By giving 64GB of storage to the Apple Watch Series 9, the long-time Samsung rival made the not too long ago launched Galaxy Watch 6 — with its mere 16GB of storage — look a bit dated by comparability. Not everybody wants a ton of watch storage, to be truthful. But Samsung must upgrade its watches’ capability by the subsequent technology.
With any smartwatch, a wholesome chunk of storage goes straight to the working system. WatchOS 10 presently makes use of about 7.5GB on my companion’s Apple Watch, whereas Wear OS 4 on the Galaxy Watch 6 makes use of about 10GB of storage out of the field, leaving only 6GB left for apps, images, and music information.
When I reviewed the Galaxy Watch 6, this by no means impacted me. Even after including a bunch of apps and customized photograph watch faces, I nonetheless had about 5GB left. If you only use your watch to reply telephone calls, verify notifications, and observe exercises, your storage will stay largely untouched.
So what makes the 64GB Apple Watch Series 9 storage such a boon? It makes it a greater standalone system as a substitute of simply an extension of your telephone.
My colleague Andrew Myrick, who owns the Galaxy Watch 5 and Apple Watch Ultra, tells me that he prefers carrying the latter to play music and podcasts over his AirPods each time he needs to complete chores outdoors, with no need his cumbersome iPhone 14 Pro Max or Galaxy S23 Ultra in his pocket.
Apple reserves 25% of Apple Watch storage for media, so the Series 9 will double that partition to 16GB — equal to the complete Galaxy Watch 6 storage. If 1GB equals about 100 high-quality music information, meaning you will get effectively over a thousand songs in your watch directly, sufficient for some nice exercise or strolling playlists.
With your Galaxy Watch, it can save you a number of wholesome gigs of music or audiobooks, however you need to share that remaining area with any apps you need. And that is a disgrace as a result of the Galaxy Watch is a lot higher outfitted for music streaming than the Apple Watch, and it additionally permits you to save music information to the watch out of your telephone.
It’s a easy matter of numbers: the Galaxy Watch 6 lasts 40 hours per cost, whereas the Apple Watch Series 8 has the similar 18-hour max as the previous couple of generations. Apple’s battery estimate web page claims the Watch Series 9 helps “as much as 11 hours” of native music playback, however think about me skeptical you will hit that quantity in regular use situations. With the Galaxy Watch 6, I’m extra optimistic I can stream music for hours to my wi-fi earbuds and nonetheless have some capability left over.
Both Apple and Samsung promote mobile variations of their watches, letting you stream your playlists remotely. But I’ve heard horror tales about how rapidly music streaming burns by means of any smartwatch’s battery, to not point out any information limits in your mobile plan. I’d nonetheless desire laborious storage for any phone-free excursions, and that is the place the Apple Watch wins.
Up till not too long ago, Android smartwatches have not provided a lot space for storing; 8GB was a reasonably frequent customary. But in the previous yr, the Pixel Watch and TicWatch Pro 5 each jumped to 32GB. Samsung, as the highest-selling Android watch model, clearly did not really feel any stress to match this development, prioritizing a skinnier design.
But by the time the Galaxy Watch 7 arrives, Samsung actually cannot persist with the established order any longer. It wants to leap to 32GB at the very least, and a hypothetical Galaxy Watch 7 Pro mannequin — which might convey again the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro’s 3-day battery life — might match the Apple Watch with 64GB.
Or, if Samsung needs to remain stingy and get monetary savings on the base mannequin, it ought to let hardcore smartwatch followers like Andrew pay a bit additional for extra storage, identical to you’ll be able to for Galaxy telephones.
(*9*)
Despite its lower-than-average storage, the Galaxy Watch 6 remains to be our favourite Android watch. It provides a thin-bordered, ultra-bright show paired with super-speedy efficiency and respectable battery life.