Samsung Galaxy Watch9 Launched In Nepal: What’s New Really?

Samsung recently launched its new batch of folding phones, and as is customary, new smartwatches tagged along as well. This time around, we got the new edition of their standard lineup, i.e. Samsung Galaxy Watch9, and a second-gen Ultra offering. No Classic with rotating bezels this time, unfortunately.

Between the two watch lineups, the Watch Ultra2 received more attention from the brand as it is their best offering. Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy Watch9 feels like a rehash of the Watch8 for the most part.

As I mentioned earlier, Samsung Galaxy Watch9 feels like a repackaging of last year’s smartwatch, but that isn’t to say there are no changes! There are changes, albeit very limited.

What changes are those? Let’s have a further look in this article:

Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 Overview

Samsung continues with its “cushion shape design” of sticking the circular AMOLED display on top of the squircle aluminium chassis. Even if the smartwatches may look the same, companies at least try to shave a few hair strands’ worth of thickness from the watch just so they can highlight it on their product page.

Samsung did it with their Ultra offering, where they hacked 1.4mm off its thickness, which I would say is massive for a smartwatch. But with the Galaxy Watch9, you could literally hand it to your quirky acting manager alongside Watch8 and ask them, “Corporate needs you to find the difference between this watch and this watch”.

What I find funny is, Samsung only lets you compare the thinness of this watch with Watch7 or Watch6 in its official overview, because Watch8 literally has the same dimensions as Watch9.

Jokes aside, colours are where differences lie. Not in the chassis — those are still Black Graphite and Silver. The bands are now available in three different types, each with five colour options. I quite like this “Misty” option, and not because of my love for Pokémon.

But the sad thing is, Samsung Nepal is only bringing the regular Sports Band in the Black, Silver, and Cream shades — all of which are very safe options. I don’t even blame them, because high-end smartwatches aren’t really something the wider Nepali audience palates, so why take the risk?

Well… I may have grilled Samsung a bit for not thinning down their smartwatch chassis, but it’s not like they didn’t re-engineer the internals. They have managed to cram in a larger battery in the same chassis. The 44mm variant only gets a 10mAh bump, now at 445mAh, which is like whatever. But the story is different for the 40mm trim, which now packs a whopping 390mAh cell, up from 325mAh.

That’s a massive jump for a smartwatch, especially for the one with a smaller frame. What’s even more impressive is that they did this without even dabbling in silicon-carbon sorcery as they did with the Watch Ultra2. Samsung really has its own way of flexing, you know?

When the Galaxy Watch8 rolled around, one thing that raised my eyebrow was the use of Bluetooth v5.3 for connectivity. But I did not nag about it too much because it wasn’t a dealbreaker in my eyes. No such issues to be raised this time, though, as the Watch9 does come with Bluetooth 6.

That is to be expected, considering Samsung has gone with Qualcomm’s Wear Elite as its silicon of choice, replacing its own penta-core processor. While this chip is built on the same 3nm fabrication, it is much newer than the Exynos W1000 and can reach higher clock speeds as well.

And that’s about all the hardware changes we get with the Samsung Galaxy Watch9. As for software, we get the latest Wear OS 7 with One UI 9 Watch layered on top. The most highlighted perk of the new software is the ability to use Gemini hands-free.

Samsung Galaxy Watch8 was the first smartwatch in the world with system-level Gemini integration, allowing you to use the AI on the watch. You could trigger it by either pressing a button or hollering “Hey Google” at it. But now, raising the watch is enough. And apparently the watch can tell apart whether you are raising it just to check the time or to speak to it — maybe by the level of the raise, but interesting nonetheless.

Health tracking-wise, there does not seem to be anything “new” particularly. Samsung mentions Fitness Index, Daily Cardio Load, Vitals, Heart Health Score, and Hearing Protection as the new features. Here, only the “Hearing Protection” might be a new one, which appears to be a feature that pings you when there is loud sound around. Other than that, all other features look like presenting the same old data in a new way.

ALSO READ: Samsung Mobiles Price in Nepal (August 2026 Updated)

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 does not bring that many changes over the Watch 8. There are a few hardware changes — none major, unless you are particularly looking at the 40mm variant, which, with its 65mAh battery bump, is the biggest winner this year.

Other than that, all the changes are on the software end, none of which seem likely to be gatekept citing hardware limitations. In other words, the new features introduced this season are likely to be pushed to Galaxy Watch 8 as well.

So unless you are an extreme fitness enthusiast who feels wants that extra bit of battery, then I don’t see why anyone would get the new Galaxy Watch 9 instead of Watch 8 at a lower price.

Do you think the upgrades on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 were enough? Do let us know in the comments!