How the Apple Watch 4’s screen could compare to rival smartwatches
A recent rumour has suggested that with the Apple Watch 4, Apple might be ready to increase the resolution of its wearable smartwatch to 480 x 384. Obviously that’s a long way off the sorts of resolutions you can find on smartphones, but it’s a decent improvement over previous Apple Watches.
How decent? Well, if these rumoured specs are true, we’re looking an an approximate 50% increase in the total amount of pixels on the Apple Watch’s screen, which should result in much more real estate being offered to everything from text messages to health data.
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But the Apple Watch 3 is a year old at this point, and there have been plenty of smartwatches released over the course of 2018. How does this rumoured resolution compare to them?
Comparing to the competition
Probably the most high profile smartwatches not manufactured by Apple belong to Samsung, which recently announced the Samsung Galaxy Watch running the company’s own Tizen operating system.
Although it’s not yet been released, the Galaxy Watch was announced with a 320 x 320 resolution screen, which has almost half the resolution of the upcoming Apple Watch. In other words, advantage Apple.
If we move along to the TicWatch Pro, which we rate as the second best smartwatch around right now, things look a little better for the competition. However, even the TicWatch’s 400 x 400 display still has around 15% less pixels than the tabled specs for the Apple Watch 4.
Finally, compared to the Skagen Falster 2 and Fitbit Versa, it’s a 45% and 50% lead for Apple respectively.
Essentially, if these leaked Apple Watch 4 specs end up being accurate, we could be looking at one of the highest resolution screens seen on a 2018 smartwatch.
Read more: Best fitness tracker
Of course, there’s a lot more to a smartwatch than its screen’s resolution. Apple will need to ensure that the wireless connectivity and battery are also able to keep up.
But these rumoured specs are promising, and we’ll find out how accurate they really are when Apple announces the watch − almost certainly at an event next week.
How important is screen resolution to you when buying a smartwatch? Let us know @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
