Smartwatch showdown: Apple Watch Series 6 vs Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic – is Wear OS a game-changer for the Samsung?
- Apple has led the smartwatch market from the start, but Samsung and Google have joined forces to challenge that
- We compare Apple’s Watch 6 with Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, and the differences come down to their ecosystems and voice assistants
Since its debut six years ago, the Apple Watch has dominated the smartwatch market. Sales may fluctuate every quarter, but industry numbers show Apple’s smartwatch generally grabs 30 to 40 per cent of the global smartwatch market share, while all other brands are in single digits.
So when Google announced at its developer conference in May that it had partnered with Samsung to jointly develop the former’s Wear OS platform for the latter’s wearables, many saw it as a necessary move: two rivals teaming up to take on a bigger threat.
The just-released Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 series is the first result of this collaboration: running Google’s Wear OS instead of Samsung’s Tizen platform, these are the first Samsung wearables to have access to Google apps in years, and with a new 5nm processor built by Samsung, these are also the most capable hardware WearOS has ever run on.
With Google’s Wear OS replacing Samsung’s Tizen platform, Samsung wearables now have full access to Google apps. The smartwatches will also benefit from running on a new 5nm processor built by Samsung.
But are these improvements enough to beat the Apple Watch Series 6?
Design and hardware
