Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy Watch 9, a smartwatch the company itself frames as an incremental refinement rather than a major overhaul of last year's redesigned Galaxy Watch 8. The update focuses on faster internals and slightly longer battery life rather than a new look, continuing Samsung's emphasis on health and wellness tracking as its main selling point.

The Watch 9 runs Google's Wear OS 7 and switches to Qualcomm's new Snapdragon Wear Elite chip, which Samsung says improves speed and efficiency, particularly for health monitoring. Battery capacity has grown to 390mAh on the 40mm model and 445mAh on the 44mm version, giving up to 30 hours of use with the always-on display enabled, and a new cream colour option joins the existing graphite and silver finishes. Health features carried over from the Watch 8 include sleep apnoea monitoring, Heart Health Score, Daily Cardio Load, a Fitness Index and loud noise alerts, alongside free trials of Strava and iFIT. The watch is available to pre-order now, priced from $380 (Bluetooth) or $430 (LTE), with general availability, alongside the pricier Ultra model, set for 7 August.