Donald Trump is suing the Pulitzer Prize Board for awarding coverage of his ties to Russia.
The board said two independent reviews concluded the prizes should stand.
In depositions, his lawyers are seen hunting for the identities of those anonymous reviewers.
Thanks for signing up!
Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you’re on the go.
In an overlooked lawsuit, Donald Trump’s lawyers are exhibiting a habit from his White House days: Hunting for anonymous sources.
In transcripts of four depositions obtained by Business Insider, Trump’s attorneys had the opportunity to question journalists about a mystery that has vexed them for years: Who are the anonymous consultants who reviewed the Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their coverage of Trump’s connections to Russia?
The depositions were taken last year for a lawsuit Trump brought in December 2022, suing the Pulitzer Prize Board, which administers American journalism’s highest honors. He accused the board and its 18 members of defaming him by awarding the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting to The Washington Post and The New York Times for their coverage of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the country’s connections to Trump’s presidential campaign and administration.
In his lawsuit, Trump complained that journalists and the Pulitzer board conspired together as part of a larger “Russia Collusion Hoax,” which the former president claimed was “fully debunked.”
The board announced that it commissioned “two independent reviews” of the work submitted by the Times and the Post that won the 2018 prize, which “were conducted by individuals with no connection to the institutions whose work was under examination, nor any connection to each other.”
Each review independently concluded the prize-winning stories were not “discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes,” the board said.
To this day, the Pulitzer board has not disclosed who did the reviews and what they consisted of. Nor have its members explained why they are keeping the information a secret.
Trump’s lawyers are trying to get to the bottom of it. In the depositions Business Insider obtained, Trump’s lawyers question the defendants — all journalists — about what they describe as their “use of anonymous sources” with the Pulitzer statement.
“Without identifying those individuals, I guess we have no way to verify the truth of the statement,” Trump’s lawyer R. Quincy Bird asked investigative journalist Katherine Boo in her deposition, taken in August 2023. “So Ms. Boo, I’ll ask it directly, who conducted the external review?”
At each turn, a lawyer for the Pulitzer Board members stopped their clients from answering.
The hunt for the identity of the Pulitzer board’s reviewers demonstrates how some of Trump’s attitudes toward media — an obsession with anonymous sources and paranoia of supposed shadowy figures he claims to believe are conspiring against him — have leaked beyond the political arena and into his lawsuits.
Chad R. Bowman, an attorney at the law firm Ballard Spahr, said in a deposition transcript that the identities of the people who conducted the reviews for the Pulitzer board were subject to “First Amendment privilege to protect sources.”
“I’m going to instruct the witness not to answer on the basis of First Amendment privilege,” Bowman said in the deposition.
Trump’s lawyers indicated they disagreed with Bowman’s assertion, but haven’t yet filed any court motions asking the judge to force the defendants to identify the reviewers — a step normally taken when lawyers don’t get the answers they want during a deposition.
“We are not at liberty to discuss this case,” she told Business Insider.
The journalists whom Trump’s lawyers deposed did, however, offer some characterization of the “consultants” who conducted the reviews. Miller, who sat for a deposition on May 23 last year, testified the people were “widely recognized as leaders” in American journalism.
Boo told Trump’s lawyers that she was not involved in the first review, which took place in 2019. She said she had confidence in the results of the second review, which took place in 2021, and took additional information into account.
“It was a person who had no relationship and person who had the stature and, I believe, ethical clarity and the moral rigor to be frank with the board should problems with those submissions be submitted,” Boo said.
The depositions shed light on the Pulitzer’s secretive reviews
Trump’s attacks on journalism remain a pillar of his political message. And he has extended his language railing against a “witch hunt” against him to include his many legal problems — including four separate grand jury criminal cases — as he runs in the 2024 presidential election. In 2023, a PAC Trump controls gave over $260,000 in donor money to Weber, Crabb, & Wein, the law firm representing him in the Pulitzer case, according to a Business Insider analysis of disbursement records.
The Pulitzer Prize Board is hosted by Columbia University, in Manhattan, which manages the small organization’s payroll and offers institutional support. But Trump brought his lawsuit in Florida, arguing the state has jurisdiction in the defamation lawsuit because he lives at Mar-a-Lago.
His lawsuit also points out that the Pulitzer board includes Neil Brown, a Florida resident who serves as the president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and worked as the top editor at the Tampa Bay Times.
A judge overseeing the case blocked Trump’s lawyers from issuing subpoenas for depositions and records for the merits of the case, allowing only jurisdictional discovery.
The defendants — which include New Yorker editor in chief David Remnick, USA Today editor in chief Nicole Carroll, former Columbia University president Lee Bollinger, former Los Angeles Times executive editor Kevin Merida, and novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, among others — all submitted paperwork describing their lack of connections to the state of Florida.
Associated Press Vice President and Global Enterprise Editor Marjorie Miller stands for a portrait in the news agency’s New York City headquarters, Tuesday, Mar., 29, 2022. On Thursday, March 31, 2022, the Pulitzer Prize Board and Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University, which hosts the prestigious journalism awards, announced Miller has been named as the new administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes.
AP Photo/J. David Ake
Trump’s lawyers deposed Miller, along with three board members who served as cochairs when the 2022 statement was issued: Katherine Boo, New York Times opinion columnist Gail Collins, and Associated Press standards editor John Daniszewski.
Those depositions were supposed to focus on obtaining information to bolster Trump’s jurisdictional arguments. But his lawyer’s questions frequently went outside those lines, Bowman complained during them.
During Miller’s deposition, for instance, Bird attempted to ask questions about how the Pulitzer board came to hire her in the administrator role.
