Galaxy Watch 8: refined health AI and a trade-off on battery life

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8, released this year with Samsung’s One UI 8 Watch based on Wear OS 6 and onboard Gemini AI, delivers a refined design and expanded health features but continues to trade off battery life for performance, reviewers say. The watch, which starts at about Rs 32,999 in India and $349 in the United States, was tested by multiple outlets over several weeks in varied real-world use.

Samsung moved the series to a new “squircle” case shape that visually enlarges the face and drops the rotating bezel from the standard Watch 8, reserving that feature for the pricier Classic model. The 44mm model testers wore features a 1.47 inch Super AMOLED screen, sapphire crystal protection and a peak brightness Samsung rates at roughly 3,000 nits. Internals include an Exynos 1000 chip, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, enabling app installs from the Play Store and on-device features such as Google Maps navigation and third party apps including Truecaller.

Health and AI features are a major focus. Samsung has packaged new AI-driven tools into its Health Labs, including a Health Coach that offers personalized training regimes and an Antioxidant Index intended to nudge lifestyle...