The spinning bezel is the biggest plus of Samsung Watches. And yet, every few generations, the company drops the hardware feature, customers push back, and then it magically returns. If I were a more cynical person, I'd suggest that this is all a bit to drive engagement, but the more likely answer is that the feature is too much of a nuisance during the design phase and/or Samsung thinks it's run its course.

It's a thing I've never quite gotten, and while the company would have you believe otherwise, a haptic bezel is no substitute. With Samsung being back on Team Wear OS, you might assume it would lean into the kinds of features that make the devices different. It's also been, historically speaking, one of the big advantages the line has going for it over the market-gobbling Apple Watch.

The spirit of compromise brings Samsung some badly needed pragmatic balance with the launch of two variations of its wearable this year: the Galaxy Watch 6 and the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. These capture those compromises rather than differ much in terms of form factor, though there are two main differences here: 1) Size 2) The bezel. On the former, the Watch 6 comes in 40 and 40mm sizes, where the Watch 6 Classic measures out at 43 and a very large 47mm. In the latter, the Watch boasts 30% slimmer digital bezel, and the Watch 6 Classic mercifully brings the mechanical bezel back, at 15% the size of its predecessor.

Probably added real estate of physical bezel is to increase surface area of cases, so watches become bigger for the same screen size. Samsung watches are always a bit larger, and if available, I probably would opt for 43mm Watch Classic. In the Classic, the batteries are the same size but the case is bigger. The smaller version of each is 300mAh, and the larger ones 425mAh.

They are rated at up to 30 hours with the always-on display enabled and 40 hours with it off. That's not multiple days on a single charge, but the Galaxy Watches do tend to outperform Apple's when it comes to battery life. The display itself gets an upgrade, too, and is 20% larger-than that is, 1.3 inches on the more modest models and 1.5 on the larger versions, at 432×432 and 480×480 respectively. As with the smartphone equivalent, the brightness peaks at 2,000 nits.
Still, outside the bezel, what's finally available with the upgrade here on health and sleep sides — not a huge surprise there, as most companies have homed in on this as primary drivers of wearable adoption. Sleep scores offer ratings by total; time asleep, sleep cycle, and awake time, while offering up Sleep Messages in the morning, based on information from the National Sleep Foundation. Sleep Coaching, meanwhile, offers tips for getting and staying asleep.

There is, for example, Personalized Heart Zone, a function that will provide ideal running modes to work toward specific goals, such as burning fat or muscle gain. Irregular Heart Rhythm Notification will be able to alert the user to signs of AFib, even while sleeping.
 A Samsung Wallet update merges Pay with Pass into one feature, with credit cards, IDs, tickets, boarding passes, and more in tow.

Both will go up for preorder today and begin shipping on August 11. The Watch and Watch Classic starts at $300 and $330 respectively, with the bigger models running $400 and $430.