The Apple Watch Series 8 has a new rival: the Google Pixel Watch. Announced as part of October’s Made by Google event, it brings Google’s streamlined design and software chops to the now-familiar smartwatch. It comes in a sleek, circular, stainless-steel casing; runs on Google’s own Wear OS 3.5; offers health-and fitness-tracking software in partnership with Fitbit; and provides a helpful Emergency SOS feature.
While you could argue that it doesn’t really take any design risks, its compact size and tidy sculpting help to distinguish it from the established design offered by the Apple Watch Series 8, which doesn’t really depart from the squircle form of the Apple Watch 7. This means you get a choice of two sizes , a choice of different materials , and a wide variety of bands.
Moving to battery talk, the Apple Watch Series 8 lasts around 18 hours on a single charge. This was confirmed by our review, which found the device ended most days with around 30% to 40% of its charge remaining, even when using it consistently. As for the Pixel, Google promises that its 294 mAh battery will typically last around 24 hours . While we haven’t tested it enough to confirm this, the smaller screen size of the Pixel should indeed help it last a full day for most users.
In terms of updates, it’s likely that the Apple Watch will be supported with core updates for longer. That said, Google hasn’t yet clarified for how long it will support the Pixel Watch, and given that it has improved its smartphone updating game in the past couple of years, we’re leaving this round a tie — for now.Special features There’s not much in it when it comes to special features, with both boasting largely the same perks.
I’m sorry, but this is not a review. It’s a feature comparison, which is not at all the same thing, because it says nothing about how the features are actually implemented. User experience is key to a product’s success, but there’s not a word about it here.