Samsung has a perennial smartwatch hit on its hands (or should that be wrists?) with the Galaxy Watch line up, offering accomplished and well-designed wearables that work best with Samsung phones but work with all Android phones.

The firm has just lifted the lid on the new Galaxy Watch 8 line up (alongside new Galazxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7 and Z Flip 7 FE folding phones), but despite a reworked design and several new software features, you might not be jumping at the chance to invest once you see the price.

The Galaxy Watch 8 was introduced alongside the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, the latter bringing back the fan-favourite rotating bezel design last seen on 2023’s Galaxy Watch 6 Classic after Samsung left it out of any of the Watch 7 series.

In fact, there was no Classic model at all in 2024, with Samsung instead introducing the beefed-up Galaxy Watch Ultra.

This year, the firm has opted to keep the Ultra going with no updates, save for a fetching new titanium blue model to go with the existing orange, white and black options.

That means you have three Galaxy Watch models to choose between for 2025, which will get the latest software smarts as part of Samsung’s One UI 8 Watch software based on Google’s Wear OS 6. This includes new tools Bedtime Guidance, Vascular Load, Running Coach and Antioxidant Index.

Samsung also said the Galaxy Watch 8 and 8 Classic are the world’s first smartwatches with Google Gemini built in, if you want a bit of updated Google voice assistant action on your wrist.

The Galaxy Watch 8 is said to be 11 percent slimmer than last year’s Watch 7, but unfortunately it’s thicker when it comes to the price. The smaller 40mm version costs from £319, a £30 price increase on its predecessor. If you want the larger 44mm model, it costs from £349. Adding 4G to either model results in a £50 increase.

That said, this is still cheaper than Google's Pixel Watch 3, which starts from £349 for the smaller version.

It’s also rough news for the price of the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, which costs from £449. That’s a chunky £80 more than the Watch 6 Classic cost at launch just two years ago. You’ll have to decide if the addition of the quick button from the Galaxy Watch Ultra is worth the extra spend, as the Classic doesn’t appear to have many - if any - exclusive features compared to the regular Watch 8 aside from the design, a larger battery and double the storage at 64GB.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy Watch Ultra still costs £599, although it’s on sale in the current Amazon Prime Day sales for just £349. That’s a very good price that undercuts the new 8 Classic by a whole £100!

There’s no doubt Samsung makes good smartwatches, but I felt the Ultra was overpriced for the full RRP, and stand by that. It doesn’t add much more compared to the Classic, and it’s not rated for diving, one of the activities you’d expect it to be able to handle alongside rival products such as the Apple Watch Ultra that can.

You can pre-order the Galaxy Watch 8, Galaxy Watch 8 Classic and Galaxy Watch Ultra now from Samsung.