2021’s best Wear OS watch

Samsung has been making many of the best Wear OS watches for years now. The Galaxy Watch 4, launched in 2021, debuted Wear OS 3, co-developed by Google and Samsung. Samsung’s first Wear OS watch was a hit, marking a turning point for the platform as a whole.

So it’s fitting that for Samsung’s first midrange Wear OS watch, the Galaxy Watch FE, the company took the existing Watch 4, bolted on a handful of minor updates, and pushed it out the door with a new name. The Watch FE isn’t a revolutionary Wear OS device but a tried-and-true model at an affordable entry point. But competition is fierce, and I’m not sure the Watch FE is as good a deal as it needs to be.

Price, availability, and specifications

The Samsung Galaxy Watch FE was released on June 24 and is available now directly from Samsung and retailers like Amazon and Best Buy. The Galaxy Watch FE is available in a single 40mm size (unlike the Watch 4 it’s based on) and comes in black, silver, and Pink Gold colorways. It costs $200. Interestingly, Samsung’s marketing materials reference an LTE model, but it doesn’t seem like that’s actually available for purchase — as of now, you can only get the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi model.

What’s good about the Samsung Galaxy Watch FE?

The Galaxy Watch FE is nearly identical to the 40mm Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 from 2021. However, it has a couple of upgrades: The Watch FE comes with Wear OS 4 out of the box, and its screen is covered with sapphire crystal, which is more scratch-resistant than the Gorilla Glass Samsung used on the Galaxy Watch 4.

It’s a running theme in our coverage of Samsung’s Wear OS watches that don’t change very much year over year. There’s more variation in Samsung’s higher-end watches — your Classics and Pros and Ultras — but as far as the standard Galaxy Watch releases, very little changes each generation. The latest Galaxy Watch 7 is only a little better than the Watch 6 before it, and the Watch 6 was almost identical to the Watch 5, which is very similar to the Watch 4.

That iterative approach has cultivated a predictable and polished product line. However, it also means that the Galaxy Watch FE experience, built almost entirely around the several-generations-old Watch 4, is very similar to the Galaxy Watch 7 experience. The main difference is that the newer Watch 7 costs $100 more.

It’s not the only difference — the Watch 7’s chipset is two generations newer, its battery lasts longer, and its bezels are smaller — but the overall moment-to-moment and day-to-day experience is very similar. As anybody using a Watch 4 or Watch 5 can tell you, the W920 chipset in the Watch FE holds up just fine to wearable workloads today. Flipping through app tiles, interacting with notifications, and starting and stopping activity tracking all feel fluid.

Battery life’s not bad, either. On lower-usage days — using the watch with its always-on display active to tell time and check the occasional notification — I regularly saw more than 24 hours of battery life between charges, including tracking my sleep overnight.

More active use will drain the watch faster, of course; a one-hour GPS-tracked walk chewed through about 10 percent of my review unit’s battery. Still, I don’t think most people will have difficulty getting a full day of use between charges.

What’s bad about the Samsung Galaxy Watch FE?

The Samsung Galaxy Watch FE is more or less identical to the Galaxy Watch 4, which was released in 2021. Samsung’s watches don’t change much from year to year, but compared to the current-gen Galaxy Watch 7, you’ll be making some concessions for that $100 price difference. For one, the Watch FE only comes in one 40mm size — no larger model is available.

With a two-generation-old Exynos chipset, the Galaxy Watch FE does feel a little slower than the latest high-end wearables from Samsung and others. It’s not a huge difference day to day, but the Watch FE is notably sluggish for the first minute or so after it powers on. That’s a little frustrating.

The Watch FE also charges slowly. Its battery is good enough for how I use smartwatches — it lasts me all day — but with 5W charging, going from empty to full can take almost two hours. That’s especially annoying if you want to use the watch to track your sleep. I’ve been charging at my desk while I work in the morning, and it’s been fine. But if you actually expect 24/7 health tracking, you might be disappointed that you have to take the watch off for a couple of hours daily to keep it charged.

Then there’s that $200 price point. On its face, that’s a good price for a new Wear OS watch — the Galaxy Watch 7 starts at $300 and the Pixel Watch 2 goes for $350. But Samsung’s wearables go on sale all the time, and I’d bet money it won’t be long until the Galaxy Watch 7 is $250 or less, which will make the FE a worse deal.

The OnePlus Watch 2R , which was released just a few weeks after the Galaxy Watch FE, retails for $230. That watch has a newer, faster chipset, a larger display, and multi-day battery life. That won’t matter to you if you’re attached to Samsung’s ecosystem and want a Samsung watch, but if your only requirement is Wear OS and a price tag around $200, OnePlus’s watch is worth a look.

Should you buy it?

To oversimplify, the Samsung Galaxy Watch FE is a perfectly fine Wear OS watch that costs 200 bucks. It’s good!

More context doesn’t necessarily change that fact, but it does color it a little. The Watch FE is a repackaged watch from 2021, and although smartwatches have evolved relatively slowly since then, three years of progress has added up. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 is a little better in every way, and sales will chip away at the $100 price difference between the two. The $230 OnePlus Watch 2R also seems like a more practical buy for most people.

If you’re set on getting a Galaxy Watch, you don’t want to spend a lot, and you don’t want to wait for the Watch 7 to get cheaper, the Watch FE is fine. Outside that specific use case, though, you might want to look at other options.