Best Smartwatches for Build Quality (2024)

The Ace LTE features a decent color OLED display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

This display provides you with a whole new on-device experience every day.

It is a kid-focused wearable device that rewards children for being active.

The Fitbit Ace tracks steps, active minutes, and even sleep.

Even though it is a heart rate sensor, you won't see a heart rate reading.

The battery can last approximately 16 hours between charges.

It can charge from 0 to 100 in about an hour.

It has LTE connectivity, allowing you to perform GPS tracking, make calls, and send text messages.

The LTE features don't require another phone number, but they do require a subscription.

The screens of both sizes are now even bigger.

The end result is still very much an incremental update instead of a dramatic new form factor.

The major health update this time is the detection of sleep apnea.

There's sleep apnea detection, and there's training load as well.

Now, it can show the second hand continuously when the Always On Display is on because it doesn't consume extra battery.

You can now use the speakers for anything other than a phone call.

The display is a Super AMOLED technology, as you would expect from Samsung, and that's great news because it really helps to bring the bold, bright colors of the UI to life.

The display claims to be twice as bright, at 2000 nits compared to 1000 nits in the past.

The Christmas display and its quality have been awesome.

The Galaxy Watch 6 Classic can also auto-detect various exercises.

The Samsung fitness app and the information it provides show everything I want without having to tap or fiddle with the screen in use.

Sleep stage and sleep phase accuracy are available for pretty much all wearables. Now, there is a new sleep consistency screen on both the watch and the phone.

You'll be able to get about two days of use out of this larger Galaxy Watch 6 Classic on a single charge.

Samsung claims 30 hours of battery life for both units with an always-on configuration.

The battery life, though, has been excellent so far. I've routinely gotten two days of use without really worrying about it at all.

You can get the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic in two different colors.

You also have the option of choosing one of Samsung's offer programs for educators, military personnel, first responders, etc.

I'm sure Android, or at least Samsung users out there, are already experts in this, but it was just as easy to get going as my Apple Watch.

In the case of the Ultra 2, it has a 3000-nit display in terms of the maximum brightness you can get from that display.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 has a sapphire crystal display.

The most important things for me are GPS and heart rate tracking.

I love that it has dual-frequency GPS.

The double-tap feature is like the perfect symphony of impressive processing power and clever computation.

The battery life remains unchanged, providing 36 hours of normal use.

You get 12 hours of use with the Ultra 2s, including full heart rate and GPS recordings.

The S9 package also includes a new Ultra Wideband chip that enables precise location tracking of your iPhone.

All editions of the Ultra 2 include cellular connectivity built into the watch.

Another feature I've enjoyed using, which is new on the Series 9, is the brighter display.

This watch looks almost exactly the same as last year.

The display still has the same 1000 nits of brightness as the Series 9.

Another thing I've used this Apple Watch for a lot is fitness tracking.

The main feature is this double-tap functionality.

Sleep apnea detection is available on both the Series 9 and the Series 10.

Apple consistently targets the same 18-hour battery life as they always have.

The battery life is still the same as on the Series 9, rated for up to 18 hours of use.

The S9 package also includes a new Ultra Wideband chip that enables precise location tracking of your iPhone.

The S9 package also now has twice as much built-in memory and a neural engine with double the speed.

The display is protected by sapphire crystal glass, similar to that of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6.

On the Samsung Watch FE, there is a large black bezel surrounding the display, even though it has the same case size as the Galaxy Watch 6, which has a smaller display of just 1.2 inches.

The Galaxy Watch FE includes nearly all the features you'd expect from a modern smartwatch, such as daily activity tracking, 24/7 heart rate monitoring, over 100 different workout modes, sleep tracking, stress tracking, compatible music apps, Bixby or Google Assistant, third-party apps, and more.

The Galaxy Watch FE, however, does not include a temperature sensor, so it lacks the few features that rely on that sensor.

The watch will notify you when the battery drops to 15%.

It takes about 1 hour to charge from 15% to 80%, or about 1.5 hours to charge fully from 15% to 100%.

