Samsung has yet to unveil many details about its Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 (nor the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic) but ahead of its next Unpacked event happening tomorrow August 11 they have potentially given some details away.
If you havent seen the news, its because the tech giant just unveiled the new Exynos W920 chip its first 5nm processor designed for wearables, packing in a lot of power in truly compact chipset. While theres a chance this announcement could be too late for its 2021 line of products, wed be surprised if Samsung unveiled a new chip the day before announcing its smartwatches will use a less powerful option.
While performance improvements are expected, were more interested in what the Exynos W2920 could mean for always-on displays in Samsung wearables. Based on what Samsung has said so far, theres a chance we might finally use the feature thats been known to tear through your battery life.
Always-on displays arent new, and theyre exactly what they sound like. The devices screen never turns off, and always displays basic information like time or notifications so you dont have to wake up your device unnecessarily. While some have billed it as a battery saving feature, weve found that it can cause a serious hit to your devices battery life (as with the original Samsung Galaxy Watch).
Thankfully, this new Exynos W920 chip could come to the rescue.
The W920 is actually two processors in one, with a CPU that boasts a 20% performance boost over the previous generation and another that is dedicated to operating the low power display. In theory this should reduce the power consumption required to operate the always-on display while not reducing its usefulness, though well have to wait and see until we can get our hands on it.
Extending battery life is particularly important for wearable tech, as their smaller form factor limits the largest battery size more so than in other devices like smartphones. If this Exynos W920 chip can deliver on its promise of a low-power always-on display, the Galaxy Watch 4 might be the first smartwatch where we actually recommend using the feature.
