Customer Ratings & Reviews

I have a Apple Watch 4 and looking for a inexpensive watch for walking and working out without worrying about breaking. The Fitbit was garbage, but the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active is a little more expensive than I wanted to pay but a nice watch. This is exactly want I wanted for a workout watch without all the bells and whistles as the Apple Watch. The design is actually really nice, but the watch face is a bit smaller than expected, but it actually fits nice and hardly know it's on. Here are the good and bad. GOOD: Attractive with nice clear screen, lightweight, a lot of watch faces, watchband east to take on/off, More apps than I expected. Easy to setup and sync, pretty accurate. BAD: Disappointed with battery life. I was hoping to get at least a couple day charge, but barely lasts a day. IOS app is buggy and can't always connect to the Galaxy Store. Not too many watchbands available for the Galaxy Active. Backup/Restore is worthless, because it can't really backup anything useful like the data and watch faces. I reinstalled the IOS app and lost all the data and had to re-pair and reinstall everything. Samsung need to supply a reliable cloud backup/restore as Apple does. It's not an Apple Watch, but I think it's a pretty decent watch compared to others on the market.

I've had this watch for a few months. It's my first smart watch, and there's a lot I like about it, and some things that I hope Samsung can fix in a software update. The good includes that it seems pretty durable, and it's easy to use. I think it counts my steps well and does a good job with heart rate. The bad has to do with accuracy, and here I'm taking about in measuring workouts and providing data. This morning, I ran 4 miles. My Galaxy S8 says it was 4 miles, and my watch says it was 3.89. Samsung Health on my phone says I burned 822 calories, while my watch says I burned 466. The calorie count isn't huge for me--just a guideline anyway, but the distance thing is irksome. My biggest complaint though is open water swimming. This is the reason I bought this watch. Yesterday I swam a mile, and I restarted the tracking at the turn around point. It's a regular swim for me, and I know how far it is, which is good because my watch told me I swam 0.29 miles out and burned 54 calories, but the return trip was 0.06 miles and I burned 2 calories. Obviously, each leg was half a mile. I'd really like it if this watch could do a better job of measuring this distance, because I would like to track my sins in other places where I don't have landmarks. Again, the calorie count is not a huge issue, but it used to tell me that I burned 3000 calories during that same swim (which never has the same distance recorded even though I swim the exact same course). I'm not sure why the Samsung Health app and the SH widget on my watch use different algorithms to determine calorie burn, and I can't figure out why the Galaxy Watch Active does such a poor job of tracking my swims. It does better in pool swims (separate widget), but if you pause to clear your goggles mid-lap, it's going to count that lap twice (and you will PR that lap). Here's hoping someone from Samsung will see this review and they can develop a patch for it. Oh, the battery life is not "days" unless you're sedentary. I charge mine every night, and when I did a Sprint Tri last weekend, it died on me later that day. How much battery life you get is directly correlated to how active you are! Still, I love that I can listen to music without having my phone with me, although without my phone, the watch can't send or receive texts or emergency alerts, so if I'm going to be out of my neighborhood, I still put my phone in a running belt.

Up until about a month ago, I had no problems whatsoever with this watch - in fact, I absolutely loved it. Here are a few reasons why: It's very light and comfortable to wear, and it's small enough that it never gets in the way. Even though I try to charge it every night, the battery will easily last two days in case I forget. The watch seamlessly connects to my android phone and lets me read and reply to texts, emails, and other messages, as well as pause/play music, check the weather, etc The AMOLED screen is beautiful and bright enough for me to read in direct sunlight with glasses on. Fitness tracking seems to work well, and I like not having to bring my phone with me when I'm running. It keeps track of miles ran, calories burned, heart rate, etc. I admit I've only used the run tracking but I'm sure the other workout modes work just as well. Now unfortunately my great experience with this watch took a turn for the worst about 8 months after I bought it, when I decided to wear it while swimming in a freshwater lake - shouldn't cause any issues, I thought, after all it is IP68 rated and even has built in features to track swimming! This proved not to be the case, because shortly after getting in the water both the screen and side buttons had died! The watch was still connected to my phone, but it would not respond to anything. Later that day I tried to power cycle it and the AMOLED screen came to life with a horrible glitched mess - I though the watch was done for. Miraculously, the next day it started working again and I've had no issues since, but the damage has been done - not to the watch, because it somehow works now, but to my trust. Never again will I take it swimming, and thought I still use it everyday, I now fear that the internals have been slowly corroding this whole time and the watch will just suddenly die someday.