In this current version, I've got Wi-Fi, so I can easily connect to it and use this watch without my phone.

There will be another version with LTE where you'll probably be able to activate eSIM.

The Vivo Move Trend comes with plenty of upgrades over the Vivo Move Sport, including a full LCD display.

The biggest difference, though, is that when you wake up the display with the new Vivo Move Trend, it's a full LCD display that fills up both the top and bottom of the watch face.

They've also increased the touchable surface of the touchscreen. If that makes sense, it's now basically edge-to-edge. In the past, it was a much smaller area.

The Vivo Move Trend comes with plenty of upgrades over the Vivo Move Sport, including a full LCD display, Garmin Pay, and an altimeter, so it will track the floors you climb.

It has a heart rate sensor and an SpO2 sensor for measuring blood oxygen saturation levels.

The Vivo Move Trend has a feature called Instant Detection, where it will attempt to detect if you get into an incident, such as a crash on your bicycle.

The Vivo Move Trend can provide up to five days of battery life, and it charges using an included clip-on charger.

The biggest news is that the Viva Move Trend can also charge wirelessly.

I conducted a quick test where I charged for 15 minutes just to see what the charging rate was. In that case, I achieved about 11% during those 15 minutes.

The Vivo Move Trend uses connected GPS, meaning that if you want to track distance while doing an outdoor activity like running or cycling, you'll need to have your phone with you.

This device does not have NFC for payments.

It'll notify your emergency contact, send them your location, and let them know that you need help.

This display reaches a peak brightness of up to a thousand nits.

The display looks really nice.

The always-on display is not enabled by default, but it is supported.

It has all the sensors you'd expect in a smartwatch.

The impressive feature that jumps off the page to me is the dual GPS antennas.

I think there are over 100 different activity trackers, including my personal favorite physical activity: badminton.

This one lasts 100 hours.

The way they're achieving this battery life is that this watch has two entirely separate processors.

It will provide a full day's charge in 10 minutes and a complete charge in an hour.

It's just all about Bluetooth pairing with a number.

Apparently, the NFC antenna is up here.

If you're in a crowded or loud environment, it is not that usable.

This is a pretty incredible 1.5-inch AMOLED display with 480 x 480 pixels that really pops, especially since it can reach a peak brightness of 3000 nits.

You may notice a bit of flickering or banding in some of the clips in this video, but that's just because the frame rate of my camera doesn't match the refresh rate of the watch.

This is the most accurate Samsung watch I've ever tested.

The Samsung watch does have an ECG feature.

One feature that the Samsung watch has, which the Apple watch does not, is stress measurement.

The Samsung Health app automatically connects to InBody and imports all the data.

The Galaxy Watch Ultra is rated for 60 hours of normal use.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is at 80%, and the Apple Watch Ultra Two is at 66%.

I love that Apple is now cooperating with Samsung and other Android phones by incorporating RCS.

The Galaxy Watch Ultra features smart AI replies.

On the front, we have a 1.4-inch AMOLED display, which is larger than the old 1.3-inch display.

The Venue 3s has a smaller 1.2-inch display, whereas the larger unit has a 1.4-inch display.

I think that this Venue 3S, with its gold stainless steel bezel and bright AMOLED display, is really quite good-looking.

Take a look at sleep tracking, for example, which is a huge improvement on this watch.

We have enhanced tracking during sleep with all-night HRV monitoring.

There's actually a jet lag advisor that I haven't been able to test just yet.

It's missing a few swim features, which really can make or break it for those of us who like to swim, and it doesn't have a triathlon mode.

We're also getting a longer battery life here, with 14 days per charge.

Instead of having to charge it every night, every other day, or at most every three days, this watch is claimed to last up to 14 days.

Personally, I'm getting about 10 to 11 days, which is still a huge improvement.

On the left side, we have a speaker, so you can now answer phone calls here and use a voice assistant.

The main drawback is that it doesn't integrate as tightly with your phone as those other watches do.

If you want to get apps, you have to download a third-party Garmin app on your phone.