Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 could get a significant speed and battery boost

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is finally beginning to take shape with a sudden flurry of insights about the wearable that’s expected to launch this summer.

Earlier this week, we learned that said shape could even be square for the first time — an idea that is reportedly “enthusiastically being considered internally”. Now we’ve learned that changes to the Galaxy Watch 7 could be beyond the aesthetic, with a new processor potentially offering major improvements to both power and stamina.

“Exynos W940, the processor powering the Galaxy Watch7 series, will apparently be 50% more efficient and 30% faster than the previous model,” wrote the leaker @TheGalox_ in a post on X (the social network formerly known as Twitter).

On one hand, devices getting a chipset upgrade isn’t particularly big news. But things move more slowly in wearable technology where speed isn’t quite as necessary as with smartphones. Indeed, there was no change in processor between the Galaxy Watch 1 and 3 (Exynos 9110), and the Galaxy Watch 4 and 5 (Exynos W920), with improvements coming elsewhere.

The 30% speed boost would be welcome for smooth operation, but the 50% efficiency increase could be all the more important. The original Galaxy Watch offered a massive four days of battery life with its Tizen operating system, but more recent models have tapped out at less than half that.

Rivals like the OnePlus Watch 2 have reached the 100-hour battery mark by leveraging a hybrid interface on Wear OS, so Samsung could potentially aim to do the same to eke out even more battery.

Elsewhere, the leaker @kro-roe claims that Samsung will release three different flavors of Galaxy Watch 7 this year. In a translated post on X, the tipster says that the Classic and Pro models will be joined by a “new one”. That suggests something different to the usual sporty model, and perhaps indicates that a square watch is more than being “considered internally”.

We’ve got a little while before we find out. Beyond the Galaxy Active wearables (which haven’t received an update since 2019), Samsung has always released new members of the Galaxy Watch range in August. The last few years, the wearables have appeared alongside new foldables — hello Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 — and for 2024, there’s talk of the Samsung Galaxy Ring also emerging at the same time.