Quick summary
Google's next smartwatch is imminent, and new specs have just leaked.
It'll get a display bump, but not a substantial boost in power.
We're a matter of days away from this year's big Made by Google event, which takes place on 13 August, and the leaks are coming thick and fast.
Google seems to be having difficulty in keeping things secret this time around, and the replacement models to its best smartwatch are the latest in the crosshairs.
AndroidHeadlines has reported that it's been able to confirm some of the upcoming watch's key specs.
In particular, it's revealed that the Pixel Watch 3 and Watch 3 XL should ship with the same processor powering them as the Pixel Watch 2 – the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 5100 chipset along with a Cortex M33 co-processor.
This will be mirrored by an unchanged 2GB of SDRAM and 32GB of eMMC flash storage.
This probably means that performance will not make any real sort of uptick in the new smartwatch unless major gains are made in terms of software efficiency – that might disappoint some observers.
The Pixel Watch 3's battery will also be functionally identical in size to the last version, although the Watch 3 XL will get a bigger one since its body will accommodate more.
If that all sounds a bit disappointing, it turns out that there is more exciting news where the watch's display is concerned. According to the report, the Pixel Watch 3 will have a 60Hz display, instead of the 30Hz versions on previous models. This should make for considerably smoother animations and transitions, and feel much better to use.
It's also a variable refresh rate display, letting the watch change from as little as 1Hz up to 60Hz depending on the situation, which should help with keeping battery life at the stated 24-hour estimate, even with when "always-on".
The display will also be able to dim massively, down to a tiny 1 nit of brightness, and go as bright as 2,000 nits, which is a great range that should help it to be easy to read in all lighting conditions.
This means it's a mixed bag on the upgrades front for the Pixel Watch 3, if these specs are accurate. We'll have to see how Google spins all this early next week.
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