Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 vs. Galaxy Watch 6: Similar software, different hardware

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  Latest and greatest

  Samsung Galaxy Watch 7

  $284 $300 Save $16

  The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 features much-improved performance, the latest version of Wear OS, and improved health tracking accuracy. A lot of its features will come to previous Galaxy smartwatches, but what has been improved adds up to a much better device.

  Pros

  • Wear OS leading performance
  • Improved heart rate tracking
  • Gesture-based interactions

  Cons

  • No real battery improvements
  • No wireless Power Share

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  Still solid

  Samsung Galaxy Watch 6

  $200 $300 Save $100

  The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 is already a year old but retains many things in common with the Watch 7. It has the same design, features, battery, and display. It may not have the newer hardware, but the Watch 6 is still a great device.

  Pros

  • Same great design
  • Beautiful display
  • Wireless Power Share

  Cons

  • Heart rate accuracy
  • GPS leaves a bit to be desired
  • Tends to lag

Samsung has made some of the best Android smartwatches for some time now. Each year, Wear OS fans are greeted with a new Galaxy Watch, and while seemingly little changes with each iteration, sometimes looks can be deceiving. It’s true that not much changed from the Galaxy Watch 5 to the Galaxy Watch 6, but Samsung has been facing increasing pressure from competitors like the OnePlus 2R and had to deliver something more substantial this year.

In addition to the much larger, more expensive, and more rugged Galaxy Watch Ultra, the Galaxy Watch 7 sees some substantial hardware improvements compared to the Galaxy Watch 6. These improvements will be a must-have for many people, while others may not care about them and would rather save some money. Let’s break it all down to determine which model checks all the boxes for you.

Price, availability, and specs

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 was released in July 2023 and comes in a variety of sizes, colors, and variants. The Wi-Fi model is available in both 40mm and 44mm sizes, which retail for $300 and $330, respectively, while an LTE version tacks on an additional $50 for both sizes. There are also two band options: a leather band and a sports band. The smaller Watch 6 comes in gold or graphite, and the larger one comes in silver or graphite.

Samsung generally keeps its product launches consistent from year to year, launching the Galaxy Watch 7 in July 2024. Samsung also kept the same pricing structure for the size and connectivity options compared to the Watch 6. You get a couple of additional band types this year, too, like a fabric strap, a sports band, or an athleisure band. The Galaxy Watch 7 40mm is available in green and cream and the 44mm version comes in green and silver.

• 	Samsung Galaxy Watch 7	Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
  Case size	40mm; 44mm	40mm and 44mm
  Case Material	Aluminum	Aluminum
  Display	1.3″ 432 x 432 AMOLED (40 mm); 1.5″ 480 x 480 AMOLED (44 mm)	40mm: 1.3-inch 432 x 432 Super AMOLED, Always On Display 44mm: 1.5-inch 480 x 480 Super AMOLED, Always On Display
  CPU	Samsung Exynos W1000	Exynos W930 Dual-Core 1.4GHz
  RAM	2 GB	2GB
  Storage	32 GB	16GB
  Battery	300 mAh (40 mm); 425 mAh (44 mm)	40mm: 300mAh 44mm:425mAh
  Cellular connectivity	LTE (optional)	LTE (optional)
  Wi-Fi connectivity	2.4 GHz; 5 GHz	Wi-Fi 6
  Bluetooth	5.3	Bluetooth 5.3
  Software	One UI 6.1.1 Watch/Wear OS 5	Wear OS 4 / OneUI 5 Watch
  Health sensors	Optical bio-signal; electrical heart signal; bioelectrical impedance; temperature	Samsung BioActive Sensor, Temperature Sensor, Accelerometer, Barometer, Gyro Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Light Sensor
  Dimensions	40.4 x 40.4 x 9.7 mm (40 mm); 44.4 x 44.4 x 9.7 mm (44 mm)	38.4 x 40.4 x 9mm (40mm) or 42.8 x 44.4 x 9mm (44mm)
  Weight	28.8 g (40 mm); 33.8 g (44 mm)	40mm: 28.7g 44mm: 33.3g
  IP Rating	IP68	IP68
  Colors	Green; Cream (40 mm); Silver (44 mm)	40mm: Graphite, Gold 44mm: Graphite, Silver
  Price	From $300	40mm: $300 44m: $330

Design, hardware, and performance

Same great design with a significant performance boost

Outside of band and color options, there isn’t much that separates these two in terms of overall design. The Watch 6 is slightly more compact than the Watch 7, but only by about 1.6mm, which is difficult to discern at a glance. Thanks to the new BioActive sensor, the Watch 7 is 0.7mm thicker (Samsung doesn’t include the BioActive sensor in its measurements, so it’s closer to 1mm thicker), but both devices weigh about the same.

Both watches have two buttons on the right-hand side, are made from aluminum, are MIL-STD-810H compliant, and have an IP68 rating. The bands on both are 20mm in size, and you will have little trouble finding replacements for either device.

The AMOLED displays are also the same, although that’s not bad considering Samsung devices usually come with excellent panels. The 40mm has a 1.31-inch Sapphire Crystal display with a resolution of 432 x 432. The 44mm model has a slightly larger 1.47-inch Sapphire Crystal display with a resolution of 480 x 480.

