Samsung - Galaxy Watch8

Bought a Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 for the price of SE with promotion and the discounts. Missing out on ECG doesn’t sit well with me, even though all I use my watch is for step tracking.

From an older Galaxy Watch? Yeah the Pixel Watch will be more accurate. From a Galaxy Watch 7 or 8? It will be roughly the same. GPS was an area of difference but the GW7 has been improved with updates and the GW8 is pretty much par with PW. For most cases any of the major smart watches like the GW, PW or even AW are close. So I wouldn't make your decision on that basis. Comparing the Galaxy Watch and Pixel Watch I'd look at what device you're pairing it with and the unique features each offers.

I've been eaten alive for saying this, but I'll say it again. Most information available comparing smart watch accuracy find them pretty close to each other. If you want something to generally track this information then Galaxy Watch is a perfectly fine pick. If you're doing more extreme sports then someone more rugged like a Garmin smart watch might be a better pick. If you want the absolute most accurate measurements then get a medical device that measures that. Smart watches are not designed or claim to medical devices. Just accurate enough to be useful overall. You may have times where it misses something or has blips but the overall result is accurate to be actionable. And Galaxy AI can offer suggestions that may be helpful in improving your health or exercise routine.

You might have problem finding $300 watch with both eSim and 3-4 days battery life... Huawei Watch 5 is probably the closest you can get to it, but it's payment system is a shit and outside of China you need to do some workarounds. Maybe Galaxy Watch 8 would do, but the battery will be more like 2 days (which is still better than your current watch). The ultra version might give you 3 days, but it's closer to $500. Oneplus watch 3 is promising, but still lacks LTE outside of China. The rest is covered, 5 days battery. Upcoming Pixel Watch 4 is great SMARTwatch, but has a shit battery and iffy swim tracking. Of course there are Suunto, Garmin and Coros with battery life of over a week, but no chance for esim in this price range. Only Fenix 8 Pro, but its $1300.

Love mine, had it for 3.5 years. Will upgrade to the 4 now. I also wear a Samsung ring, Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, and Whoop band. Oura has been my longest worn device and has provided tremendous insights as it's gotten to know me and my routines/cycles over the years.

The Galaxy watch 8 internal speaker is a big downgrade no one is talking about, it sounds very low. In fact the galaxy watch 4 speakers sound louder than the galaxy watch 8. Anyone facing this similar issue?

Most recently had had galaxy watch 6 classic 43mm, watch 7 44mm, and watch 8 40mm, all great watches . Wanted to go back to pixel watch since all the improvements so I sold my watch 7 and got the pixel watch 4 45mm.. it's my favorite of them all now. Great display and battery life is the best out of them all.

I think both are good. I prefer Galaxy watch though. Pixel watch doesn't have an option to turn on the display with a new notification and you must either lift to wake or tap to wake, and Google's lift to wake is very unreliable. You can't again the drop-down tray with settings. Can't reorder or remove any. Can't reorder the app tray (I mean really! You want someone to have to scroll in a small UI to get to their frequent apps?). I will say I don't prefer Samsung's notification card approach; I'd much prefer a vertical list like the pixel watch as opposed to a clunky whole-screen card layout where you have to awkwardly swipe left and right through many notifications (and their stacking of all cards for the same app is clunky in my opinion).

My experience with ticwatch was with the original pro and then the 3 pro. The original pro was laggy to the point of being unusable, and the 3 pro, when it eventually did get one of the few system updates, had the battery completely die not long after. I got fed up with ticwatch, and you can't trust them for anything to be honest. I've used the galaxy watch since the active 2 and up through the 7 (44mm). Working fine for me, but I don't particularly care for samsung's choice of notification cards (whole-screen horizontally-scrolled cards as opposed to a vertical list like most other watches). But it isn't a dealbreaker. Most everything else, I think samsung has the best overall experience. You could also look into a pixel watch 3. I used the pixel watch 2 and 3 (the 3 is no different from the 2 experience except for the larger size option; the SOC is the same and the software is the same). I think google's software features and fit-and-finish is lacking for their watch (for example, there is no option on a pixel watch to just automatically turn on the screen when a notification comes in to view the notification; you have to manually interact with it by either tapping the screen within a few seconds or lift-to-wake the watch, which is very unreliable--that actually was a dealbreaker for me).

The new design of the galaxy watch 8 is beautiful. I don't know where the hate comes from. In person is looks much better than the galaxy watch 7 in my opinion 

I returned my Watch 8. Went with OPW 3

Have a watch 7, ordered 44mm Watch 8. Just looks better than the classic imho, sits flatter and I have to monitor my heart due to a health condition, so I pretty much wear mine all day and charge it whilst getting ready of a morning. Nothing will compare to the battery of watch 5 pro tbf.