Few gadgets are as personal as a smartwatch, which you literally wear on your wrist all day (and potentially while you sleep). Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 is one of the best Android smartwatches we’ve tested, and you can pick up a 40mm Bluetooth model for $158.99 ($90 off) at Amazon. Verge Senior Reviewer Victoria Song found a lot to like about the Galaxy Watch 7 during her tests, including its comfortable design and the overall snappiness of its chip.
Its circular shape will please you if you’re coming from a traditional watch, or aren’t a fan of the squircle design Samsung decided on for the Galaxy Watch 8. We found its battery lasted about a day, which is okay, but be prepared to charge your smartwatch every night. The Galaxy Watch 7’s sensors can record the typical litany of health and wellness metrics, from the number of steps you’ve taken to your sleep and heart rate. The Galaxy Watch 7 has an FDA-cleared sleep apnea feature, but it relies on Samsung Health Monitor app, which is exclusive to Samsung’s smartphones.
The Galaxy Watch 7 supports two AI-powered wellness features called Energy Score and Wellness Tips. Both take information collected about your activity and sleep to offer advice about tweaks you may want to make to your routine to help hit your goals. You can also use the smartwatch to compare how well you did on your exercises today compared to yesterday to encourage you to hit a new personal best.
In our tests, these features were hit or miss. Our Energy Score fell dramatically after a long run, and bounced back after nine hours of sleep, but recommended we stop drinking alcohol or eating late at night despite not doing either of those things. We received Wellness Tips informing us we were and were not sticking to our sleep schedule on the same day.
All that said, we found the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 to be a solid Android smartwatch based on its design and overall performance. It’s a solid upgrade over previous generations, and even more competitive with other Android smartwatches if you have a Galaxy smartphone and can take advantage of its sleep apnea detection.