“Counsel, I don’t want to engage in argument with you,” Bowman snapped. “I disagree that you can ask any question whether or not it’s relating to jurisdiction because it has some tie to a document.”
Though the Pulitzer board members declined to identify who conducted the reviews, their depositions shed some light on the process.
Daniszewski said the Pulitzer board had “engaged two outside consultants” toward the end of the tenure of the administrator who preceded Miller, the publisher Dana Canady, to consider “five or six complaints” about the prizes. Some of those complaints were about historical issues, and one was about Trump’s complaint about the prizes to the Times and the Post.
“They recommended to the board that no action be taken and that the basis for the complaint was unfounded,” Daniszewski said in his deposition.
As more complaints from Trump rolled in, the Pulitzer board debated whether to conduct another review. Boo, Miller, and Daniszewski all said the board gets occasional complaints and doesn’t always find them worth addressing, but the Pulitzer board took Trump’s criticism seriously.
“Not everyone on the board agreed that the facts in the case warranted external review, and there was a debate, and the majority decided that it did warrant external review,” Boo said.
2018 Pulitzer Prize winners pose for pictures during the awards luncheon and ceremony at Columbia University in New York.
AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
Because Trump and his lawyers had explicitly demanded that the Pulitzers rescind the prize — and made a series of specific complaints in a series of letters — the board decided to commission a reexamination of the articles.
“Even though we believed that we had already looked at it, we thought we should do our diligence and reexamine the question because it was coming from him,” Daniszewski said.
The board members said that the people who conducted the two independent reviews of the Times’ and Posts’ Pulitzer submissions did not live in Florida, nor did they have an affiliation with the Times or Post. Collins said she recused herself from the 2018 deliberations for the national reporting prize because the Times was in contention, and had been recused from the subsequent discussions about independent investigations.
“You get up, you sit in the hallway for a very long time, but that’s what I did basically,” Collins recalled in her deposition, recounting the 2018 board meeting where they deliberated the awards.
“At some point, somebody opens the door and says come on back in, we’ve awarded the prize to ‘X,’ and then you come back and the next series comes up,” she later added.
Trump’s other lawsuits over ‘Russiagate’ have failed
Trump filed an updated version of the suit in December 2023, further arguing he was subsequently vindicated by Justice Department Special Counsel John Durham, who investigated the roots of the FBI’s investigations into the 2016 Trump campaign’s links to Russia.
“It is a petty effort by one of the most powerful men in the world to silence speech he dislikes, filed in a county where neither he nor any of the defendants lives or works or has any meaningful connections whatsoever,” they wrote.
The lawyers filed a separate motion for Brown, arguing the judge should dismiss the suit because the awards were simply not defamatory.
Bird didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. Chad Bowman, a Ballard Spahr attorney representing the Pulitzer board members, directed Business Insider to court filings.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at a Super Tuesday election night party at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Trump has also previously filed separate lawsuits against the Times and Post in the United States over opinion articles about his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, as well as a UK lawsuit against Christopher Steele, who wrote a dossier he falsely claimed formed the basis of Mueller’s inquiry. All of those lawsuits have been dismissed by judges as meritless.
Bird also demonstrated familiarity with the vast universe of media criticism about press coverage of the so-called “Russiagate” scandal. He asked about former Times journalist Jeff Gerth’s four-part examination in the Columbia Journalism Review of the coverage, which argued that the media organizations misused anonymous sources and withheld information in ways that misled readers. Daniszewski said he was familiar with the critique, and that Gerth was not one of the prize reviewers.
The depositions sometimes touched on other subjects, such as the perennial debate of whether aspiring journalists should go to graduate school. While some of the four journalists obtained master’s degrees, none went to graduate school for journalism.
“I will say as an aside, it is remarkable the — I guess the achievement of several people that we’ve deposed that have not gone to J-school have found themselves on the board is interesting to me,” Bird mused in one deposition.
The journalists also had a chance to reflect on the experience of being deposed.
“I appreciate your time,” Bird told Boo at the end of her deposition. “You’ve now had your first deposition, I hope you look upon it fondly.”
“Hopefully it’s my last,” Boo said.
Disclosure: Ballard Spahr represents a coalition of over 30 media organizations, which includes Business Insider, in media access litigation in Donald Trump’s criminal cases in Florida and Washington, DC.
A new ChatGPT feature will read the chatbot’s responses aloud to you.
OpenAI announced the function Monday.
It’s available on iOS, Android, and web.
Thanks for signing up!
Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you’re on the go.
ChatGPT can now read its responses aloud to you.
OpenAI announced Monday a new feature that lets its AI chatbot dictate its answers to you. The function could help users with accessibility needs as well as those who are multitasking or on the go.
The feature is available in the iOS and Android apps as well as the web version of ChatGPT. In the app, tap and hold ChatGPT’s response and you’ll see an option to “Read Aloud.” On the web, this option appears below the response.
OpenAI’s latest announcement comes amid heightened scrutiny of the company. Cofounder and former board member Elon Musk sued the firm, as well as two of its leaders, CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman.
His lawyers allege that OpenAI “has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world” and is “refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity.” OpenAI and Microsoft have a $10 billion partnership.
OpenAI has not responded to a request for comment on the lawsuit, but Altman has tweeted some crypticmessages perhaps related to the matter.
“The hurricane turns faster and faster but it stays perfectly calm in the eye,” he said in a tweet Sunday.
On Monday in Manhattan, Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to two state felony counts of perjury.
Both lies involved the size of Donald Trump’s Trump Tower penthouse on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
The plea essentially renders the former Trump Org CFO useless as a hush-money trial witness.
