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Product launch season is upon us, and Samsung kicked things off at its Galaxy Unpacked event in London with its new lineup of smartwatches: the flagship Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and the more accessible Galaxy Watch 9 . 

Also: Everything announced at Samsung Unpacked 2026: New foldables, smartwatches, more

As Samsung's base model smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 9 has a handful of upgrades that could make the Pixel Watch or other Android watch owners convert. But how does it compare to its predecessor, the Galaxy Watch 8? 

Specifications

You should buy the Galaxy Watch 9 if...

Buy the Galaxy Watch 9

$379.99 at Amazon

1. You plan on wearing it 24/7 

There are two types of smartwatch users: those who wear it only during their workouts or for or sleep monitoring, and those who keep it on all day. They're the people taking the smartwatch on a 20-mile run, and also wearing it to a wedding to track their dancefloor cardio. 

Also: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra vs. Z Fold 7: After a year of usage, I'm ready to upgrade

If you resonate more with the latter category, you also, presumably, want a smartwatch to be powered at all times. The Galaxy Watch 9 gets an upgraded battery, with capacity extended to 390 mAh, around 30 hours of life with Always-On Display enabled.

2. You want to try some of the newest Samsung health features

Samsung packs several new features that bring its health-monitoring software closer to rivals, specifically Oura, Google, and Apple. You'll find a new cardio score on your Samsung Health app that tracks your training, heart rate data, and recovery to fine tune workout intensity. It also introduces a sleep apnea score to the app, to track nighttime breathing disturbances and alert you of any anomalies. 

Following with this scoring theme, Samsung adds a heart health score to the watch, which feels similar to Oura's cardiovascular age feature. By taking your seven-day sleep time average, activity average, body mass index, and blood pressure into account, the heart health score offers up a rating of heart health alongside helpful recommendations for boosting your heart's cardio capacity. 

Lastly, Samsung takes a page out of the Apple Watch's Vitals app for its latest feature, unoriginally called Vitals. It does exactly what the Apple Watch does: track heart rate variability, heart rate, blood oxygen, and respiratory rate to detect variations and notify smartwatch wearers of potential illness or strain. 

3. Your current smartwatch is several years old 

Besides Samsung rolling out new health features (that will probably come to the Galaxy Watch 8 eventually), the biggest difference between the Galaxy Watch 8 and Galaxy Watch 9 is battery capacity. Sure, it's nice to get a few extra hours of use out of your smartwatch, but the functionalities of both watches will be mostly the same. That's why I'd recommend purchasing the Galaxy Watch 9 if you're upgrading a watch that is over two or three years old. 

You should buy the Galaxy Watch 8 if...

Buy the Galaxy Watch 8

$299 at Amazon

1. You're willing to wait on new feature upgrades for a better deal

Samsung said that, currently, the Galaxy Watch 9 and Ultra 2 will include features exclusive to these new watches. But it's highly likely that some features arrive on the Watch 8 and Ultra 2 later this year. If that is true, I'd wait to buy the Galaxy Watch 8 at a major discount, which it will surely sell at now that the Galaxy Watch 9 is available. October Prime Day or Black Friday could bring you a lower price on this watch. 

2. You plan to wear it for specific purposes 

If you aren't interested in the newest features and simply want a smartwatch that can track your exercise, give you an adequate array of health metrics, and help you stay in check with your body, you don't need to splurge on the shiniest option. The Galaxy Watch 8 is a capable watch -- I know, I've tested it. 

Writer's choice

I haven't gotten to test out the Galaxy Watch 9 yet, so I can't speak to my personal experience with it. However, it's got a bigger battery and several new features for tracking both short-term and long-term health. That's what a good health tracker should do, and the Galaxy Watch 9 does that better than the Galaxy Watch 8, currently. 

Also: I tried Samsung's new wide Galaxy Z Fold 8, and it's my favorite product of Unpacked 2026

But as I said previously, if you aren't interested in the full suite of health-tracking and you only want to get a sense of your general activity or sleep, then the Galaxy Watch 8 is a better, cheaper buy that still offers a value-packed health tracking experience. 

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