SamsungGalaxy Watch Active2 Bluetooth Aluminium 44 mm -Sleep Monitor, Aqua Black (UK Version)

I’ve been using this watch for just over a week now and am very pleased with it.Unlike much of Samsung’s target market, I have no interest in using it for sports or health, apart from the pedometer. I wanted a decent smart watch for emails, news, Twitter etc and this looked like the best option. I chose the 44mm face with its larger screen.Which version to get?It was far from easy deciding whether to get the 4g (lte) or Bluetooth version, but was much helped by a review from Andrew Martonik, ‘Should you buy a Samsung Galaxy Watch with LTE?’ (can’t provide link, sorry) who pointed out there are few benefits and much additional cost with the 4g. As I don’t always have my phone with me, I’d hoped I could slot in a pay as you go sim, but the watch does not take a sim at all, so it would mean another phone contract. So I went for the wireless version.ChargerIt came with a dinky little charger, a magnetic disc about the size of the watch itself, though I was sorry to see the charging cable was only one metre long. This is a real issue as most of my sockets are at floor level, so the watch hardly reached a table or work surface to charge. It doesn’t take long to charge (a couple of hours maybe) and the charge lasts about two days, which is fine. I ordered a Samsung wireless charger as a spare, but this did not work for the watch, though it was ok for a phone. I’ve been advised that Aieve watch chargers work fine, so will order one.Pairing the watchIt was very easy to pair the watch with my phone. I’m an old hand at pairing these things as have had a Samsung smart watch before.Watch facesThere are a bunch of watch faces of course, and you can set up the watch to be always on, and adjust its brightness. There’s even a subdued light ‘theatre mode’ so you can be especially considerate to other audience members.While I was keen to try out the style watch face, which matches your outfit, I soon lost patience with it. It offers you about 6 variants on your outfit or the default version. One was a rather nice changing palette of pinks and yellows but none of the others were to my taste. While you can choose the one you want, with one touch of the watch it’s gone, and you have to toggle through the rather naff spiky and jazzy patterns it displays. So I’ve given up and gone back to my old favourite, ‘Mr time moon flow’, which shows a moving daytime sky, and in the evening, the moon and clouds with a digital display. Very pretty, though it bizarrely reverts to analogue when resting.AppsThe Galaxy Store has a range of apps to download and customise, though it’s fair to say the choice is limited, and many are geared to sports and health, plus no end of Bible apps.I was able to set up email very easily and it also pulled over my calendar and contacts. Great! It took a bit of fiddling before I could find the settings for the pedometer, and in particular set my target number of steps. Got there in the end.So far I have not located the news app I had on my old watch, which I liked as it pulled news from a variety of sources. But I have got CNN and the New York Times. No British publications as yet.The watch comes with a torch (flashlight if you’re American) and a calculator, which is great.There is a very handy feature for protecting your watch in water. I’ve managed to ruin a previous watch by swimming with it, so am very pleased with this.Another very exciting facility is translation app with quite an array of languages. I haven’t tried it yet, but it does sound great.I have not tried out Samsung pay as yet, and am not sure where this is accepted.I’m still browsing the store for apps of interest. I’ve downloaded a few games or puzzles, including jewel crush, which I like though annoyingly it has a sound you can’t turn off, tic tac toe (noughts and crosses) and a photo puzzle.I was able to download Google maps, and am quite thrilled with it. As you’d expect, it finds your location, and you can have a choice of terrain or satellite views, among others. You can search for a destination, though inputting text is a palaver (more below). Once you have your destination, you can go to directions, and choose which option, ie walking, car etc. Then a very American voice gives you directions! It’s also possible to manoeuvre the map to your destination.Inputting textInputting text is indeed a faff, as the watch is not big enough for a qwerty keyboard (none offered anyway) so you have to spell out the word by choosing bunches of three letters, abc, cde, etc. Invariably it chooses the wrong letter, but thankfully there’s a top menu with the choices there. So it does takes a while. To date I’ve needed to use this ‘keyboard’ for a google map search and to reply to text messages.TwitterI have got Twitter. Another reviewer warned against the Twitter app in the Galaxy store as it’s third party, but am using it nonetheless and I do like it. You can see tweets, obviously with some manoeuvring on a small screen, and you can like and retweet. I don’t think you can compose and send your own tweets on the watch, and indeed, this would be tortuous.Watch strapFinally, the watch strap. It’s fine! I’d been a bit wary of a buckle style, just for security, having had a watch lifted off my wrist once, but it’s much better than expected. Cleverly, the tongue of the strap tucks in, so it would be quite a challenge for another person to get it off you. Needless to say you can set up security, ie pin or pattern lock, on the watch itself, which of course is recommended.