Thanks for signing up!
Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you’re on the go.
Allen Weisselberg had little choice but to plead guilty to perjury after Manhattan prosecutors caught him blatantly lying about lying, as they revealed in court Monday.
And underlying this stack of lies is Trump’s obsession with pretending to banks that he had a massive, gigantic, colossal penthouse — the most expensive apartment, he claimed a decade ago, in New York City history.
Here’s how Weisselberg, Trump’s ever-loyal, former Trump Organization CFO, was inescapably caught repeatedly telling easily provable lies about that penthouse during sworn testimony — felonies that will now send him back to jail for up to five months.
It started in 2012
It was in 2012 that Trump was first recorded — in official net-worth statements — wildly exaggerating the size of his penthouse apartment, which spans three floors atop Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.
Trump knew the penthouse was 10,996 square feet. He’d signed a real estate record attesting to that size in 1994.
Donald Trump’s signature on a 1994 real estate record that proved he knew how big his own triplex apartment was.
NY Attorney General’s Office/Insider
But in the five years of annual net-worth statements he issued for the years 2012 through 2016, he claimed the apartment was 30,000 square feet.
“A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud,” Trump’s civil fraud trial judge, state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, wrote back in September.
“Absurd,” New York Attorney General called Trump’s claim, in his 2015 net-worth statement, that the then 30-year-old apartment was worth $327 million.
She noted that by 2015, no apartment in the city, not even newer or larger ones, had sold for anywhere near that princely sum.
(Four days after learning Forbes was writing the story, Trump went ahead and issued his 2016 net-worth statement anyway, claiming the apartment was 30,000 square feet one last time, according to fraud-trial evidence.)
Weisselberg was at that sit-down with Forbes, assistant Manhattan district attorney Gary Fishman said Monday, during the ex-CFO’s plea hearing.
But in a pretrial deposition conducted in 2020 by the state District Attorney’s office, Weisselberg had denied ever being in the same room as Trump when the triplex’s size was discussed.
He was asked, “Were you ever present when Mr. Trump described the size of his triplex?”
“No,” Weisselberg answered.
Weisselberg’s denial could have protected not only himself but also Trump — if only it had been true.
On Monday, Weisselberg admitted this inescapable deposition falsehood — one that prosecutors may have easily been able to verify with Forbes, which reported that Trump and Weisselberg were together at interviews about the size of the triplex as early as 2015.
Weisselberg also admitted Monday that he’d lied in the same 2020 AG deposition about the timing of when he knew the 30,000-square-foot valuation was wrong.
“We didn’t find out about the error until the Forbes article came out,” Weisselberg swore under oath, despite the earlier sit-down and extensive pre-story emails between Forbes and Weisselberg concerning the square-footage flub.
Engoron and state officials have contended that the square footage was no accident, and was intentionally inflated by Trump and Weisselberg as far back as 2012.
Weisselberg’s career as a loyal Trump witness now appears to be over
The last Manhattan jury to hear Weisselberg testify did not believe him. (In finding Trump Org guilty of dodging payroll taxes, they rejected the ex-CFO’s claim that in running the scheme, he’d had purely selfish motives and that those at the top of the ladder — Donald Trump and his two eldest sons — had nothing to do with it.)
That’s the Manhattan criminal trial at which Trump faces anywhere from zero to four years in prison for allegedly lying in business documents to hide a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels made days before the 2020 election.)
But Monday’s perjury plea does not require Weisselberg to cooperate in any way with prosecutors. Instead, Weisselberg’s only obligation between now and his April 10 sentencing is to remain law-abiding and not flee the jurisdiction, or else he’ll face up to seven years in prison.
And prosecutors have already said they do not plan to call Weisselberg as a witness, despite the former CFO’s key role in the paperwork underlying the hush-money payment and its alleged cover-up.
It’s unclear what help, if any, Weisselberg could have been as a hush-money defense witness. The alleged fraud’s underlying documents say what they say, and no testimony could change their contents.
But now, given his official history of lying under oath on Trump’s behalf, it’s unlikely Trump’s side would ever call Weisselberg to the stand, either.
Jury selection in the hush money trial is scheduled to begin March 25, with the trial expected to last six weeks.
Should Biden and Trump emerge as the nominees of their respective parties, a significant number of voters will go to the ballot box with an unfavorable view of both major-party candidates. These voters are often called “double haters,” as they’ll have to choose between two candidates that they don’t like.
They could also be the swingiest voting bloc of the 2024 election, and in the end could prove decisive in boosting the fortunes of either Biden or Trump.
Biden led Trump among “double haters” by a 45% to 33% margin in the Times/Siena poll, according to the Times. Per the newspaper, this group made up 19% of respondents in the survey, setting up “double haters” to be a defining voting bloc in the November race.
In 2016, Trump won among “double haters,” as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s once-high favorable ratings cratered during the campaign. And in 2020, Biden — who had served as vice president for eight years under President Barack Obama — was able to capitalize off of Trump’s widespread unpopularity among the electorate.
Eight months ahead of the general election, President Joe Biden remains in a precarious position as he continues to trail former President Donald Trump in a rematch among likely voters, according to the latest New York Times/Siena poll.
Amid Biden’s polling troubles, two significant things stand out in the Times/Siena survey: Biden is currently losing a bloc of supporters who backed him in the 2020 election and he is virtually tied with Trump among women, a key group that backed him by 11 points that year.
Overall, Trump led Biden among likely voters 48% to 44% in the Times/Siena survey.
And despite former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s primary campaign against Trump, where she’s been able to win over a chunk of GOP voters while arguing that the party needs new leadership, 97% of voters who backed the former president in 2020 say they’ll do so again this year, per the survey.
