Samsung opens Galaxy Watch 9 preorder, Amazon $50 incentive

Samsung has officially launched its latest flagship wearable, the Galaxy Watch 9, which is now available for preorder ahead of its general retail release on August 7, 2026. The smartwatch was unveiled at the company's Galaxy Unpacked event in London on Wednesday, July 22, alongside other new products including the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, new foldable phones, and Galaxy Glasses.

The Galaxy Watch 9 starts at $379.99 for the 40mm Bluetooth model, representing a $30 increase over the starting price of last year's Galaxy Watch 8. The company attributed the higher price to increased memory and storage costs. The lineup includes 40mm and 44mm sizes, available in both Bluetooth and LTE configurations, with the top-tier 44mm LTE model priced at $459.99. Color options are Cream and Graphite for the 40mm model, and Silver and Graphite for the 44mm.

Key upgrades for the new model center on internal hardware. Samsung confirmed the Galaxy Watch 9 is the first in the series to drop its Exynos processor entirely, instead running on the new Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear Elite chip. The company states the new 3nm chip delivers a 32% faster CPU and 19% faster GPU compared to the previous generation,...