I have had this watch for a good time now to review this product.Fitness:I have been using this for fitness and the fitness tracking it great. It breaks it down into 5 different categories. Maximum, Anaerobic, Aerobic, Weight Control and Low Intensity. The heart rate monitor is good and I used it to track my treadmill run and the distance in accurate. There are a variety of free weight options that it can track and it is accurate at doing that too.However you cannot start a workout from your phone and use the watch's data. It will only use do it without. So you will need to start it on the watch to get your HR and all that monitored.Overall it is great for fitness and I would recommend it for anyone who is doing so. It comes great calibrated out of the box and you don't need to put your stride length in or anything like that.Battery Life:I would say that battery life is good and however the Fitbit versa 3 for example has a much longer battery life, due to the lack of features inside. But this would easily last a day or even a day and a half in my use cases.Smart Watch Use:The rotating bezel on this is great that is build in the software is a decent replacement for the bezel as it makes the watch more barrable to wear and not as bulky especially during an exercise. You can make calls of it and do all the usual stuff a normal smart watch would do. It has a decent amount of internal storage and is feature packed and you can find out more about those on YouTube video's overall.Conclusion:As I have a Samsung phone I would say this integrates well with the Samsung health app and does a great job and tracking fitness and has a lot of useful features.

So this watch is nice, don't get me wrong. But for what it is, the price isn't justified in the slightest. I got it on deal for about £180, which I would still say is priced too high. Of course this is subjective, and everyone will have a different idea of what is and isn't good value for money. But for me it's just not good value. I will give it 4* because it's a good smartwatch, and I think those of us who will buy this know it's not something that will change your life and it's just a cool little gadget.The number one reason I got the watch was for the exercise tracking abilities and workout guides. Frustratingly, this seems to be where the watch fails. Upon using the workout options it became clear that these functions are almost entirely pointless. For example, when using the dumbbell curls options on the watch, it instructs you to put your arms in the correct position for you to start. THE WATCH CAN'T READ THE POSITIONING OF YOUR ARMS, so it never starts and renders the entire option completely pointless.This happened again with the stretch function. The watch told me I haven't moved in a while and asked if I would like to run through some quick stretches. I pressed start, the watch tells me to put my arms in the correct position....can you guess what happens next? It can't recognize my arm movements. Again, a function rendered entirely useless. How about a simple 'Start' button? They must have realised this function doesn't work before releasing it to the public.The watch itself is really nice and is highly customizable. I love the ability to change, download and customize your watch face.It also pairs perfectly well with my S20+ and I have had no issue whatsoever on that front.The band is very comfortable to wear and doesn't scar my skin like a FitBit will. Extremely easy to switch bands and there are plenty of really cool options out there to choose from.The Spotify feature is also really nice. You can download Spotify songs straight to the watch, though it is a bit of a headache. Still though, this is a great feature.Notifications pop-up almost instantly, which is great if you use 2FA on any accounts for work etc.The watch also has a speaker built-in, which scared me a bit when I answered my first phone call on it.All-in-all, if you like technology then you'll probably really enjoy this watch. Just understand that it has it's limits and some things just simply don't work.