However, Biden is only retaining 85% of voters who backed him in the 2020 election in the survey, with 9% of the president’s 2020 supporters indicating that they’ll support Trump this fall.
In an election that could be decided by close margins in a handful of swing states, any slight defection or bump in support could prove decisive for each of the contenders.
Women, who backed Biden by a 55% to 44% margin in 2020, were key to his election, along with Democratic candidates across the country as the party held the House that year and regained control of the Senate in January 2021.
In the Times/Siena poll, Trump led Biden among women by a 47% to 46% margin among likely voters. Meanwhile, men backed Trump over Biden 49% to 42%.
One of Biden’s biggest challenges in this election is his messaging on the economy. While the president has touted strong jobs growth and low unemployment, inflation during much of the COVID-19 pandemic ate into the pocketbooks of Americans and many voters remain pessimistic about the country’s economic fortunes.
In the Times/Siena poll, 50% of likely voters rated the economy as “poor,” while only 28% of voters rated it as “good” or “excellent.” A little over one in five voters (22%) labeled the economy as “only fair.”
There were some positive signs in the poll for Biden, though.
He had a 13-point lead (54%-41%) with voters aged 18-29, a group that has been especially critical of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. However, Biden will still have to work to make up ground with this group, as they backed him by 24 points (60%-36%) in 2020.
The poll also showed Biden ahead among suburban voters, a key group that will play a significant role in races up and down the ballot.
Among this group, Biden led Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters.
When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more
Android smartwatches seamlessly integrate with smartphones running the Android operating system to act as an effective extension of that device. They send calls, email, app, and text notifications, are easy to navigate, and offer a variety of health and fitness tracking tools.
Our top pick is the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. Although it works best with a Samsung phone, this rugged wearable still offers the finest Android smartwatch and fitness tracker experience with a range of trackable activities, an intuitive interface, and multi-day battery life. For a budget pick, we like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4. It has similar features as the Watch 5 Pro but costs far less.
For the most genuine Android smartwatch experience, opt for a model running WearOS, like Samsung’s Galaxy Watch or Google’s Pixel Watch. While others in this guide do work with Android smartphones, like the Fitbit Sense 2, they use an operating system that runs on both Android and iOS.
Top picks for the best Android smartwatches
Best overall: Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro – See at Amazon
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is the best fitness tracker for Android users thanks to its multi-day battery life, an intuitive operating system in WearOS, and a wide variety of advanced health and fitness tracking.
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch lineup has been among the best Android smartwatches for years, and its latest release, the Watch 5 Pro, places it right at the top of the industry. With multi-day battery life, accurate activity tracking, and unique insights such as body composition data and sleep analysis, it’s the perfect combination of both a smartwatch and a health and fitness tracker for the Android user.
Design-wise, the Watch 5 Pro has a round watch face and a 1.36-inch touchscreen display that offers tons of viewable data. With the right watch face, you could have everything from the week’s upcoming weather forecast and the sunrise/sunset schedule to your daily steps, burned calories, and workout shortcuts displayed. It’s also compatible with a variety of the best Samsung Galaxy Watch bands.
As a smartwatch, the Watch 5 Pro is excellent. It uses Google’s WearOS operating system which functions seamlessly. It gets app notifications, text alerts, emails, and phone calls, and is easy to navigate.
Rick Stella/Insider
Fitness-focused folks will appreciate the variety of activities it tracks, including common things like running and cycling, as well as advanced sports like snowboarding, hiking, or trail running. It even has a useful track-back option that works like a digital breadcrumb feature that shows your exact route through, say, a forested area. However, this only works with hiking and cycling, which is disappointing as it’d be great for runners, too.
One of the Watch 5 Pro’s best features is its health tracking. It has everything from in-depth sleep tracking, which monitors sleep patterns and habits, to a body composition app that charts things like body fat percentage and muscle mass.
There is one minor caveat, however: the watch’s overall experience is far better on a Samsung phone than on something like the Google Pixel. It’s not a dealbreaker but some features, like the ECG app that tracks heart rhythms, aren’t compatible with anything other than a Samsung phone.
Despite those issues, Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is the best Android smartwatch for almost any user. It excels as a smartwatch, has robust fitness-tracking capability, and offers unique health insights. This is as good as it gets on Android.
Fitbit’s Sense 2 combines the brand’s advanced health and fitness features with decent smartwatch capability, unique sleep tracking, and a clean design reminiscent of the Apple Watch.
Fitbit’s Sense 2 is everything you want in a dependable fitness tracker. It’s compatible with several trackable activities, provides unique insights into your fitness habits, monitors your sleep, stress, and menstrual cycles, and has a built-in GPS. It even has a battery that lasts upward of five to six days.
We found it to be one of the most accurate fitness trackers we’ve worn, specifically how quickly it synced its GPS before an activity. Within seconds, the watch found a GPS signal and we were ready to start tracking our activity. It also has an interface that’s easy to navigate, which is especially helpful for first-time Fitbit wearers or those new to fitness trackers.
The Sense 2 has several helpful health and wellness tools, too. This includes a skin temperature sensor, heart rhythm (ECG) readings, and Fitbit’s new real-time stress tracker. Stress tracking was especially interesting during our tests as we liked how well it charted our stress levels while offering useful feedback on ways to lower them.
The Fitbit Sense 2 is a great all-around activity tracker, and although it does lack some standard smartwatch features, it’s still an impressive wearable. Rick Stella/Insider
One area where the Sense 2 doesn’t impress is its smartwatch capability. It’s technically one of Fitbit’s “smartwatches” but it doesn’t exactly live up to that billing. For instance, there’s no third-party app support available, which is a frustrating decision by Fitbit, nor does it allow access to tools like Google Assistant (despite Google being the parent company). It also won’t store or play music.