Samsung watches have always looked great, so I am not disappointed in the least that they left the design and display largely identical. Samsung needed to improve the overall performance of its watches, and I am happy to report that the Galaxy Watch 7 features a substantial upgrade under the hood compared to the Galaxy Watch 6.

The Galaxy Watch 6 came with a 5nm, dual-core Exynos W930 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage. The Watch 6 was serviceable, but compared to devices like the Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 5 Enduro or even the Pixel Watch 2, it just felt slow. From navigating various menus to launching apps, the lag can be consistently felt throughout the device.

With a new five-core, 3nm W1000 processor, the Watch 7 has made a huge leap in performance, removing any lag that was felt with previous generations and bringing it to the forefront of the Wear OS pack. The Watch 7 does have the same 2GB of RAM, but has increased the internal storage to 32GB.

Software

Almost the same

Being a year newer affords the Galaxy Watch 7 a short window of having the better software. The Watch 7 currently runs Wear OS 5 and One UI Watch 6, while the Watch 6 has Wear OS 4 and One UI Watch 5. However, the Watch 6 will get a software upgrade, bringing it in line with the Watch 7 and making them essentially the same watch, from a software perspective.

Wear OS 5 does include some nice improvements over Wear OS 4. While the look and feel are mostly going to be the same, you will notice performance and battery life improvements. You also get some other benefits, with Google claiming that running a marathon will now consume 20 percent less power on Wear OS 5 compared to Wear OS 4.

The Watch 7 adds gesture-based interactions, meaning you can double-pinch to silence alarms, answer calls, dismiss alerts, launch apps, control your music, and take photos. There is also shake to dismiss, which has you rotate your wrist twice to decline calls and dismiss alerts, and the knock-knock feature has you make a motion like you’re knocking on a horizontal door to quickly launch applications.

Samsung is offering the same four years of Wear OS updates and five years of security updates for both devices. The Galaxy Watch 6 will see Wear OS updates through 2027 and security updates until 2028. The Watch 7 will, unsurprisingly, get Wear OS updates through 2028 and security updates until 2029.

Health & fitness

Improvements where it matters

On paper, these two watches seem to be equally matched when it comes to health data. Both the Galaxy Watch 7 and the Galaxy Watch 6 utilize their respective sensors to measure your heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), atrial fibrillation (AFib) detection, sleep, skin temperatures, blood oxygen (SpO2), and menstrual cycles, but their consistency and accuracy can differ.

The Watch 6 used a previous-generation BioActive sensor that was equipped with four LEDs. When it came to measuring things like your heart rate, Samsung struggled to get consistent results, putting the Watch 6 behind many of its direct competitors. The new BioActive sensor has been expanded with 13 LEDs, making it more consistent. As noted in our review, the Watch 7’s sleep tracking, blood oxygen, and heart rate monitoring are excellent.

For a long time, Samsung put a single-band GPS on its Galaxy Watches. In addition to poor antenna design, this single-band GPS led to Galaxy devices delivering poor exercise tracking, something I consistently ran into with my Galaxy Watch 5. Samsung finally improved its GPS performance by including a dual-band GPS in the Galaxy Watch 7. Our reviewer noted the improved performance, but said it wasn’t the most accurate GPS tracking he’d seen.

The Galaxy Watch 7 also gives you the ability to track your advanced glycation end products (AGEs). The issue is the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. You get a bar that goes from low to high, with no indication of where you should land within it. In every review I’ve seen for either of the new Galaxy Watches, the AGEs index has been the same, offering little benefit to the end user.

Overall, the Galaxy Watch 7 provides a better and more consistent health tracking experience. It’s still not perfect, but if you are serious about your fitness, the Watch 7 is the way to go.

Battery life

Improved efficiency, but otherwise the same

Battery life is another area in which Samsung did nothing to improve the Watch 7 over its predecessor. In fact, it removed a feature. The 40mm version of both watches ship with a 300mAh battery and the 44mm version gets 425mAh.

The newer processor provides some additional battery life thanks to efficiency improvements, but you shouldn’t expect much of a bump. In our review of the Watch 7, it was noted that battery life was good, but not great, getting you about a day’s worth of juice, even less if you push it with GPS tracking.

The Galaxy Watch 6 does have one handy feature, albeit a very niche one. It has Power Share, letting you use the back of a Samsung phone to charge the watch in the event it dies and you don’t have a charger nearby. Samsung has removed this feature from the Watch 7.

Which should you get?

When looking at either of these devices, you need to take a look at their price, performance, features, and longevity. While the Galaxy Watch 7 is either the same price or more expensive if you find the Watch 6 on sale, its feature set and hardware improvements add up to a much-improved device.

The Watch 7’s improved processing power makes it feel much snappier, which will likely continue for much longer as major Wear OS releases continue to roll out. This means that the Watch 7 will continue to perform well as the years roll on, whereas the Watch 6 may start to show its age a bit earlier in the process. The Watch 7 is also a better fitness tracker with its improved BioActive sensor and dual-band GPS tracking.

However, if you already own a Galaxy Watch 6, you’re better off holding onto it for another year. It has the same design, display, and battery as the Watch 7, and once it gets Wear OS 5 and One UI 6, it’ll offer almost identical software. It may not have the most accurate health tracking or speedy performance, but it’s good enough, and shouldn’t cause you to drop additional money on a new device.