Samsung looks set to power the Galaxy Watch 4 with a new Exynos W920 chipset. With the marriage between Samsung Galaxy watches and Wear OS, this could prove to be a huge game-changer. Where past Wear OS devices lacked sufficient specs to keep up with the times, Samsung could be looking at a champion chipset to power its way through Wear OS for the foreseeable future.
The Galaxy Watch Active, Active 2, and Galaxy Watch 3 were all powered by an Exynos 9110 chipset. The other important thing to note about the past Galaxy Watch line is that the operating system for these models was Tizen. In general, Tizen was a good fit for Samsung's line of watches and performed well under the limitations of the hardware, and while it did seem a little out of place among competitive operating systems, it still held its own and was loved by many. In May, however, Samsung and Google announced a partnership to merge the "best of Wear and Tizen." As a result, Samsung's wearables will be running the new Wear software instead of Tizen, starting with the Galaxy Watch 4.
One major key to executing this change in software is ensuring the new devices have enough power. To achieve this, Samsung has decided to go with a rather beefy Exynos W920 chip, according to SamMobile. In comparison to its predecessor, the new chip is said to offer 1.25x faster processing speeds. To accompany the new Galaxy Watch 4's brain will be 1.5 GB of RAM. To put this into perspective, there are currently no Wear OS watches on the market that have more than 1GB of RAM, resulting in a markedly large improvement over the past devices made by either Samsung or manufacturers who employ Wear OS on their wearables.
Combining Power With Streamlined Software
In the past, Wear OS devices sported Snapdragon CPUs that were 28nm tech, creating a perfect storm of subpar software and outdated internals. The new Exynos W920 in comparison, houses 5nm tech, something that is completely up to date with the tech that's on the market now. For the most part, Samsung has been current with its wearables' internal specs, and obviously, that hasn't changed. The new Wear OS coupled with an impressive spec sheet will more than likely make for a fantastic watch that could go up against the Apple Watch. Even after many updates down the line, it's likely the Galaxy Watch 4 will stand the test of time and remain a high-performance wearable.
For now, Samsung is a huge step ahead of other companies who want to run Wear OS on their devices. According to Gizmodo, Samsung hasn't answered as to whether this chipset will be shared with other companies looking to run Wear on their devices. It would not be surprising if Samsung decided to hold on to this 5nm processor until something better comes along. Until then, the new processor and unified operating system will make for some high Galaxy Watch 4 expectations and may result in the first Wear OS-powered watch in some time to actually do its job well.