Although some may consider these drawbacks, we don’t see them as a reason not to buy the Sense 2. It’s an adequate smartwatch that still gets notifications like calls, texts, and emails, but its strengths lie in its health and fitness tracking. For those looking for a fitness-first smartwatch, the Sense 2 is the best Android smartwatch to buy (and one of the best Fitbits overall, too).
Google’s Pixel Watch is an excellent smartwatch that’s lightweight, fluid and intuitive to use, and has a sleek, classic design.
The Google Pixel Watch experience is an interesting one. On the one hand, it’s the best pure smartwatch for Android users with an easy-to-navigate interface, wide app compatibility, and the ability to answer texts, emails, and phone calls.
But as a fitness tracker, it’s awful. This is especially disappointing since Google is now the parent company of the fitness wearable brand, Fitbit. Despite that, the Pixel Watch is bogged down by connectivity issues, syncing problems, and poor GPS tracking.
And while those may be deal breakers for fitness-focused folks, there’s no denying it’s still an impressive smartwatch. Its operating system, WearOS, delivers a seamless experience between the available apps you can access, whatever notifications you might receive, and its smart features like Google Assistant, Google Maps, and Google Wallet.
Rick Stella/Insider
These features allow it to satisfy the one major requirement of a smartwatch: to be an effective extension of your smartphone. With the Google Pixel Watch, anything you want to do on your phone, you can do on your wrist. Plus, it’s compatible with a variety of the best Google Pixel Watch bands, so it can fit anyone’s personal style.
Not everyone shopping for a wearable needs something capable of tracking their workouts and instead just wants it to serve as their phone away from their phone. The Google Pixel Watch is exactly that, and for Android users, it’s the best smartwatch they can buy.
Samsung’s latest smartwatch, the Watch 6 Classic, brings back the rotating bezel from the Watch 4 line, and it makes navigating the excellent Wear OS 4 operating system that much smoother and easier. Right now it’s on sale for the first time — just clip the on-page coupon to bring it down to only $300.
Samsung’s latest Galaxy Watch, the Watch 6 Classic, retains the high bar set by previous generations, even if it doesn’t push the line forward in any major way. But despite its minimal new additions, the experience of using the Watch 6 Classic is still a highly premium one, making it not just one of the best Android smartwatches you can buy but one of the best smartwatches, too.
The most notable update on the Watch 6 Classic is the return of the rotating bezel, a feature last seen on the Watch 4. Instead of relying on the watch’s touchscreen to scroll its interface, the rotating bezel allows easy navigation. I found it to be especially useful while working out where spinning the dial was more manageable, and quicker, than trying to swipe the screen.
The Watch 6 Classic also has impressive battery life that I consistently got almost two days out of, depending on how often I used the built-in GPS. I always got a full day and night of battery, though sometimes I needed to recharge the watch the following afternoon. This is a welcome upgrade over the Watch 5, though it is still a bit shorter than the multi-day battery life of the Watch 5 Pro.
Rick Stella/Insider
Beyond those upgrades, the Watch 6 Classic is highly similar to the Watch 5 generation before it. It has a deep offering of health and wellness features, including sleep tracking, a body composition analyzer, and stress level monitoring.
The two health features I used most were the body composition analyzer and the stress tracker. With the body composition analyzer, the watch provided real-time readings of my body fat percentage, BMI, and muscle mass which I used to chart my overall fitness progress. The Watch 5 Pro also offered this, so I had a baseline of knowledge (and existing data) to compare to and it functioned the same.
I found the stress tracker to be a helpful feature, too, mainly because it’s interesting to see when the watch would say I had higher stress levels and when I didn’t. This had a positive impact on my day-to-day as I would implement some of the recommendations for lowering my stress and found them to work.
The Watch 6 Classic does severely lack as a fitness tracker, though, and its inaccurate GPS makes it difficult to recommend to more active users. Not only would it take upwards of a minute to sync a GPS connection but its distance- and pace-tracking were off by significant margins. Those looking for a quality fitness tracker experience should instead opt for the Watch 5 Pro.
Design-wise, the Watch 6 Classic is a stylish smartwatch that I thoroughly enjoy wearing. Its big watch face might be too large for folks with smaller wrists but I liked how much data I could display on it. Its bright watch face makes it easy to quickly reference the screen or tell the time.
Overall, it looks, feels, and functions like a premium wearable and while it may not satisfy those looking for a reliable fitness tracker, it’s an excellent smartwatch. Its compatibility with a variety of the best Samsung Galaxy Watch bands is a nice feature, too.
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch4 may be a last-generation smartwatch but it’s still one of the best on the market, and now that it’s available at a lower price, it’s a great budget option for Android users.
When we first reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, we couldn’t help but notice that it was the closest thing to an Apple Watch for Android users. A year later, that sentiment goes to the next generation Watch 5 Pro but the Watch 4 is still an impressive wearable — only now, it costs far less than when it was released.
The release of the Galaxy Watch 4 was Samsung’s first go with utilizing WearOS as the watch’s operating system, as it decided to go away from the in-house interface, Tizen OS. The switch paid off in spades as WearOS pairs perfectly with the Watch 4. Navigation is fluid, notifications can be fully customized, and there’s a wide selection of downloadable apps (thanks to Google Play Store access).
Other highlights of the watch include its extensive health and fitness capability. It tracks activities, like running, cycling, and hiking, and we found the syncing and tracking capability to be on par with some of the best fitness trackers.