Overall, I'm enjoying the watch. It is very comfortable and easy to wear. Most of the advertised features work well. However, there are some text syncing issues with the message+ app and the surface of the band started peeling almost immediately (I haven't exposed it to any chemicals or anything that could cause it). Those aspects are disappointing.

I should've known better than to buy older technology. I was just trying to save some money. The charge doesn't last a day! I'll need to buy an extra charger for work when I go back to work. I have the brightness set to 1 while working from home but this battery just drains. I love everything else about the watch though. Great customizable features.

Model: SM-R500NZSAXAR Short: Hardware alone this watch looks high end with one of the best screens I have seen on a smart watch, but that is where it all ends. What I liked: - Highly visible in direct sunlight - Bixby worked excellent - Tons of watch faces and ability to create custom watch faces - Swiping left and right worked great - Easy to swap to another band - Some notifications were instant - Comfortable - Cool magnetic wireless charger (seems to charge fast) - Heartbeat, breathing, and all the "health" features are excellent What I didn't like: - No native text/sms app on the phone - Didn't always receive notification(s) of new sms/text message (when I did probably had a 5 minute lag) - Could only use Bixby to send text message from watch (I like being able to do that but not out of necessity) - Had to install 2 additional apps (Samsung Accessory Service and com.samsung.android.gearpplugin) - Out of the box required software update that took 10 minutes to complete - Didn't like how the watch band inserts under the clasp side (will swap to a 3rd party band) - Didn't come with installed protection on the watch screen (wireless charger did) - No wall wart included Long: Unboxing the watch I noticed the screen of the watch had no factory applied screen protection. Non of my other watches have one and none have scratches on the face. Time will tell how scratch resistant this watch face is well at least until 3rd party screen protectors arrive. As with all smart watches on your phone you have to download the appropriate apps, turn on bluetooth, and location services. Once that is done you sync the watch, apply the updates, and then customize your watch to your liking. The screen is vibrant and this makes the dials look really good. Had no issues with the health monitors. Seem to work exactly like my fitbit but provided better feedback. I primarily wanted the watch to use to receive emails and text/sms messages. New email notifications seem to be instant. Text/SMS messages notifications lagged and sometimes never came. Also couldn't find native messaging shortcut on the watch. I had to use Bixby to open up messages. This was really disappointing and the watch showed I needed to relax and take breaths. It showed I was stressed. I factory reset the watch and tried again. Signed into my Samsung account and still had issues with text/sms messages. My other smart watches had no problems and were instant. I would have no problem giving the phone 5 stars if the text/sms once the text/sms issues are fixed (maybe I am only one with the issue?). The hardware and design is no doubt 5 stars and that's why I would recommend it. I am sure Samsung will respond to community issues and polish the software, but nobody wants setup issues from the start.

