Pros
Domed display looks cool and unique
Solid battery life and faster charging
Seamless user experience
Cons
New charging dock not backward compatible
Included watch band looks bland
Since its debut three years ago, Google’s Pixel Watch series has stood out with its elegant pebble-like appearance. Apple’s smartwatch was squarish, while even the round Android smartwatches often had chunky bezels that imitated conventional watches and flat displays. Only the Pixel Watch had this curved design that looked bezel-less (it isn’t) and open.
The latest Pixel Watch 4 doubles down on this. Not only is the cover glass curved, the display itself is domed. If you examine the smartwatch closely, you can see part of the watch face or text from a notification curving at the edges. Google says the bezels are now 16% smaller, which results in 10% more screen. Perhaps because of this domed display, viewing angles are excellent. The Pixel Watch 4 still comes in two sizes: 41mm and 45mm, and you can choose between the Bluetooth and the LTE versions. Launch prices are unchanged from the Pixel Watch 3, with the 41mm starting at S$529 and the 45mm from S$599.
Quick specs
Recycled aluminium housing with fluoroelastomer watch bandComes in two sizes: 41mm (tested) and 45mmPowered by Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 chip with new Cortex-M55 co-processorBigger battery on both sizes (30 and 40 hour battery life for 41mm and 45mm respectively)
The new display is also much brighter, topping out at 3,000 nits compared with 2,000 nits for last year’s version, which itself was an upgrade from the 1,000 nits in the Pixel Watch 2. That’s on par with rivals such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8. You won’t have any trouble using this smartwatch outdoors. Accompanying the new display is the new Material 3 Expressive UI, which looks fresh and eye-catching. The interface seems tailor-made for the curved display. Rounded corners everywhere without a single right angle, while the shape of notifications shift and adapt to the domed display as you scroll up. It’s pretty cool. More importantly, the smartwatch feels responsive.
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To support the brighter display, the battery in the Pixel Watch 4 is slightly larger. As a result, Google claims that you’ll get up to 30 hours battery life for the 41mm model and up to 40 hours for the 45mm. In comparison, it was up to 24 hours for the Pixel Watch 3. In my experience, the 41mm version I used could easily last me an entire day. I could even get away without charging it overnight, mostly. The 25% faster charging speed for the Pixel Watch 4 also helps if I need to wear the smartwatch early the next day. Google says the smartwatch gets from 0 to 50% in just 15 minutes, which sounds about right.
Credit: Vincent Chang/Can Buy or Not
The new charging dock, where you place the Pixel Watch 4 sideways, is a big improvement over the previous charger. No jiggling required to get the right contact, it just snaps into place. The watch face will also rotate to landscape orientation while charging to show the time properly. Possibly the only complaint is that this new charger obviously won’t work with an older Pixel Watch and vice versa, so it’s adding to more e-waste. Oh, and the charging cable is fixed to the dock, and not removable. This can be annoying if it happens to be too short for your setup or the cable (non-braided, of course) gets damaged.
But on the bright side, the Google Pixel Watch 4 is also the first in the series to have a replaceable battery and display. Users can send the smartwatch to Google for servicing. Or if they are confident enough, they can do it themselves with Google stating that components will be available online through iFixit.
Credit: Vincent Chang/Can Buy or Not
Google’s Gemini assistant is front and centre of the Pixel Watch 4 experience with a new way — just raise the watch to your lips — to talk to Gemini. I found this raise-to-talk gesture to work most of the time. It won’t trigger if you do it in slow-mo, or just rotating your wrist. But as long as you’re doing it naturally, there will be a visual cue at the bottom of the watch face to indicate that Gemini is now listening to you. If it fails, you can still fall back to other methods of invoking Gemini, like saying “Hey Google” or tapping the Gemini logo on the watch face.
You can ask Gemini anything you can think of. For example, when I asked about my sleep, it opened the Fitbit app to show the data. Asking for directions to my next appointment brought up a suggestion to drive, and the route, along with a link to Google Maps. Google says the Pixel Watch 4 has a new speaker that delivers clearer audio, and it certainly seemed the case.
Credit: Vincent Chang/Can Buy or Not
If I had one word to describe using the Pixel Watch 4, it would be “seamless”. From the setup (I tested it with the Pixel 10 Pro XL) to the way it automatically detects sleep and when you wake up to automatically recording activities like running. It will even automatically lock the display when you’re swimming, and eject water when you’re out of the water.
The Pixel Watch 4 also comes with on-device AI that can craft smart replies (English only) for messages. For instance, it would offer several replies for my WhatsApp conversation, most of which are usable (and save me the hassle of typing on the tiny keyboard, which actually isn’t that bad with swipe typing). Perhaps it’s just me, but the replies seem to use emojis and exclamation points a bit too liberally.
I could go on about other new features and improvements, from streaming real-time metrics for cycling from the watch to phone to upgraded processors to improved sleep tracking (it’s really more accurate) to the quick location lock with dual GPS. Is there still room for improvement? Sure, I wouldn’t say no to even longer battery life or even a nicer default watch band than the plain functional one. But it’s also clear as day that the Pixel Watch 4 is Google’s best smartwatch yet. More importantly, it’s as good, if not better (in some ways) than the competition. And it’s the best-looking one in my opinion. Pre-order it now from Google, it will be available in Singapore from 6 November.
Note: Review unit provided by Google.
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CAN BUY
Coming of age for Google’s smartwatch