Antonio Villas-Boas/Insider
We especially like its in-depth sleep tracking which monitors sleep patterns and can help turn bad habits into good ones. Its body measurement features are also unique as it analyzes your body weight, muscle mass, and water weight to give you an idea of your overall body composition.
All of this equates to the Watch 4 being one of the best Android smartwatches. Of course, there are still a few drawbacks, most notable of which is its watered-down experience on anything other than a Samsung phone as some features, like the ECG app, aren’t available. We don’t see this as a total deal breaker but users of other phones, like the Google Pixel, should consider this before purchasing.
At less than $170 via Amazon, the Watch 4 isn’t just at its lowest price since it was released, but it’s the cheapest we’ve seen a smartwatch of this quality. You’re rarely able to find a premium full-featured wearable like this for $200. The fact that it’s less than that easily makes it the best budget Android smartwatch on the market.
The Inspire 3 may be one of Fitbit’s most basic watches but it still packs a powerful fitness-tracking punch with tons of trackable activities, advanced health features like skin temperature sensing, and a comfortable, lightweight design.
Fitbit’s Inspire 3 is one of the brand’s most basic wearables but it’s still an impressive activity tracker for Android users (and one of the best Fitbits you can buy). It offers a range of health and fitness tracking insights, a no-frills interface, and advanced features like skin temperature sensing and in-depth sleep tracking.
But what makes the Inspire 3 such a great tracker is how anyone from beginners to expert users will be satisfied using it. Navigating the watch is intuitive enough for first-time wearers while the wide variety of trackable activities and useful health metrics give it appeal to those familiar with fitness trackers. It’s compatible with a range of the best Fitbit Inspire 3 bands, too, so users have even more ways to customize their wearable.
Shannon Ullman/Insider
At less than $100, it’s a hell of a bargain, too. What’s especially great about its low price is that the Inspire 3 is the latest generation of the Inspire line, meaning it’s the most current and updated version yet.
The watch does come with a few drawbacks, though. Absent is built-in GPS, as well as the ability to download additional apps. Although the lack of apps isn’t a huge downside, not having GPS is, especially for hardcore athletes who want exact timing and tracking for activities. During our tests, we did find that when you sync GPS via a companion phone, the tracking worked well. But that means you do have to tote your phone along.
Those cons aside, the Inspire 3 is still a powerful activity tracker in a small, budget-friendly form factor. For Android users looking for something basic, trying out a fitness tracker for the first time, or who just want something straightforward and easy to use, the Inspire 3 is the best Android smartwatch on the market.
The Forerunner 745 is the perfect representation of the power of Garmin’s ecosystem, offering wearers fine-tuned workout recommendations and valuable fitness insight in an easy-to-use package.
The Garmin Forerunner 745 isn’t just the best running watch for Android users, it also happens to be one of the best running watches, period. It’s that good. Garmin’s made its name on manufacturing powerful sports wearables, and the 745 is the latest in a long line of triumphs from the brand.
What makes the 745 so good is not just its accurate tracking capabilities and easy-to-navigate interface (but, those are excellent). What makes it stand out from the competition is its unique approach to workout recommendations and focus on rest and recovery, two vital aspects of an effective workout routine.
For the workout recommendations, the watch requires a 10-day monitoring period to assess your day-to-day activity and performance. Once those 10 days are up, it adapts its recommendations to your specific activity needs. One day it might have you pump up the mileage and go for a several-mile long run while another may see that you need more rest and dial the day’s workout down to a recovery jog.
Adam Molina/Insider
Whatever it recommends, it does so in lockstep with its rest and recovery insights. In other words, the watch isn’t just going to run you into the ground but rather, it takes a thoughtful approach to giving your body the time to properly recover between strenuous workouts.
The 745 feels like having a personal trainer right on your wrist with all these features active. Of course, you don’t have to do the daily workouts but they do prove worthwhile for anyone stumped about what to do on a certain day, or those who want to take the guesswork out of how to train for a race or event.
Other highlights of the 745 include a comfortable, lightweight design that won’t weigh heavy on your wrist, even during long runs, as well as a large, colorful display. The big display does tend to look rather large on folks with smaller wrists, but it’s especially useful in the middle of a run to easily see your training stats without having to squint or stop running.
Then there’s the battery life, which Garmin claims lasts up to six days on a single charge. We found this to be mostly true during our tests, as it would last both a little longer and a little shorter than that estimation depending on how heavily we used it each day.
For consistent runners, the Garmin Forerunner 745 is the best Android smartwatch to buy.
The Garmin Forerunner 935 has highly accurate GPS tracking, a wide variety of trackable outdoor activities, and an intuitive interface, making it the best outdoor watch for Android users.
Like the Forerunner 745 above, the Forerunner 935 is one of Garmin’s best wearables. And for the outdoorsy Android user, it’s the best.
The 935 is compatible with a wide range of trackable outdoor activities such as hiking, trail running, skiing, and snowboarding, to name a few, and can even track your trips via its built-in GPS (which is a must-have for those venturing into the backcountry). It’s also highly accurate, both in terms of tracking and GPS syncing.
Although the watch itself is on the medium to large end of the wearable spectrum, it’s incredibly lightweight and comes with a comfortable rubber band that feels good against the skin. The watch’s face features tempered, scratch-resistant glass, as well as a durable, stainless steel bezel.
Garmin
But where the watch truly shines is how Garmin’s interface functions with the activities it tracks. The tracking screens show everything from heart rate and distance traveled, to training status, heart rate variability, and total training load. In other words, you have everything you’d ever need right there on your wrist.