I spent a month using a Galaxy Watch with an S10+. I switched to the Galaxy from an iPhone and purchased the Galaxy Watch Active to replace my Apple Watch Series 3. I was debating between the flagship Galaxy Watch and the Active. I eventually chose the Active because I mainly use a smartwatch for fitness and prefer the design and form factor of the Active. One thing I never liked as an Apple Watch owner was the boring, square, utilitarian design of the Apple Watch. The smooth and stylish round face of the Active looks much better than my old Apple Watch and even slightly better than the Galaxy Watch IMO. Its very unobtrusive and blends in with your wardrobe without standing out. The Active gives me pretty good battery life. I get just about two days off a charge. I strictly use the watch for fitness. I don’t use it for playing music, GPS navigation or non-fitness related apps. The processor is snappy enough for my needs. The OLED display is nice and crisp. The interface is not the most intuitive to operate and the omission of the rotating bezel makes it even tougher. That’s one of my gripes. The screen is bright enough for most uses but can wash out and disappear in very bright sunlight, even at max brightness. Performance-wise, I’d heard complaints about the step counter being inaccurate. I believe I got lucky because I compared the Active to my old iPhone, my S3 Apple Watch, my work phone (S8+) and even a stand-alone pedometer. It was consistent among all devices in tests, including the pedometer. I’m comfortable with it. The band is soft, very comfortable and easy to clean. The watch ships with two bands, short and long. The grey and silver combo may appear boring at first glance but it looks really nice on the wrist and matches any outfit worn. The silver case is also versatile enough to match any color or style band you throw at it. You can place and answer calls from the watch but not hold conversations from it. That is because it does not have a speaker and is another of my gripes. Whenever you make or answer calls, it simply says continue on handset. Call place/reject can be useful, but only if you have earbuds or some other type of secondary external audio device to handle calls handsfree. Otherwise, you may as well just use the phone. I don’t normally place lengthy calls through a smartwatch but it was very convenient to have the ability to make, answer and even have a very brief phone conversation when necessary on my Apple Watch. Another thing that irked me about this watch was the debacle with the blood pressure monitoring. In the weeks leading up to launch, the Active was being touted as the only smartwatch capable of monitoring blood pressure. I personally know people who bought the watch specifically and almost solely for that reason. What they got instead was lots of frustration. The app was delayed and is only compatible with certain phones. It also requires users participate in a research program and share their data. After going through the delays and agreeing to participate in the study, many users are reporting glitches, shaky reliability and wildly inaccurate results. I know people who decided to pass on installing the app for that reason. If this was supposed to be an answer to the new Apple Watch ECG feature, it failed big time. A lot of people actually returned the watch after the blood pressure monitoring turned out to be such a huge disappointment. I personally like the Active, particularly the styling. The best feature of the watch is by far the price. I realize the trade-offs will very likely be too numerous for some and the blood pressure ordeal left a bad taste for many who pre-ordered. I also saw that the flagship Galaxy Watches were recently on sale for $50 off. That only further complicates the decision making process. I personally can live with the trade-offs, although some are definitely more irksome than others. I consider the Active more of an activity tracker than a smartwatch, hence its name. As long as those are the expectations going in, there is likely to be far lest disappointment. So to sum all this up in two sentences: * If you want a true smartwatch comparable to an Apple Watch, buy the Galaxy Watch. * If you primarily want an activity tracker that will also give you alerts and limited apps, buy the Active.

When I purchased this watch, I agonized over which one to buy; the active or the active 2. The on-line reviews for both were very good and similar in functionality. Ultimately I decided on the active because of the price difference and how gorgeous the rose gold looked. Unfortunately after wearing the watch for three weeks I discovered some critical flaws: battery life and heart rate monitor. The watch wouldn't carry more than 30 hours of battery life and it felt like I was always having to place the watch on the charger throughout the day. This was particularly annoying when I went on travel for two days and forgot to bring the charger with me. The second issue I discovered was the heart rate monitor failed to detect my heart rate a quarter of the time. When I spoke to the Best Buy sales associate about this, they mentioned that this was a common complaint with customers because of the flat design of the watch. I finally decided to return the watch and purchase an active 2. Best Buy was fantastic about accepting my return and didn't give me ANY HASSEL which I really appreciated. BLUF- The active is a beautifully designed watch, but not very practical if you don't find yourself near a charger all day.

It is good looking watch. But compared to the Gear S3 has some big limitations. The battery runs out really fast - 24 hours! Can not take calls on the watch - must use the phone. But has good health tracking features and it has lighter weight and easier to use. The price is reasonable for the features.

I bought this even though I have an iPhone XR. It still pairs well with the watch and I got this watch over the Apple Watch because of the price. I found out that you can’t use the texting or call features with an iPhone though. I love the look and the different apps you can add to it, but the battery doesn’t last. The only way you can get the watch to last about a day is if it is always on battery saver mode. If the watch is paired with your phone and using WiFi it seems to last about 7-8 hours at the most. Otherwise the look and features it offers is great. I will most likely buy the Apple Watch since it works best with my phone, but for now this watch is a good start.

