Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic Review: More Than Just A Rotating Bezel

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Samsung is slowly refining its Galaxy Watch to be a true contender among Android users in general, but especially Samsung users. The Galaxy Watch 6 Classic finally brings back the fan-favorite rotating bezel, runs Samsung's newest One UI 5 Watch with Wear OS 4, and outshines the competition with its Super AMOLED display and peak brightness of 2,000 nits.

The Watch 6 Classic launches alongside the Watch 6, with the biggest $100 difference between the two being a physical rotating bezel versus a digital bezel. The minimal fingerprints and ease of scrolling that comes with the rotating bezel makes the Watch 6 Classic worth the extra money. The 6 Classic offers 43mm and 47mm sizes, a choice of silver or black for the watch body, and quite a few band sizes and styles.

Both watches offer a slew of accurate health, sleep, and activity tracking features. The most notable improvements here include personalized heart rate zones, more advanced sleep tracking and coaching capabilities, and the ability to possibly detect irregular and rapid heart rhythms that could indicate atrial fibrillation (AFib).

With its new software, holistic health features, and vibrant 1.3-inch display, as well as the resurrection of the glorious rotating bezel, the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic is one of the best smartwatches for Android users right now.

Everything about the design of Samsung's new Galaxy Watch 6 Classic screams premium. Considering the smaller, non-LTE model starts at $399.99, that's not surprising.

The Hybrid Eco-Leather feels smooth and fits well, and the stitching gives it a more professional look. The S/M size band fits small wrists well, but the M/L band is a smarter option for anyone with a larger wrist, despite both sizes having M in the title.

This watch felt a bit awkward and oddly positioned at first, but after wearing it for a week, its presence has become barely noticeable, even while sleeping or working out. The rubber-backed leather band the 6 Classic came with is comfortable enough, but one of Samsung's fabric or sporty bands might be a better choice for long-term use.

It's also easy to change up the 6 Classic's look with the many downloadable watch faces through the Galaxy Wearable mobile app. Changing the watch face is a fun way to continuously make the same smartwatch feel new on your wrist. The Dynamic watch faces move and look super cool, but they drain your battery life a bit faster. No matter which watch face you go with, the Super AMOLED display is vibrant, responsive, and easy to see, even in bright sunlight.

Walking, Running, and Cycling are the three default workout options, but there are over 100 to choose from, and you can re-prioritize your favorites in the Samsung Health app. Or, you can create a new exercise if you can't find your usual go-tos.

The Samsung Health app is where you'll need to go to see a more in-depth analysis of your daily health and activity metrics. By default, the home screen shows your Daily Activity goals and how close you are to meeting them, including steps walked, active time, and active calories burned. You can see your current heart rate, stress level, BIA, and blood oxygen percentage, as well as histories for each. This is also where you'll find detailed sleep information, but more on this later.

It's possible to track your food and water intake through this app too. Then, if you want to add cycle tracking or measurements for blood glucose or blood pressure, you can edit the home screen and enable these. You'll need to measure blood glucose and blood pressure on your own, and then enter the values in the app. The cycle tracking feature depends a lot on user input, but it eventually tries to predict cycle changes based on skin temperature.

For some smartwatch or fitness tracker users, one of the biggest complaints is paying for the watch and then needing to pay for a subscription to access all their data, like a Fitbit Premium subscription. With Samsung's Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, you'll only need to pay if you plan on adding an LTE model to your phone plan for service away from your smartphone. All of your health data is accessible to you for free through the Samsung Health app, and there are even free meditations and workouts too.

Samsung offers a sleep survey in the Health app that'll help figure out your sleep style and personalize your sleep coaching experience. The survey asks about whether you get up to use the bathroom, have trouble sleeping, or drink alcohol or caffeine. Then, it asks what your days off are during the week, and you have to choose at least one day or you can't proceed.

The company is likely asking for users to define their days off so the watch can make a note of whether or not you sleep more on your day off, since this is something you're not supposed to do for healthy sleep habits. However, it's odd that needing at least one "pre-day off sleep" out of seven days is seemingly so crucial to Samsung's sleep coaching program that there's no option to say "I don't have a day off." 

For individuals who freelance or work retail, work days and hours tend to fluctuate. There's also a possibility that someone could be working all seven days of the week across multiple jobs.

Once you've completed the survey and recorded sleep for at least seven nights in the last 30 days, you're assigned one of eight sleep animals that most closely relates to your sleeping patterns. Using this sleep animal and your specific sleep habits, you'll get a tailored coaching program to follow for the next three to four weeks. Then, you can start the whole process over again for more sleep insights and coaching. 

Most smartwatches don't have fantastic battery life. There are exceptions to this, like the Garmin Venu Sq2 that boasts an 11-day battery life, but smartwatches generally need to be charged every day — or at the very least, every other day. Apple's newest Series 8 Watch estimates an 18-hour battery life with regular use, and Google estimates the Pixel Watch can last up to 24 hours between charges.

With that in mind, here are Samsung's estimates for battery life with the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. You should be able to get up to 40 hours in a single charge "based on typical use," which includes Always-On disabled. With Always-On enabled, that battery life estimate drops to up to 30 hours. Even the 30-hour estimate is higher than Samsung's current competitors. This estimate is the same for the 43mm model's 300mAh battery and the 47mm model's 425mAh battery, but we only tested the 43mm model.

After going hands-on with the Watch 6 Classic, Samsung's battery life estimates seem fairly accurate. From 100% battery, it took a little over 22 hours to get run down to 15%, at which point it kicked into power-saving mode. This 22-hour period included sleeping about seven hours with all three advanced sleep measurements turned on, utilizing the Always-On display, and turning on continuous heart rate monitoring. 

The Galaxy Watch 6 Classic feels comfortable on the wrist, offers an broad range of health, activity, and sleep tracking metrics, and integrates well with Android phones. If you have a Galaxy smartphone and you utilize Samsung SmartThings, you'll gain a few extra ecosystem benefits, but it's nothing so major that it'll make other Android users feel left out.

The 6 Classic is almost identical to the Watch 6, but it's worth the extra $100 — for a total of $400 — for its rotating bezel. The idea of scrolling on a tiny screen is what's kept me from getting a smartwatch for so long, but the 6 Classic's rotating bezel acts as the scroll wheel on a mouse, almost completely negating the need to scroll with your finger.

Upgrading to the LTE version would cost you an extra $50, plus the cost of adding it as a device to your phone plan, and that only seems worth it if you wanted to go for a run without your phone. If you already have the 4 Classic or the 5 Pro, it might not be worth upgrading just yet unless there's a new feature you're absolutely in love with because these smartwatches should also get Wear OS 4 sometime soon.

The specific version we reviewed is the 43mm Watch 6 Classic with a Silver body and a Silver, S/M-sized Hybrid Eco-Leather band. This model has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and 4G LTE connectivity.