We did have one nitpick with the watch: its battery doesn’t last much longer than a single day, especially if you’re relying on GPS and heart rate tracking for long periods. This isn’t an issue for those who return home each night but this could pose a problem for anyone out on a backpacking trip or who forgot their charger.
Still, the Forerunner 935 is a full-featured watch that’s the best Android smartwatch for outdoor enthusiasts.
To compile this guide, we compared the best Android smartwatches across a variety of categories including things like fit & comfort, features, battery life, ease of use, accuracy, and compatibility. Here’s how each category factored into which watches made the guide:
Fit & comfort: Testing this was a straightforward assessment of how well the watch felt on-wrist while wearing it normally throughout the day, as well as during workouts. We also looked at how easy it was to dial in the right fit with whatever the clasp system was.
Features: Simply put, what are all the features native to a certain Android smartwatch? We looked at what kinds of apps were natively available right out of the box, as well as what was accessible via an app store like Google Play. We also assessed how well these features elevated the overall experience.
Battery life: Battery life is one of the most important aspects of a smartwatch and can dictate which watch is best for a certain user. If a fitness-focused watch has a hard time getting through just one day on a single charge, then that watch won’t be good for something constantly using GPS or the heart rate monitor. Charging a watch every day isn’t a dealbreaker but it’s useful to know what a watch offers and how it affects the overall experience.
Ease of use: Smartwatches should ideally not have a steep learning curve, and should be easy to navigate right out of the box. Of course, not all operating systems are the same, so there will be some differences from watch to watch. If a wearable is hard to navigate, you’re less likely to use it.
Accuracy: Tracking accuracy can make or break a smartwatch, especially for folks who use it as a training tool. Some are inherently better than others but even small discrepancies in tracking capability can make a big impact. We tested this by running a mile with each watch and comparing the differences in time and distance.
Compatibility: Testing compatibility for Android smartwatches consisted of using each watch with several Android smartphones. No single Android watch is fully compatible with every single Android phone, but some do function better on a competitor’s device without much change to the overall experience. For instance, our top pick, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, functions best on a Samsung phone while the experience on something like the Google Pixel is watered-down.
Rick Stella/Insider
Before purchasing a new Android smartwatch, it’s important to consider how you plan on using it and which models fit your lifestyle best. Here are a few things to keep in mind while shopping:
Style: The best smartwatches for Android come in several styles suited to different users. There are fitness tracker-type wearables like the Sense 2 or Inspire 3 designed to function best during activities, and then there are watches like the Google Pixel that evoke a more traditional wristwatch design. Deciding which style best suits your lifestyle is a key factor when shopping.
Battery life: Battery life estimates vary wildly among the best Android smartwatches as some, like the Google Pixel Watch, need to be recharged daily. Others, like the Fitbit Sense 2 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, boast multi-day battery life and are often better for active users who may be using the built-in GPS throughout the day or who travel often.
Smart features: Although every smartwatch comes with smart features, some are smarter than others. Take the Fitbit Inspire 3, for example. This watch offers basic smartwatch capability including call, text, email, and app notifications but not much beyond that. Compared to the Google Pixel which offers in-depth smart features that allow users to interact with the notifications, the Inspire 3 is leagues lower.
Ecosystem: Each of the smartwatches in this guide shares the Android ecosystem as a foundation but they all have a secondary ecosystem to keep in mind. The Garmin Forerunners are compatible with the Garmin Connect App, the Sense 2 with Fitbit’s app (and Fitbit Premium), and the Watch 5 Pro with Samsung Health. It’s worth researching companion apps to see what you prefer.
Display: The display native to an Android smartwatch can be as interactive as what’s found on the Google Pixel Watch or as basic as what the Fitbit Inspire 3 offers. Your overall experience will change based on a watch’s display, so it’s important to understand what a watch offers and if that syncs with your preferred smartwatch experience.
FAQs
What’s the best Android smartwatch?
This depends on your preference and how you intend to use the watch. Some Android smartwatches are better for fitness-focused users, like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro or Fitbit Sense 2.
For those looking for a true smartwatch experience, something like the Google Pixel Watch would fare better (though it does come at the expense of its fitness tracking capabilities as it’s a poor activity tracker).
It’s important to understand how you intend to use the smartwatch to make the best purchasing decision.
Do all Android smartwatches work on any Android smartphone?
Yes and no. While most of the best Android smartwatches are compatible with all models of Android smartphones, some deliver a different overall experience.
For instance, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro functions more seamlessly on a Samsung smartphone than it does on something like a Google Pixel. Some app access is limited while the companion apps used to customize the watch differ. However, a watch like the Google Pixel Watch functions nearly similarly on the Google Pixel Phone as on a Samsung phone.
Can you use an Apple Watch with an Android smartphone?
No, the Apple Watch is only compatible with an iPhone running iOS. Unlike wearables from brands like Garmin or Fitbit, which work on both an iPhone and an Android phone, the Apple Watch only functions on an iOS device.
Similarly, the best Android smartwatches won’t work on an iPhone and are only compatible with smartphones running the Android operating system.
Do you need an Android smartphone to use these watches?
Yes. Although you don’t technically need a smartphone to power up a smartwatch, you won’t be able to unlock its full functionality without syncing it to a smartphone via Bluetooth.
Without a phone, a smartwatch would only be able to tell the time and perform a few of its basic functions, like counting steps and how many calories you’ve burned. However, you’d have no way of accessing the amassed data without a device like a smartphone (or tablet).
Can you use an iPhone with an Android smartwatch?
