The Galaxy Watch 3 will be Samsung's big update to a two-year-old design, and with strong competition from the Apple Watch 5 and upcoming Apple Watch 6, it needs to be packing some great hardware to get noticed. And now that hardware may have just been fully revealed.
SamMobile has managed to get a hold of the Galaxy Watch 3's spec sheet, giving us a full insight into Samsung's upcoming smartwatch. Although the name isn't certain yet (the next Samsung smartwatch could be the Galaxy Watch 2 or the Galaxy Watch 3), almost all of the hardware is now revealed, assuming this leak is accurate.
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The next Galaxy Watch will be available with either a 41mm or 45mm face, and either a stainless steel or titanium casing. All versions will have a rotating bezel like the original Galaxy Watch, which you can use to navigate through the watch's menus instead of swiping and tapping. The watch will also sport an IP68 rating, meaning it'll be safe to take the Galaxy Watch out in any weather.
You'll get either a 1.2-inch display or 1.4-inch display, with the precise dimensions of the face being 41 x 42.5 x 11.3 mm for the smaller edition and 45 x 46.2 x 11.1 mm for the larger version. That makes the Watch 3 a double improvement over the original Galaxy Watch; it's smaller in size, but with a 0.1-inch larger display. The displays will use Gorilla Glass DX, the latest Corning-made material design for smartwatches that promises extra toughness and better readability of the display even in bright light.
Inside the watches you'll find a 247 mAh or 340 mAh battery. These are smaller than the Galaxy Watch but are the same size as the Galaxy Watch Active 2, so hopefully you won't be losing any battery life despite the size cut. You'll also get 1GB RAM and 8GB storage, a choice of GPS or LTE, and Tizen OS 5.5, the newest version of Samsung's wearables operating system.
Taking a page out of the Galaxy Watch Active 2's book, the Galaxy Watch 3 will feature pulse-reading, an ECG monitor and blood pressure monitoring. However, the ECG function may not be available worldwide because the unique sensor requires separate approval from national regulators.
It's still hard to tell how the Galaxy Watch 3 will stack up with it's biggest rival: this year's Apple Watch 6. The Apple Watch will likely have much more storage space, as the Apple Watch 5 starts at 32GB storage. However, Apple has traditionally done poorly on battery life, so unless something big changes, we expect that Samsung's watch will last far longer between returns to the charging cradle.
Apple has yet to add sleep tracking to an Apple Watch, which Samsung already has implemented on its existing smartwatches, and therefore will most likely add to the Galaxy Watch 3. This means the new Galaxy Watch will have an advantage on launch, but only a temporary one, as sleep tracking is rumored to be coming to the Apple Watch 6 and WatchOS 7, along with some mental health-tracking tools.
We're expecting a price of around $400 for the new Galaxy Watch, which will be a little more than the original model but still cheaper than the equivalent Apple Watch. That's certainly a good advantage for Samsung to have, but it'll have to improve its storage and software options before it can be considered a proper victor over Apple's smartwatch.
The Galaxy Watch 3 is likely going to appear at a Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event in August, where we'll see the long-awaited debut of the Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Fold 2. The Apple Watch 6 will likely appear the month after in September alongside the iPhone 12, meaning that we'll see Apple's response to these specs very quickly after Samsung's launch.