The watch is ok for the price. Things I liked were the screen, the band and the functionality and ease of operating it. What I didn't like and the reason why I gave it 3 stars, no speaker, battery life isn't on par with other smartwatches out there. And the size of the watch felt more like it's for women more than men.

This watch is pretty good but it took me a while to learn how to navigate seeing as it doesn't come with a manual and the app is a bit confusing. I love how you can change the display on the watch and it allows you to customize it. You just have to spend time playing with the features to learn how to work it. I would give it more stars but the battery life is pretty bad. The battery only lasts for 2 days unless you use the watch only or battery saver (which are useless if you want it to track your movements.) It also tends to disconnect on its own and half the time I can't use the "find my phone" feature.

I personally don't like this watch and reverted back to my fitbit. Terrible battery life, even when i removed all notifications.

This would have been a 5 Star review but the battery life is just terrible. Everything else is great, I use my watch everyday, be sure to charge it every night! I like the features that this watch offers but I don't get to use them as often as I'd like because the short battery time. I basically have to pick and choose which day would be best to use all the features on my watch like connecting it to my phone having it hooked up to the wifi.... It just last a few hours tops.

I absolutely love everything about this watch excluding the BATTERY LIFE! It lasts 6/7 hours even if I put water mode on. I need this to last my whole 12 hour shift but it doesn't. I previously bought a knock off watch of this and the battery life was amazing. Lasted 2 days. Because of the horrible battery life I will have to return this. Sucks because it's so pretty.

As much as i wanted to like this watch, i ended up returning it. My main issues with the watch were the main reason why i got the watch, it's fitness, workouts function. Basically the watch is not good at tracking workouts or even tracking sleep. While manually starting workouts and doing simple things like lifting dumbbells, the watch would refuse to accurately track my repetitions etc. If i did 10, it showed 3 etc. The sleep tracking would have gaps throughout the night were it didnt track any sleep at all, something that never happened with my previous Fitbit. After researching and watching countless youtube videos of people having the same issues, i decided to return the watch. It seams all of Samsung watches have these issues and i assume people who leave good reviews about the watches don't really care much for its fitness functions but more about its notifications, app etc, because those are actually were Samsung watches really shine. Paired with my Galaxy Note 9, connection and notifications were seamless unlike my previous Fitbit. Things just worked. Also the watch feels and looks very premium, higher quality. In my opinion, if you are buying this watch you probably care about it's fitness functions, and i can honestly tell you even though Fitbit's are more basic it terms of "smart watch" features, they do what they are supposed to do a lot better than Samsung smart watches .

This watch has the potential to be really great but in my opinion it falls short in some categories. It really offers nice things that a smartwatch should.... reading text, reading emails, seeing phone calls (can't answer them through the watch), tracking sleep, counting steps, heartrate, etc. But I was very sad to realize that if I wanted the watch to get my text messages, I had to use the standard messaging app from the phone. That app is not my first choice to use so it's a bummer I had to change over to it. Then the battery life on this is pretty bad. I have to charge it every day and a half. I've got the brightness turned down to 3 and it doesn't continuously do my heartrate or anything else. But still the battery doesn't last. Lastly, the band on this makes my wrist sweat and the back of the watch face has left a red mark on my arm. And no, I don't have it on too tight. I've only owned a Fitbit before so that's all I have to compare to. All in all, if you can deal with a short battery and not so great band, it's a decent smartwatch.

Bought as a gift for the wife, she really likes the styling compared to an apple watch and says she's relieved lots of compliments. Battery life is so so and you have to download multiple app stores as per any convoluted Samsung device. But overall this was a decent buy.

Love most of the features that come on this watch, love that you can change the face at will, comfortable, perfect size, a lot of different features. now for the bad: the constant green flashing ligh under watch, battery life, screen turns off to quick ( I am a nurse that uses the second time)

Nice watch, looks good, nice features but battery only lasts about a day. I am constantly needing to charge it. I used it for 1 year, and recently upgraded to the Samsung - Galaxy Watch Smartwatch 46mm Stainless Steel - Silver.