5 reasons I can’t ever go back to the Pixel Watch 3 after wearing the Pixel Watch 4

When I first got my hands on the Pixel Watch 4 during Google’s preview, I said I couldn’t wait to ditch my Pixel Watch 3, and this is precisely what has happened for the past 10 days. The Pixel Watch 4 landed at my door, I opened the box, turned it on, took one look at that gorgeous new display, and knew I had to immediately switch.

Since then, I haven’t taken the Pixel Watch 4 off my wrist — except to charge it — and I can’t imagine going back to the Watch 3. And there are five reasons for that.

My 45mm Pixel Watch 3 lasted me around 32-34 hours on average between charges with raise-to-wake and the always-on display on, but OK Google detection off. I also had it set to automatically mirror my Pixel’s mode, so when I plugged my phone in at night, it went into Bedtime mode, which in turn switched the watch to Bedtime mode, disabling notifications and turning off the display. For me, this was the best compromise between battery life and utility, and the fact that it always lasted more than 24 hours meant I had some leeway on when to charge it.

With the 45mm Pixel Watch 4 on the same settings, I’m getting closer to 42-44 hours on a charge. I just noticed I hadn’t turned on the automatic battery saver at 15% toggle, so I can probably stretch this to 48 hours on a single charge. That’s two full days, without compromising on usefulness. We’re still far from Fitbit’s four-to-seven days, but we’re no longer in the “must charge every day or else” realm of the original Pixel Watch. And that’s incredibly freeing.

I’ve spent the past three years married to my Pixel watch’s chargers, buying a couple of them for the house and my travel backpack, and still forgetting to charge the darned thing once every couple of weeks. This is the first time I feel I don’t have to be this maniac about charging my watch. If I have two busy days in a row and don’t have time to charge in between, the Watch 4 will carry on fine. And that’s all I really need — more leeway on charging times.

Although I absolutely hate the fact that we’re forced to change chargers for the third time in four years (hello, e-waste!), I’m still very much in love with the new sideways charging method.

For one, it’s much more stable. The previous puck required the Watch 2 and 3 to be placed on top, but since it’s not hefty enough, and the watch’s band is quite curved, it ended up lifting the watch and dropping it sideways or on its face. Enter potential glass scratches with no way to view the display to see how far along the charge is. Plus, it looked ugly as if no designer had thought about this problem before shipping the watch.

Sideways charging on the Pixel Watch 4 is more stable. It stays like that, doesn’t easily topple over, doesn’t interfere with the semi-rigid curved band, and lets me see the display head-on to take my watch off the charger when it’s full. It’s incredibly more practical.

The second change is to the charging speed. My Pixel Watch 4 charges faster than my Pixel Watch 3. If it’s at 50% and I’ve just put it on the charger, I need about 20-25 minutes tops to get it to full. If it’s at 20%, about 15 minutes on the charger gets me up to 70-80%, which is more than I need to get through the day. This, along with the improved battery life, is a game-changer for battery worry.

My colleagues C. Scott and Kaitlyn, who have also been testing the Pixel Watch 4, agree: It’s impossible to show how gorgeous this display is in photos. Or in videos. The 3D effect of the display itself under the glass dome is so cool, and you won’t see it unless you actually hold the Watch 4 in your hands and see it with your own eyes. I’ve had mine for 10 days, and I still catch myself thinking, “Damn, it’s beautiful,” each time I open a new menu, check a new app, or try a new watch face. (I know you’ll be in the comments asking about the watch faces I’m using; they’re Granza, Peak Digital, Peak Analog, and Torvex.)

Pictures and videos shown on a flat display don’t do justice to how much the display pops in real life, how it always feels like it’s bumping up to meet your eyes, or how well it melts into the sides of bezels, which look much smaller and inconsequential in person. Even watch faces with a white rim, which clearly draw the line between display and bezel (instead of blurring it like black watch faces do), look good on it.

I’ve been looking at my Pixel Watch 3, the smartwatch I’ve worn daily for the past year until just 10 days ago, and think, “It looks so old now.” That’s the bias that the Watch 4’s display has had on my eyes. Anything else looks too flat and too boring.

My colleague C. Scott has already waxed lyrical about the Pixel Watch 4’s raise-to-talk Gemini gesture, and I concur entirely with him. I rarely used Assistant — or later Gemini — on my Pixel Watch 3 because I just don’t want to keep “OK Google” enabled. I have enough speakers and phones in my life that may or may not answer me, so I didn’t want to add another variable to the mix. To trigger Assistant on the previous watch, I had to have both hands free to tap and hold the button, which already limited the number of times I used it. It was often easier for me to grab my phone and unlock it than to talk to Assistant.

With raise-to-talk, invoking Gemini is no longer a counterintuitive, two-handed affair, but an easy, one-handed gesture. Raise, check that the blue indicator is on at the bottom of the display, and talk. It’s made Gemini more accessible to me, which means that I’m using it more to ask about the weather, conversion units while cooking, my calendar events, and more.

I still have a few reservations, though: The gesture itself seems to get triggered more often than I’d like, even by simply lifting my watch, and Gemini remains a bit slow (it seems to send the command to the phone, then execute it) and only supports one account and one calendar. Will Google please add proper multi-account support already?

The Google Pixel Watch has long been slammed for its lack of repairability, with iFixit giving the previous generations a sad repairability score of 4/10. The round glued-up design meant that even Google didn’t really repair a broken watch or a defective battery, it told you to throw it away. I was always terrified of breaking my watch and felt my heart drop each time I bumped into something or the watch slid on a surface while charging.

With the Pixel Watch 4, Google went back to the drawing board and redesigned the whole interior while keeping the same outer look. Screws instead of glue, gaskets to retain water resistance after repair, an easily-detachable display, and a replaceable battery; all of these help make this watch a lot more repair-friendly, with iFixit giving it a sweet score of 9/10 — the highest of any smartwatch.

Because of this, I feel a bit of peace of mind while walking around clumsily with my Pixel Watch 4 on my wrist. I might bump, I might scratch, I might break, but I know the whole thing won’t go to the dumpster if I do. Obviously, I hope I never will, but it’s good to know a backup option exists. Now, if only Google had gone for the more robust sapphire glass option.

These five factors contribute to making the Pixel Watch 4 a very worthy upgrade for me, my clumsy hands, and my sometimes-hectic life. I can’t imagine going back to my Watch 3 now; it just feels so… passé. I don’t know if these are worth an upgrade from the Pixel Watch 3 for you — you may not need the longer battery life or raise-to-talk gesture — but if you find a good deal or you’re coming from an older Pixel Watch 1st gen or Watch 2, they’re definitely super awesome changes that make this the epitome of a Google smartwatch, and perhaps the epitome of what a round smartwatch should be.