Galaxy Watch 6 to face heat from Google's improved Pixel Watch 2

The Galaxy Watch 6 is the best smartwatch for Android users right now, but it will soon face heat from a new rival. Google's Pixel Watch 2 is scheduled to launch on October 4, 2023, alongside the Pixel 8 series. On Thursday, the company released a teaser video of the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 8 Pro, showing the devices from all angles. Now, the Pixel Watch 2 has also received the same treatment.

Google has released a teaser video of the Pixel Watch 2, revealing its design and hinting at its features. The Pixel Watch 2 seems to have a design largely similar to that of its predecessor, which isn’t a bad thing at all because the Pixel Watch still looks modern and is considered beautiful by many. The back plate of the Pixel Watch 2 has an ‘IP68’ inscription, which means that the smartwatch is officially rated for water and dust resistance. This is a huge improvement over the Pixel Watch, which has no IP rating. The company advertised the previous model to be only water resistant up to 5ATM.

The Galaxy Watch 6, apart from featuring an IP68 rating, is also compliant with MIL-STD-810H. So, on paper, the latest smartwatch from Samsung still has an edge over the Pixel Watch 2 in terms of ruggedness and durability. Well, unless Google surprises everyone by offering the same rating as the Galaxy Watch 6 with the Pixel Watch 2. While that’s all the teaser video shows, the leaks of the smartwatch reveal most of its specifications.

What to expect from the Pixel Watch 2?

According to leaks, the Pixel Watch 2 will feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 SoC, which has four Cortex-A53 cores and an Adreno 702 GPU. In comparison, the Galaxy Watch 6 features an Exynos W930 chipset, which has two Cortex-A55 CPU cores and a Mali-G68 GPU. With two extra CPU cores, the Pixel Watch 2 will most likely be more powerful than the Galaxy Watch 6. The upcoming smartwatch is said to pack a 306mAh battery, which is significantly smaller than the 425mAh battery pack in the Galaxy Watch 6.

Looking at the teaser video and the leaked specifications, the Pixel Watch 2 doesn’t seem to have as many features as the Galaxy Watch 6. But it doesn’t mean that the Galaxy Watch 6 is a better smartwatch among the two. Google could announce additional features of the Pixel Watch 2 at the launch. For now, we suspect that Samsung will definitely feel the heat from the Pixel Watch 2 as it will feature a more powerful processor than the Galaxy Watch 6, which people have been requesting from Samsung for a long time.