I love wearable smart technology. Having had a smartwatch since the early days of Android Wear (and before) I love the seamless ability to interact with the tech I love in a non-intrusive way to those around me.
The Pixel Watches have been my favourite of late, I haven't really found a good contender to knock it off my wrist, yet. And the new Pixel Watch 4 is the best so far for me. Thanks to Google for sending me one to play with and really wrap my use-case around.
Using the Pixel Watch 4 not only has me using the latest tech on my wrist, they really have improved it on previous models. Now, mind you, I've only used the 1 & 2, not the 3, so I can't speak about what jumps that made, but I can tell you from the 2 it was a big jump.
And I don't use the word 'big' just because the model that was sent to me was the 45mm model (vs. the 41mm the PW2 I had was). There are a lot of little things about this to make it worthy of the jump, albeit a big price jump too.
The model that I'm sporting these days is the 45mm with LTE which will cost you $680CDN. That's a lot for a watch. But, it's the biggest display and has its own option for an eSIM. Personally, I'm not a fan of LTE options - I get it - but to pay $130 more to have the ability to have your carrier charge you $15/month more on your bill to let your watch connect independent of the phone... In a year that would be $310 extra alone.
But aside from the LTE (which previous models had) what does this offer? Well, let's go over
- 1.2" (41mm) or 1.4" (45mm)
- 408x408 or 456x456
- 3000nits
- Snapdragon W5 Gen 2
- 2GB RAM
- 32GB storage
- 325mAh or 455mAh
- IP68
So it starts at just $480 for the 41mm or $550 for the 45mm, with $130 option to get LTE.
Matched with the recent Expressive Material design, everything feels ... 'Fluid'.
It doesn't hurt that it's that much brighter. My old Pixel Watch 2 could only get as high as 2000nits, and this can go up to 3000. So it does look brighter, more vivid to accentuate those cool animations and 'pebble-like' effects.
With the added advantage of a bigger display, I'm noticing that the icons and notification previews I get are 'bigger'. I can see more photo previews, animated gifs of cameras etc.. It really makes it easier to for me now to see what it is I'm missing on the phone and respond accordingly on the watch (if needed).
Now, going through the features, it has a lot of Fitbit integration, which I'm not a fan of -- I would have loved for it to have remained agnostic for activities; it really feels ingrained into it that if I removed FitBit I'll lost alo of the features of the device (like the Morning Briefing -- letting you know how ready it thinks you are to get active for the day).
So when I go for a workout, or a bike ride, etc... I could use Fitbit activities, or I installed Google Fit (and make sure Health Connect is syncing) and use that... Each service has some pluses and minuses to it; but I prefer Google Fit as I've been using that since it ever came out.
Going to a hotel and using their exercise room, you could connect to it and gather accurate information.
I do love the gesture for "Raise to Talk (to Gemini)"... Or at least the idea behind it. The concept is that if you just go from a resting position that you bring the watch up to your face you can just start talking to Gemini. I can see about half of the time the little spot at the bottom of the watch start to glow, meaning that Gemini is activated, but when to talk tends to be hit and miss. Sometimes it works flawlessly, but about half the time it either missed it.
When it does work, I do like the speaker on the side of it, it's pretty clear. I just can't easily find a volume control... How could I turn it down or up. It isn't clear to find that option.
Another area I was impressed with was the battery. Wearing it overnight only cost me about 8%, and the battery would last a full day and be left with about 70%. Charging it up for the day it took about 20 minutes for the watch to get to full from that 60%.
Charging is faster due to its new method of charging. No more are there charge points on the bottom, rather they are on the side of the device, opposite the crown. These can be a little more 'robust' than the ones on the underside (purely my hypothesis). I like this as over time, your wrist gets 'sweaty' and that sweat and salt and oils can build up on the pins to charge and get in the way. I often would make sure I wiped it down whenever I took it off to charge. With the pins on the site, there's less likely interaction with your skin to gum it up.
This side pin now means that there's a new charger (yeesh, 4 watches and 3 different chargers over the years), and that always bugs me when it's something 'new'.
I would have loved if the charger would have a USB-C port so I could use any cord already in place to plug in and charge, rather then having to find an open USB-C port on a charger or device for me to plug it into. I loved how the OnePlus Watches have little 'pucks' for the watch ready to plug into any wire.
I like the little display, and tells you how quickly it can be charged to full, and will even let you know if, for whatever reason, the charging is not fully connected, or stopped charging.
Outside of all that, the features of WearOS work just like they should; I get great notifications, ability to interact/respond as I please (for those that support the features from the Watch). The interface for me is very familiar and intuitive to navigate.
The trickiest part tends to be in trying to find the best watchface that has all the features/dashboard that I want.
And added advantage this year is that it apparently scores VERY WELL for its repair ability, almost user level repairable (or so I've been told; iFixit gave it high praise)
All this 'cool' watch does come with a good price point; but compared to some of the competitors out there I think it's a good option for the value.
My only real complaint (aside from Google Fit vs. Fitbit not playing so well, it eventually syncs but it a real PITA for a bit) is that I would like the crown moved just slight higher in position. Tho' it's not as bad as previous (maybe because it's a bigger display it is positioned differently on my wrist), I do notice when doing things like picking up a heavy box, or doing pushups (where the wrist is pushed backwards) I can hit the crown button with the back of my palm. It never amounts to any issue (like accidentally calling 911 or something), but it still has me bit nervous when I do something and I can feel the back of my hand push a button it shouldn't be doing.
My last thought I'll include is that from the Pixel Watch 1 & 2, I had noticed that both were readily scratched. Well, maybe not too readily, but still after a while there's be a good mark or something; so for the 2 I had to get protectors as I get nervous about any small marring of the screen.
With a couple weeks into the use of this I can say that I have not yet noticed any scrapes or scratches on it yet, and I've been purposely a little 'rougher' / less babying than I normally am -- add to the fact that it is a bigger display, I would have assumed something by this point, and so far nothing. I'm impressed!
I like the watch and love it - sleep with daily and they've increased everything I was sort of against in previous models (poor battery, poor performance, not so bright).
What I failed to mention earlier on was the set up - and how easy it was. Turning it on in the vicinity of a Pixel phone gets that pop up to set it up, and because I had a previous watch that I had backed up, it would have let me just restore from that set up (I always like to set up as new tho', but I like the option).
Source: https://store.google.com/product/pixel_watch_4?hl=en-GB
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