I have had this watch, the Galaxy Watch 4, since about mid-September and I am pretty pleased with it. It is very customizable for your needs, offering different shortcuts to certain exercises you can track or showing how many steps you have on your home screen. You can change the background to a preset watch face or a picture of you choosing. It is very easy to upload photos onto your watch’s gallery from your phone.
(Image courtesy of Amazon.com)
One of the big downsides, though, is the time it holds its charge. If you don’t have it on power saving mode, it will only last for about a day. If you turn power saving on, expect a 2-3 day charge. This will probably affect some people more than others.
Another downside that I am really sad about is putting apps on the watch. You are supposed to be able to do this, but it is not working for me. I have watched (pun intended) many videos and troubleshooted this issue quite a bit, but nothing has worked. UPDATE: We finally figured out that this issue has to do with Google Family Link – which restricts access to Google Play for kids. Unfortunately, there is no way around this short of setting up a new Google account or “Graduating” from Family Link @ age 13 – which I will be doing soon enough.
Also, the watch was a bit tricky to set up. You need to set up both the watch and the app on your phone.
I do cross-country, and I must say, this watch does a pretty good job. It will track your distance, lap speed and time in running mode. I have not worn it to any meets, as the weather is sometimes questionable and it is still pretty new. The XC season ended a little while ago, but I am planning on wearing it for track in the spring. You can put it in a water-lock mode and when you turn the mode off, it will play a tune to eject the water. I have not yet fully submerged it in water yet, though. C’mon, it’s still pretty new!
It is also easy to turn on and off your WiFi, scrolling down from the top of the screen. You can also easily make your watch into a flashlight, illuminating the watch face in a bright white. This is also done by being selected from the scroll down menu. You can put it in a mode for sleep (which I have not done yet, don’t judge), airplane mode, and change the brightness, along with much more, from this menu.
Check current pricing on Amazon HERE.
Sincerely,