No. To get the full functionality out of an Android smartwatch, you’ll need to use an Android smartphone. While nothing stops an iPhone user from wearing an Android smartwatch, they wouldn’t be able to take advantage of its basic smartphone compatibility and would have an incredibly watered-down experience.
Do some Android smartwatches work better with certain Android devices?
The most common compatibility issue Android smartwatches encounter is when they’re used with an Android device from a different brand. For instance, Samsung’s Galaxy Watches lose some functionality with used with a Google Pixel Phone. The same goes for using a Google Pixel Watch with a Samsung Galaxy smartphone, though it’s not as drastic.
While you can still use those watches with phones from different brands, it’s best to use the same Android device brand with whatever Android smartwatch you buy.
2020 was a wild year for consumer electronics sales.
But if you splurged on tech during that time, there’s a good chance you haven’t felt the need — or inspiration — to upgrade your setup.
Thanks to a combination of stimulus checks, home sales, and working remotely, retailers in 2020 posted huge profits as shoppers snapped up brand-new computers, home theater equipment, and appliances.
In what financial types refer to as a “pull-forward,” a lot of spending that would otherwise have been spread out over several years was piled into one.
Anticipating the dip in demand, Best Buy CFO Matt Bilunas told investors in November 2020: “We don’t expect sales trends to remain at the levels we experienced during Q3.”
The thing about computers, tablets, TVs, and other household electronics — unlike, say, apparel or accessories — is that most people don’t need to replace them each year.
Given that many of these products have a typical replacement cycle of about three to five years, things should be starting to pick up as people look to upgrade the aging tech they may have paid for using their COVID stimmy check.
Beyond the pull-forward effects, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry laid some of the blame for the continuing sales lull at the feet of tech brands.
“Right now there isn’t any massive current innovation that would spur you to go buy a new laptop,” she said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday.
“There’s a little bit,” she added, “We’re expecting more as the year goes on.”
Indeed, tech companies haven’t exactly inspired shoppers to race into their nearest Best Buy for an upgrade, especially when they could buy tickets to a Taylor Swift concert instead.
For example, some of the most celebrated changes to Apple’s recent laptops were essentially the undoing of a prior model’s innovations.
Apple added back additional ports, ditched the controversial butterfly keyboards, and removed Touchbars from many of its MacBooks in recent years.
Apple’s laptops are certainly faster than ever now thanks to its custom-made M-series chips, but the first MacBook with an M1 chip debuted back in 2020, which means most people with an M-series MacBook probably won’t need to upgrade anytime soon.
Barry also said laptops are more frequently replaced than other big-ticket products, so she expects improvement there to precede upgrades of other increasingly high-tech items like appliances and TVs.
Truist retail analyst Scot Ciccarelli (whose question Barry was responding to) said in a note that his team expects Best Buy to benefit from brands offering more innovative products and services this year and next year “after a substantial lull during the pandemic.”
Like mobile phones, laptops may now be encountering the hard limits of physics within the conventional form factor, but perhaps that’s where new platforms like Apple’s Vision Pro come in.
Other tech companies are tossing some bold ideas at the walls too. This week, Lenovo unveiled a design decision of questionable usefulness in the form of the world’s first transparent laptop screen, but it’s a concept prototype and not even for sale.
Either way, whatever the next buzzy tech may be, Barry says Best Buy would love for you to come check it out in their stores.
The US is likely to avoid slipping into a recession, according to Wells Fargo head macro strategist Michael Schumacher.
“The big question is: what’s the chance of a really nasty landing? So maybe growth tips a little below zero, does it go deeply negative?” he said in a CNBC interview on Tuesday. “We at Wells Fargo think that chance is vanishingly low at this point.”
If any, the factor most likely to spoil that view and knock the economy off its feet right now is the labor market, Schumacher said.
But the job market has shown signs of strength lately, with new job additions in January coming in well above estimates, and unemployment staying near historically low levels. However, Schumacher said a sudden shift could threaten the US’s chances of dodging a downturn.
“Labor markets are fickle and they can go from robust to really weak to unpleasant in the span of three to six months,” he said.
Schumacher continued: “The underlying economy is pretty good, but it’s not hot enough yet to spook the Feds. So [it’s] a good comfort zone for a lot of people.”
Still, not all economists are so optimistic. In a research note on Tuesday, David Rosenberg highlighted five inidicators that suggest the economy is not as strong as many think.
One of the foremost figures in AI thinks prescription drugs designed by AI could reach clinical testing in a few years.
“I think we are very close,” Hassabis said when asked about whether AI was close to being capable of helping cure a major disease like Alzheimer’s or a cancer. “I would say we’re a couple of years away from having the first truly AI-designed drugs for a major disease, cardiovascular, cancer.”
“We’ve just signed big deals with Big Pharma and on real drug programs. And I expect in the next couple of years, we’ll have AI-designed drugs in the clinic, in clinical testing,” he added. “And that’s going to be an amazing time. And that’s when people will start to really feel the benefits in their daily lives in really material and incredible ways.”
Clinical trials help assess if a new drug or device is safe and effective for human use. Drugs that make it to the clinical testing phase of development can still take years to reach the market, if they do so at all.
AI doesn’t always get things right, as Google knows. Hassabis recently spoke of Google DeepMind’s fiasco with its Gemini AI image generator. After users pointed out it created historically inaccurate images, including racially diverse images of the Founding Fathers and Nazis, Google paused Gemini’s ability to generate images of people last week.
“That, which is a well-intended feature, was applied, it turns out, too bluntly,” Hassabis said of the image generator while speaking at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona. “We care of course about historical accuracy and so we’ve taken that feature offline while we fix that, and we hope to have that back online in very short order.”
