It sounds like Google’s upcoming Pixel Watch will be a flagship to compete with Samsung’s latest Galaxy Watches and Apple Watch, according to new specifications leaked by 9to5Google. According to 9 to 5‘s report, you will be able to get a mobile version of the laptop and it will have a 300 milliamp-hour (mAh) battery.
It was not necessarily a given that there would be a mobile option for the Pixel Watch. Some lower-end smartwatches, and even some advanced fitness-focused models, rely on your phone for connectivity. If the rumor is accurate and there is a cellular Pixel Watch model, it reinforces the idea that Google is probably not trying to make its watch a smaller or cheaper alternative – it will have that mass market appeal.
As for the battery, its physical capacity seems pretty much right for how big the watch is. However, it is almost impossible to say what the milliamp-hour rating means, how long it lasts between charges.
When The edgereview editor Dan Seifert compared the Apple Watch Series 7 41mm and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic 42mm, he found that they had dramatically different levels of endurance. One day was the Galaxy Watch out of juice while the Apple Watch was at 52 percent (though he was able to get it the next day a few hours more out of Galaxy after some adjustments). And yet the Apple Watch’s battery is not to much larger; it has a capacity of 284mAh, while the Galaxy battery is rated at 247mAh.
20:05
Galaxy Watch 4: 0% dead and shutdown
Apple Watch Series 7: 52%
– Dan S. (@dcseifert) April 7, 2022
What really matters when it comes to a laptop’s battery life is its features and processor. Both are unknown at the moment for the Pixel Watch, although in terms of features, of course, will not have the e-paper screen that lets Pebble Time get more than a week of use out of its 250mAh battery.
The big, yet unanswered question is, which chip will Google use – Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 or 4100 Plus, which has not appeared in many watches despite having existed for a while? A currently unannounced next generation Qualcomm chip? Samsung’s Exynos chips, which it uses in its own watches? A custom Tensor processor that Google uses in Pixel 6? There are so many options – some of which are unknown, and others that would be a bad sign for its battery life.
Hopefully we do not have to wait too long to find out the answer – rumor has it that Google was able to announce the Pixel Watch at its I / O conference, which starts in just a few weeks on May 11th. If you want to see its hardware before then, you’re in luck – someone posted a ton of pictures of it on and off a wrist, claiming that a friend found the device lying in a bar, iPhone 4 style. Maybe Sundar Pichai will make the same joke as Steve Jobs when he announces Pixel Watch and says “stop me if you’ve already seen this.”