Samsung Galaxy Watch6, Watch6 Classic Review: High on style and function

While the Watch6 is your typical circular-dial smartwatch with silicone straps, the Watch6 Classic has superficial yet functional touches that make it look and feel more premium. For one it comes in a stainless steel enclosure and has a rotating bezel that can be used to show different widgets, such as weather, timers, alarms, and health snapshots — heart rate, SPO2, sleep, body composition, et al. You can also quickly turn the bezel to turn on the watch when it is on standby. The Watch6, on the other hand, is encased in the same material as the Z Fold5 and Z Flip5 — Samsung calls it 'armoured aluminium.'

The Watch 6 Classic comes with a pair of textured silicone straps that mimic stitched leather straps, while the Watch6 comes with silicone straps with no embellishments.

That's it. There's nothing else to separate the Watch6 from its Classic counterpart. Sure, the Watch6 Classic looks really nice, like a high-quality, classy timepiece, but functionally, it does everything the same as the Watch6.

Both watches have sapphire glass protecting the display and come with an infrared temperature sensor, sleep-tracking, body composition, auto-tracking of workouts, a 425 mAh battery, are rated IP68 for dust and water resistance, and can withstand up to 5 atmospheres of pressure underwater.

The Watch6 is lighter at 33 grams, while the Watch6 Classic weighs a hair more at 59 grams, which gives it a nice heft, adding to the overall aesthetic of a classic watch. Both watches come with fast-charging support if you use the charging puck that comes in the box. If not, they're both Qi compatible, so you can charge them on any wireless charger compatible with the Qi standard.

In a nutshell, Watch6 Classic looks like a premium timepiece, while Watch6 looks like a functional yet premium smartwatch.

Samsung sent me the cellular versions of both watches, in 44 mm (Watch6) and 47 mm (Classic), in silver.

Setting up the watches is a breeze, especially if you have a Samsung smartphone. Though the watches run on Android-based wearOS, they can only be fully taken advantage of if you have a Samsung smartphone — it's an ecosystem thing, much like Apple. However, while the Apple Watch is all but useless if you don't have an iPhone, you can technically use the Watch6/Classic on other Android smartphones thanks to the integration of Google Fit into the operating system. Further, you can also download Samsung Health from the Play Store and make it a better experience.

But a Samsung smartphone paired with either of these watches is like the perfect wine and cheese pairing — the experience is delectable.

Once the initial setup is over, with a few finger taps, you can set up an eSIM on your watch through your service provider (don't worry — the watch does it all for you).

And that's it. You're done.

The Watch6/Classic can be customised further in the Samsung Wearables app, including customising watch faces, display options, notifications, et al.

My initial worry was about Always-On Display (AoD)— I feared it would have an impact on the battery life, but I left it on to check just how bad that impact was going to be. As it turned out, not big at all. With AoD on and using the watch as I would my Apple Watch, I was easily able to get nearly two days out of a single charge, which is very impressive considering this is not a focused health and fitness tracker, such as the ones made by Garmin or COROS.

The display is stunning, no matter which watch face you use. It's bright and vivid even in the brightest conditions, and I found myself flicking my wrist to look at the watch more than I needed to. It's that pretty. The stainless steel does get hot when exposed to direct sunlight, but that's a problem with stainless steel, and not the watch itself.

The 1.5-inch display is plenty wide to accommodate a full QWERTY keyboard, and typing quick responses to messages is surprisingly easy — the touch accuracy on a such small keyboard is surprisingly high and, more importantly, fun.

A swipe up from the bottom brings up the app drawer, and a swipe down from the top brings down the control centre.

I'm not the biggest fan of silicone straps, and even though Samsung appears to have used some sort of anti-allergen in the material, I found the straps chafing at my skin, especially while on an intense walk/jog that would cause me to sweat.

Samsung does sell fabric bands for a more comfortable experience but the one thing I love about these watches is that they are compatible with just about any 20 mm watch straps available. So if you're not happy with what Samsung offers, you can always buy the watch band of your choice, and use them on the watch. Removing the original bands is easy — you just press the button on the underside of the band near the dial, and the strap comes off, easy peasy. To snap it back on, just align it in place and pull back and you're good to go.

For the most authentic experience, I decided not to switch out the straps that came in the band and used them nearly around the clock, except when I took the watch out when I was taking a shower or when it needed to be charged. Apart from the slight discomfort I mentioned earlier, I really like the way the watch looks with the straps that came in the box.

The options for watch faces on the Watch6 and Watch6 Classic are legion. You can access them through the Galaxy Wearable app and there is plenty to choose from — you can switch between graphical, informative, health-centric, classic, simple, and basic watch faces, each of which has several customisable options.

You can also download watch faces from the Play Store, so you can customise it to your heart's content. Each watch face supports a varied number of complications — the widgets that give you information on the watch display — and it was a lot of fun to keep switching between watch faces, customising them until I finally knew which one I wanted and that was, anticlimactically, the default classic watch face. I just changed the complications and haven't touched it since.

You can set the watch to measure your heart rate at regular intervals, configure it to auto-measure your SpO2 while you're asleep, and also measure your body composition on demand. For this last one, you need to remain still and touch your unused hand's ring and middle fingers to the power and back buttons, and within seconds, you will get a comprehensive breakup of your total mass, skeletal mass, muscle mass, fat percentage, and then set goals — for up to eight weeks — to get yourself into better shape. Augmenting this is the inbuilt food diary, which will give you a breakup of all the nutrients going into your body and in time, will start suggesting ways in which you can eat better.

The battery life is stellar and I only find myself having to charge it once every other day. The intervals between charging will possibly get longer once I'm not as besotted with the watch's display as I am right now.

This question can only be answered by another question — do you want the core watch experience, or do you want a core watch experience that will turn heads as you turn your bezel? Because even without the bezel, the Watch6 does everything its slightly pricier counterpart does. So which one you end up buying is purely a matter of preference and money, because you are not losing any core functionality with the Watch6.

With the Watch6 or Watch6 Classic, you're not just buying a smartwatch. You are, instead, buying an experience, an entry into Samsung's world, an ecosystem that is expanding by the day. Samsung has laptops, smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, and TWS earbuds in its portfolio, and while I confess I have not tried them all, going by my experience with Samsung devices this year, I'd argue that it'll be pretty close to the Apple ecosystem experience. And choice is always a win for consumers — it leads to competition, which leads to better products.

If you have a Samsung smartphone, getting the Watch6 or the Watch6 Classic is a no-brainer. Which one you get is down entirely to personal choice. Want a smartwatch that looks like a premium timepiece? The Watch6 Classic is your best bet. Want something without the bells and whistles but has everything else? Then the Watch6 is for you.