look may not be to your taste, which is where the Watch 8—with no significant functional downsides and a more agreeable design, not to mention a lower price point—might score higher.