5 smartwatches you should buy instead of the Google Pixel Watch 4

The Google Pixel Watch 4 is an outstanding smartwatch. In fact, you could argue that it’s the best Wear OS watch released this year. With its new Acuta 360 display, longer battery life, improved repairability, and excellent Gemini integration, it’s about as complete a package as you could ask for.

Although we strongly recommend buying the Pixel Watch 4, it’s worth reminding that it isn’t your only option if you’re currently smartwatch shopping. In fact, there are still a lot of other great watches you should consider.

As much as we love the Pixel Watch 4, here are five other smartwatches you may want to buy instead.

If you think the Pixel Watch 4 looks great but can’t justify spending $350+ for it, the best alternative you can buy is last year’s Pixel Watch 3. Is it as stunning or impressive as the Pixel Watch 4? No, but it is still a darn good smartwatch, and you can now get it at a great price.

Following the Pixel Watch 4’s release, the Pixel Watch 3 got a new retail price of $250 for the 41mm model and $300 for the 45mm one — $100 less than the Pixel Watch 4. Furthermore, since the Pixel Watch 3 is over a year old, you can almost always find it on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and other retailers. At the time of publication, Amazon is selling the 45mm Pixel Watch 3 for just $200. That’s an incredible price.

As someone who still wears a Pixel Watch 3, trust me when I say it’s worth every penny if you want to get the Pixel Watch experience without breaking the bank. It doesn’t have the new Acuta 360 display, but its screen still looks incredible. Its health-tracking features are identical to the Pixel Watch 4, its battery life is still good enough for a full day of use, and it’s already been updated to the same Wear OS 6 software as the Pixel Watch 4.

If price isn’t an issue but you want to consider another option before committing to the Pixel Watch 4, you might be better off with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8. It starts at the same $350 that the Pixel Watch 4 does, but for some of you reading this, the Galaxy Watch 8 may be a better fit.

One of the standout features of the Galaxy Watch 8 is its comprehensive health tracking suite. Samsung’s Energy Score is a nice way to see your body’s readiness for the day ahead, while the new Running Coach feature genuinely helped me become a better runner this summer. Samsung’s activity tracking is great; its sleep tracking is one of the most robust for Wear OS, and the Samsung Health app is really well-designed. The best part? Unlike Fitbit on the Pixel Watch 4, Samsung Health doesn’t require a paid subscription — all of its health features are available for free.

And it’s not just health tracking that the Galaxy Watch 8 excels at. The smartwatch is supremely comfortable, its watch band system is much simpler than the Pixel Watch 4’s, and its AMOLED display is beautiful.

The Pixel Watch 4 has the upper hand with battery life, and the Galaxy Watch 8’s lack of a digital crown/rotating bezel is a bummer. However, if you don’t want your watch to come with a monthly subscription — or if you have a Samsung phone — the Galaxy Watch 8 is a fantastic choice.

The Pixel Watch 4 boasts the best battery life of any Pixel Watch to date, easily lasting a day and a half on a single charge — and sometimes even two full days. However, if battery life is a top priority for you, the OnePlus Watch 3 is a better option. Why? Because it can last up to five days of use per charge. Yes, you read that correctly: five days on a single charge.

And that’s when you’re using the OnePlus Watch 3 with all of its smartwatch features enabled. Turn on power-saving mode, and you can get closer to two weeks of use before you need to look for your charger. When the watch does finally die, the OnePlus Watch 3 boasts some of the fastest charging speeds of any smartwatch — going from 0-100% in about 30 minutes.

That said, this type of battery life does come with some compromises. The OnePlus Watch 3’s health/fitness tools are good for casual use, but they aren’t quite as comprehensive as Samsung’s or Google’s. Furthermore, the OnePlus Watch 3 is a big smartwatch. You can get it in a smaller 43mm size, but at the expense of battery life, which defeats the purpose a bit.

If the size doesn’t bother you and you don’t need the most robust fitness tracking, I think you’ll be really happy with the OnePlus Watch 3. And at $330, it’s a little cheaper than the Pixel Watch 4, too.

The Galaxy Watch 8 is a great choice if you want a smartwatch with subscription-free health tracking, while the OnePlus Watch 3 delivers excellent battery life. If you want a Pixel Watch 4 alternative that delivers on both of those things, you may want to consider the Garmin Venu 4.

The biggest thing to note about the Venu 4 is that it isn’t a Wear OS smartwatch; instead, it’s powered by Garmin’s proprietary operating system. You still get many traditional smartwatch capabilities — such as notifications, phone calls on the watch, offline Spotify downloads, and a Google Maps app — but you don’t have access to the Play Store or Gemini.

If that doesn’t bother you, the Venu 4 has a tremendous amount to offer. Garmin’s health/fitness platform is one of the best on the market, with the Venu 4 supporting features such as workout recovery time, on-screen guided workouts, advanced running statistics, and more. Garmin does offer a paid subscription, but you don’t need it to view all your health stats (unlike the Pixel Watch).

The Venu 4 boasts the longest battery life of any watch on this list, with Garmin claiming up to 10 days of use on a single charge. The Venu 4 also features a lovely metal design, with 41mm and 45mm size options, and even a built-in LED flashlight.

All of this does come with a starting price of $550, which is significantly more expensive than the Pixel Watch 4. However, if you want a well-built smartwatch with top-tier fitness tracking and exceptional battery life, the Garmin Venu 4 could be worth the money.

Lastly, we have the Fitbit Charge 6. I know, I know — this isn’t technically a smartwatch. However, as a Pixel Watch 4 alternative, I think there’s a really strong argument for the Charge 6.

Subscription requirement aside, Fitbit is an extremely capable health platform, and the upcoming Fitbit app redesign only looks to make it better. If you already have a lot of data in the Fitbit app from older devices, or if you’re looking to get started with it, the Charge 6 is a significantly more affordable entry into the Fitbit ecosystem than the Pixel Watch 4.

Although the Fitbit Charge 6 lacks the Play Store, Gemini, call screening, LTE, and other smart features, it delivers many of the same health tracking capabilities as the Pixel Watch 4 — including all-day activity tracking, sleep tracking, irregular heart rhythm notifications, ECG scanning, SpO2 tracking, a skin temperature sensor, and more. Not to mention, the small size is incredibly comfortable, and the seven-day battery life is great, too.

The best part? The Fitbit Charge 6 retails for just $160, and you can regularly find it on sale for even less.