SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch (46mm) Heart Rate Monitor, Silver (Bluetooth) US Version (Renewed)

Great watch!
I received this watch two days ago and it has been exciting trying to learn all of the capabilities and functions. The watch looked brand new, no scratches or defects of any kind. It came in a plain box with a charger and USB code, nothing else. I went to the Samsung website to download an owner’s manual. The watch paired immediately with my Samsung G22 phone. I added a protective cover which I purchased at the same time, but the biggest issue (not a negative) is learning all that it can do. For a very reasonable price, I received a high-quality smart watch.

Excellent Pebble Replacement!
Have been a diehard Pebble user since the Pebble 1. With a switch to a new phone (ironically an S7 to an LG G8) and the death of the old Pebble app from Google Play, the time was right to seek an alternative.First, the battery life. It is categorically impossible to get the Pebble Time Steel’s battery life on a typical smartwatch. I was able to get 7-10 days off that device. For how I am using it, the Samsung has lasted 48 to 54 hours straight, which means I can have two sleep cycles before I charge. Charging is reasonably fast, where I have gone from 10% to 75% in the span of an hour. This is sufficient for my needs. I run the Always On Display at adaptive brightness and a custom watchface to maximize battery life, and turn off the screen when sleeping at night.The design. It looks like a real watch! I do not run any kind of protective cover on my watches smart or otherwise so can’t comment on added bulk. As it stands with a realistic watchface, it will do a very good job at imitating the real thing at a glance. I was going to add an add-on bezel cover to allow the whole watch to be silver but wasn’t satisfied and went back to stock.The interface. The simple action of rotating the bezel is a marvelously intuitive action, very similar to the excellent push-button layout of the Pebble. However, with the addition of the touchscreen there are just so many more actions you can take. Aside from a few unexpected watchface changes, the touchscreen has proven remarkably difficult to accidentally use, a big concern of mine leaving the Pebble.Notifications and calendar. Pebble’s Timeline feature cannot be surpassed, it was that good. The Samsung however does an excellent job at it once you configure the watch for quick access to calendar. I keep my daily appointments one swipe over, and monthly two swipes over. It works very well! Another huge thing is interacting with notifications, such as authenticator apps. I no longer constantly have to pull out my phone just to sign in!Steps and sleep tracking. The Samsung is much better than the Pebble at this, tracking many different exercises and even generating exercise reports when performing unexpected labor. While carrying bags of mulch around the yard for a half hour, the Samsung reported back how many calories I’d burned, a real unexpected benefit! As well, the sleep tracker pinpoints the time in each level of sleep as well as the whole, very useful to find that optimum sleep position.Music and calling. I haven’t used this much in the real world. In testing, my receivers reported that my voice was clear and understandable. My comfort level with such Star Trek-like tech isn’t high enough (too “geeky”), but I know some of you will love it! Music, I’ve had no experience with but I imagine it will impact battery life quite heavily.Finally, while a bit bigger on my wrist than expected, the Samsung is still a good size. I immediately changed the band to a Horween leather one and it instantly dressed it up. The 22 band size is shared with the Pebble, and with a quick release strap it’s very easy to swap. The biggest knock I had against the Pebble is that no matter how much you tried to dress it up, the Pebble was always square and ‘techy. The Samsung can be dressed up and down much easier, although with both it can be a challenge to wear with a properly fitted shirt because of the watch thickness. A more casual button down is fine.Competition? I strongly considered the Garmin Fenix 5 series, but ultimately felt it was too expensive and too focused on sports activities and not enough on business-level notifications such as emails, texts, appointments, Teams/Slack messages. It is gorgeous though. Apple Watch was never on my radar because I am an Android user.Downsides?- The battery life isn’t as good, so finding opportunities to charge it without disrupting sleep or work is a challenge, especially when on call.- Watchface customization is severely limited without third party apps, and third party watchfaces inevitably eat more battery. I don’t like how deceptively paywalled watchfaces and watchface apps are, and access to the Samsung watch apps sometimes requires additional fees (licensing fees?) which are rolled into purchases.- Always On Display (AoD) mode dims the screen (AoD is on in the picture of the two watches side by side) and may be difficult to read in bright sunlight depending on the watchface colors, plus you cannot manually adjust the brightness of AoD separately from the normal display.All in all, I am very pleased with the watch and a convert to Amazon Renewed. The product arrived exactly as expected, no third-party adapters and all accessories included, still had some plastic wrap on the metal parts of the watch! Will absolutely be looking this way again when they improve the Galaxy watch for round 2!