After trying the Pixel Watch 4, I can’t wait to ditch my Pixel Watch 3

I always underestimate what effect a smaller bezel and larger display will have on me when I see a new product. It happened with many Pixel phones and watches before, where I based my early opinion on online renders. The real thing, though, ends up being 10 times better. And this is precisely what happened when I saw and tried the new Pixel Watch 4 for the first time.

There’s something more elegant and refined about Google’s new smartwatch, but that’s not all. A newer processor, faster sideways charger, impressively improved repairability, and promise of better battery life; all of these contribute to making the new Pixel Watch 4 a significant upgrade. Even Google told me this is the biggest update to the Pixel Watch portfolio since it launched, so don’t let the minor appearance changes fool you into thinking it’s an incremental change.

Photos have never done justice to the Pixel Watch, even since its first iteration, and it’s once again the case for the Pixel Watch 4. Flat images don’t really convey the curvature or three-dimensional effect of the watch’s domed design, and even videos don’t showcase it as well as seeing it in person does. The bezels, for example, have always looked bigger and more invasive in all photos and online renders of the previous models than on the watch itself. I likened this to the “camera adds 10 pounds” myth; it’s explained by the fact that anything you see on a screen will be flatter and wider than the more curved and nuanced 3D aspect you get in reality.

The Pixel Watch 4 won’t escape this phenomenon either. In the photo above, you might think there’s a very large black bezel around the display, but when I saw it in person, I felt that the new Actua 360 display was nearly extending to the edge of the glass, embracing the curved edges. It helps that the display itself is curved, not flat, under the Gorilla Glass 5. This brings up the only concern I still have: micro-scratches. My Pixel Watch 3 is full of them. When most flagship smartwatches have graduated to sapphire, it’s disappointing to see Google stick to the less durable glass. Perhaps it hasn’t figured out how to get the dome shape with sapphire, yet?

Objectively speaking, Google says the bezels are 16% narrower and the screen 10% larger than the Pixel Watch 3. You can see this in the flashlight app when you put the two side by side (Pixel Watch 3 on the left, Watch 4 on the right). The larger and brighter 3000 nits display looks spectacular, too, and on such a small screen, every extra bit of space helps. I felt like I was seeing more information on the screen at any point, too, and that the information was clearer than on my Pixel Watch 3 — perhaps due to Material 3 Expressive, too, but I’ll get to that later.

On paper, the Pixel Watch 4 retains the same thickness as all three previous watches at 12.3mm. It looks and feels slimmer on the wrist, though, and I think that’s due to the rounder shape that melds better into the wrist.

All of this made me feel like the Pixel Watch 4 had really leapfrogged my Watch 3. It’s hard to explain how the Watch 3 feels outdated when the new watch looks nearly identical in every photo and render, but you’ll have to trust me on this: You’ll see it in person.

Seeing Material 3 Expressive in action on both the Pixel 10 series phones and the Pixel Watch 4, it struck me how well the new design fits on the latter. Perhaps even more than on the phones. The rounder Roboto Flex font, playful animations, and dynamic shape-shifting buttons that hug the edge of the display — like the large + button you see in the timer tile above — were made to look perfect on the Pixel Watch 4’s domed 3D display. It’s like the entire design language was conceived for a quirky round display, not a flat one.

I’ve already gotten a taste of Material 3 Expressive on my Pixel Watch 3. Google Calendar, Google Messages, and Fitbit already received the facelift on my watch, and I love how bright and bold the new icons, buttons, and typography are. On the Pixel Watch 4’s brighter display, all of these pop a bit more.

And thanks to Wear OS 6, which should also roll out to the Pixel Watch 3 at some point soon, all of these apps and menus will color-shift to fit my chosen watch face theme. It took long enough for this Material You-dated feature to make its way from Android on phones to Wear OS, but at least it’s here now. It was nice to see the entire interface refresh with new colors each time I switched watch faces on the Watch 4, and I’m looking forward to using this as a way to keep my watch feeling fresh over an entire year.

Google is also packing newly designed and information-centric watch faces with the Pixel Watch 4. The Modular one you see on the right, for example, has three large circular complications and four smaller ones around the index. It’s a middle ground between the current Active and Utility watch faces. I don’t know if or when these watch faces will land on previous Pixel Watch models, but odds are they’ll arrive in a future Pixel Drop at some point.

Gemini has already landed on my Pixel Watch 3, and is clearly far ahead of Google Assistant. On the Pixel Watch 4, though, the new raise-to-talk gesture makes invoking it much more intuitive. I tested this briefly, and it worked as seamlessly as Google is marketing it. I expect this to be a game-changer for my Gemini usage.

