Samsung introduced a brand new processor with its first Wear OS-based smartwatch series. The Galaxy Watch 4 series used the 5nm Exynos W920 chip, and the same chip was used inside the Galaxy Watch 5. This year, the company launched a slightly overclocked version of the same chip and called it the Exynos W930. However, it might need a brand-new chip next year for the Galaxy Watch 7 lineup.
Google Pixel Watch 2 could be much faster than Galaxy Watch 6
While a 200MHz speed bump and 512MB more RAM may have been enough for the Galaxy Watch 6 and the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic to feel speedy, such a minor change may not be enough with the Galaxy Watch 7. The Pixel Watch 2, which is expected to launch later this year, is bringing a massive jump in performance. It features (via 9To5Google) the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 processor and 2GB of RAM. It is a 4nm chip with a 1.7GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU and the Adreno 702 GPU (clocked at 1GHz). That's two more cores than the Exynos W930, and those four cores are running at a higher clock speed.
Even if we consider that Cortex-A53 CPU cores are older than Cortex-A55 CPU cores used in the Exynos W930, two additional CPU cores and a 300MHz bump in clock speed are enough to give the Pixel Watch 2 a considerable leap in performance. Google's next smartwatch also needs to push fewer pixels (384 x 384 pixels) than the Galaxy Watch 6 (480 x 480 pixels), so the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 will have more headroom in performance.
So, Samsung would need to come up with a much faster chip for the Galaxy Watch 7 series if it wants to stay on top of the Pixel Watch 2. We will have a better idea of how the new Qualcomm chip performs compared to the Exynos W930 later this year when Google launches the Pixel Watch 2 alongside the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 8 Pro. The Pixel Watch 2 is said to feature an OLED panel from Samsung Display. It runs Android 13-based Wear OS 4, similar to the Galaxy Watch 6 series.
