The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is a capable smartwatch and an attractive smartphone accessory, but it is also designed to be a fitness tracker, with GPS and a heart rate monitor. But how does it compare to the best fitness trackers on the market?

Samsung's latest smartwatch lineup runs the new Google Wear OS, but Samsung Health is the device's native activity tracking platform. Like most of the best smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch 4 supports a stable list of preset workout types and tracks elapsed time, calories burned, and distance traveled, where applicable.

Over the course of a week, I used the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 to log a variety of indoor and outdoor workouts. I went to a traditional gym, cycled in a quiet beachside town, and took numerous walks in the not-so-quiet New York City streets. He even had time to do Namaste, a yoga practice he recently added to his recovery routine.

Read on to see what I got out of working out with the Galaxy Watch 4. Note that my experience is with the standard, sporty looking Galaxy Watch 4 40mm. For more information on which version is right for you, see Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic comparison guide.

Unlike my Apple Watch 6, which offers both indoor and outdoor cycling options, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 has a single cycling workout type. While I have the best indoor exercise bike, I opted for outdoor cycling, especially on beautiful weekend mornings.

I manually activated the cycling workout at the start of the ride and enabled the always-on display so I could see the metrics I needed without having to twist my wrist off the handlebars. However, if I choose not to look through them, the Galaxy Watch 4 provides me with voice updates. Not only did it count completed miles aloud, but it also provided a brief workout summary every 30 minutes. My ride lasted just over an hour, so I heard the summary twice.

According to the Galaxy Watch 4, I burned 514 calories on a ride of about 10 miles, averaging 9.5 mph. My bicycle odometer recorded about the same distance. According to the Apple Watch, I rode another tenth of a mile, but I neglected to pause my outdoor cycle on the Apple Watch when I took a break to take a picture of the ocean along the way. I must have walked in circles several times to find good lighting.

The Galaxy Watch 4's auto pause feature also recognized that I was not riding during the photo shoot, thus reflecting my cycling more accurately. Let's discuss the auto pause feature in more detail.

Back at the gym, I tested the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4. There are two ways to track traditional weight training: by tracking individual exercises or by using the circuit training option. For the type of person who does 100 reps of the same movement in a row, there are niche options for arm curls, bench presses, lateral raises, pull-ups, etc. It is this feature that makes Fitbit watches like the Fitbit Versa 3 a great workout partner.

Not many smartwatches offer such specific training options, but I stuck with the circuit training option. I alternated upper body, lower body, and core exercises with dumbbells and got the same 30-minute update as I did when cycling. I think the calories burned were overestimated, but I took the opportunity to customize the information displayed on the screen during the workout. I selected elapsed time, calories burned, current heart rate, and maximum heart rate, but there are several other metrics to choose from.

Most of the exercise saved on the Galaxy Watch 4 came from walking. Between taking my dog to the park twice a day and walking around New York City in under an hour, I had plenty of opportunities to check out the Galaxy Watch 4's automatic workout tracking feature.

With my 90-pound dog Steve, my cell phone, my keys, and sometimes coffee, I often forget to start my walk workout. When the buzzer sounded on my wrist, the Galaxy Watch 4 detected my walk, started tracking when I left my apartment, and let me know to start in 5 to 10 minutes, depending on how long I had to travel.

The automatic pause feature was also useful while walking. The haptics let me know when to pause and resume the walk, which met my dog's desire to greet all passersby and stiffen trees. His manners allowed me to log 22 minutes on most of Steve's walks on the Galaxy Watch 4, compared to an average of nearly 30 minutes of mileage on the Apple Watch.

I don't always record my yoga workouts. However, as I improved my yoga practice, I began to think that technology might help me understand my body better. I felt my calorie counts were higher again, but my heart rate updated faster than on my Samsung Galaxy Watch 3.

For workouts where the heart rate stays in a shorter range than, say, aerobic exercise, the frequent updates help me immediately see the impact of a particular pause on my effort level. And if I am keen on monitoring my heart rate zones, I can scroll to the bottom of the fitness tracking interface to see my heart rate zones during any workout.

The Galaxy Watch 4 is a formidable exercise partner. However, after a week of workouts, I have mixed feelings about using it as a daily activity tracker. While I appreciate the sharp heart rate measurement and wish more smartwatches had the auto pause/play feature, there are important reasons to choose one of the best Fitbits or best sports watches instead.

With my daily walking activity and GPS usage (averaging 7 miles per day), the battery life of the Galaxy Watch 4 cannot keep up. At best, I get about 24 hours, but the stamina is not consistent. The last thing I want is to try to get ready for a workout only to find that the smartwatch's battery is running out of juice, and in my experience with the Galaxy Watch 4, that has happened more than once.