The Samsung Galaxy Watch8 Classic is the new middle ground in the Galaxy smartwatch series. It sits above the baseline Watch8 and borrows some features from the Galaxy Watch Ultra while still keeping its signature rotating bezel.
There’s nothing surprising inside the box, Samsung is giving you a magnetic wireless charging pad attached to a USB-C cable. Our review unit comes in Black, which has some contrasting stainless-steel elements, giving off a sharp and elegant look. It comes with the faux leather watch band, which is sadly proprietary, so you can’t just swap out any old 20mm band like on the previous generations.
Back to bezel. We definitely have a soft spot for physical control buttons and they just don’t get better than a tactile knob like this. But there’s more, Galaxy Watch8 Classic also borrows the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s Quick button. It’s remappable so you can assign it to all sorts of different features or shortcuts.
Weirdly enough, the 46mm Watch8 Classic features a 1.32-inch AMOLED screen – the same size as the much smaller 40mm Galaxy Watch8. It’s still protected by Sapphire Glass and maxes out at 3,000 nits which should be more than enough, even for bright outdoor use.
Watch8 Classic gets the Exynos W1000 chip just like the vanilla and Ultra models, alongside 2GB RAM and 64GB storage.
Samsung claims the 445mAh battery inside the Watch8 Classic should offer up to 40 hours with the Always-on Display (AoD) off and 30 hours with AoD on. We’ll make sure to test these claims alongside the health and activity features in our detailed review.
For now, you can check out our Galaxy Watch8 series hands-on for more coverage of Samsung’s new smartwatches.
