Samsung and Google confirmed yesterday that future Galaxy-branded smartwatches will no longer run Tizen OS, but instead they'll adopt the Wear OS platform to deliver better app compatibility and support for third-party developers, and more. The companies haven't revealed any hardware details, but according to at least one leaker — @UniverseIce — the Galaxy Watch Active 4 will see some drastic changes to the exterior design as well as the internal hardware.
The Galaxy Watch Active 4 will reportedly abandon the 2.5D glass panel covering the circular display, and instead it will feature a flat 2D panel, which begs the question of what will happen to the virtual bezel.
The physical (non-moving) bezel surrounding the active area of the display will be narrower, and the frame / chassis might be built from titanium alloy.
Samsung might finally be ready to introduce a new chipset
Samsung's been using the 10nm-based Exynos 9110 chipset for its entire smartwatch lineup ever since the original Galaxy Watch was introduced in 2018. The company has released several smartwatch models under the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active brandings, all of which were powered by the same silicon.
The company might now finally be ready to switch to a newer solution, and although details are missing, the source claims that the upcoming wearable chipset will be manufactured on a 5nm process. This should make the SoC more powerful, but more importantly, it should improve energy efficiency and could contribute to increased battery life on a single charge.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 will presumably boast the same 5nm silicon and share other hardware similarities with the Active variant, though it will probably retain a physical rotating bezel.