For three years now, I’ve kept “Ok Google” disabled on my Pixel Watch because I didn’t want it to override my phone or speaker, and switch to the slower and less capable Assistant on the watch. But any time I didn’t have my phone nearby and wanted to use my voice assistant, I had to make sure my other hand was free to tap and hold the Watch’s button. This was cumbersome and led me to use voice commands less and less. Raise to talk makes it a more seamless one-handed gesture to trigger Gemini, and means I can keep the “Ok Google” trigger disabled. Anyone in the same boat will love this feature, too. I still have a concern around Gemini’s speed and offline usability — the two main concerns I had with Assistant before — so I’m holding judgment on how good Gemini will be until I can spend more time with the Pixel Watch 4.

Besides Gemini, Google is bringing smart replies to the Watch 4 — another feature that will need further testing before I can tell how useful it’ll be. Off-the-grid satellite emergency comms join the list of existing safety Pixel Watch features, but they’ll only roll out to the LTE model in the US first.

Google is also promising better sleep tracking, more sports modes like pickleball, more robust activity recognition, a new Fitbit AI Coach, more accurate route tracking thanks to a new dual-frequency GPS module, a next-gen skin temperature sensor, and plenty of workout planning improvements. All of these are tough to gauge from a short hands-on time, but they seem like steps forward, and I’ll see how they work once I have the watch with me long-term. I especially expect the new AI-powered activity recognition to help me track my workouts better because I always forget to start tracking manually and often lose 10-15 minutes before the reminder to start a workout pops up on my watch’s screen.

The most visible hardware change on the Pixel Watch 4 is the switch to sideways charging. The Fitbit Versa and Sense-like four-pin charging puck is gone, replaced by a new, bizarre, and proprietary charger. It certainly solves the flopping and unsteady charging puck problem, keeps the watch propped up and the screen visible at all times, and finally rotates the display to be readable in that orientation. You also get to see upcoming alarms, which will be perfect for those who like taking off their watches at night and using them as bedside clocks.

I would’ve preferred a more universal charging mechanism, but Qi2 for wearables doesn’t seem ready yet. Backwards compatibility is my other concern; Google has already switched three charger designs over the course of four years. That’s hypocritical for a supposedly environmentally-friendly company, and all my 3-in-1 Pixel chargers won’t work with the new watch. Even still, why Google doesn’t keep the USB-C cable separate from the puck, like OnePlus does, to reduce clutter and e-waste, is beyond me.

What I do like about the new charger, though, is that it allows for faster charging and a more repairable design on the Pixel Watch 4. The latter has always been a concern with previous watches — basically, if you broke something, you had to throw away the entire watch. Now, both the battery and display can be replaced in service centers, and Google promises parts to be available for two years after launch.

Another under-the-hood change is the new Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 processor, which brings a new Google-made co-processor for the first time to the Pixel Watch series. Google has apparently optimized this smaller, energy-efficient block for some machine learning uses on top of its utility for idle background tasks. The Watch 4 should use less battery than the Watch 3 when it’s not actively in use, and Google promises 30 hours of battery life on the 41mm model and 40 hours on the 45mm. That’s nice, but I expected more than this, especially knowing both watches pack larger batteries than their predecessors and Wear OS 6 is designed to be 10% more energy-efficient than Wear OS 5. Still, on paper, this promises to last longer than my Pixel Watch 3, and I’ll take any battery life improvement I can get.

The faster W5 Gen 2 processor, coupled with Material 3 Expressive, allows the Watch 4 to be more responsive and fluid. I flew through swipes and taps with the watch in my hand, and I hope this stays the same after many months of use. The haptics are improved, too — although, honestly, they were already very good on the Watch 3 — and the speaker is clearer.

This rounds up the biggest changes Google has brought to the new Pixel Watch 4. You might glance at an online render and think, “Oh, it’s the same watch!” but that would be ignoring all the massive under-the-hood and over-the-hood changes. A faster, more elegant, more repairable watch with longer battery life is all that I needed for my Pixel Watch upgrade, and this is what Google is delivering. There are still hiccups like the Gorilla Glass 5, perfectable battery life, and non-detachable charging puck, but I’m already ready to ditch my Watch 3. I think it’s worth the upgrade.

If you want to grab one, too, you can already pre-order it today. The Wi-Fi 41mm version starts at $349, whereas the 45mm goes for $399, and you’ll have to add $100 if you want LTE. Plenty of frame, band, and color options exist, but you’ll have to be patient as the Pixel Watch 4 isn’t shipping straight way. It’s coming on October 9.