If you’ve ever tried to get in-app support on WhatsApp, you know the process used to start with filling out a form, possibly attaching a few files, and waiting for a support rep to eventually get in touch.
Now, that form is on its way out, and the screening process is, you guessed it, becoming AI-based. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Out with the form, in with AI
Unless you’re Stephen Hackett, support knowledge bases are never fun to navigate, especially if you are in a hurry and already feeling aggravated as you try to sort through large quantities of help options that rarely fit your specific problem.
On WhatsApp, the old process could be especially anxiety-inducing. Filling out a contact form and sending it into the void, not knowing exactly when you should expect a response, wasn’t the most reassuring experience in an emergency situation.
Now, as reported by WABetaInfo (via Tecnoblog), going to Settings > Help > Help Center > Contact Us takes you straight to a new chat window, where a support bot tries to understand the issue, search WhatsApp’s help docs, and walk you through a solution in natural language.
If necessary, it can ask for more information before escalating the conversation to a human.
Interestingly, WABetaInfo notes that the feature was recently added to the TestFlight beta of WhatsApp, but it already appears to be live for some users. I was able to access the new form-free support chat in the regular app, so the rollout may be imminent, or possibly happening gradually by region.
AI-based support is inevitably becoming the rule
It is worth noting that WhatsApp is not the only company heading down this path. As recently reported, on bringing a generative AI assistant to its Support app, likely to help handle common issues automatically and escalate only the trickier ones to a human.
If implemented correctly, AI-based chatbots can handle the more common issues, allowing for human agents to focus on more tricky cases. And with fewer of those piling up, users might get to them faster, too.
AirPods deals on Amazon
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The $200 discount on Apple’s standard M4 MacBook Pro beats Prime Day pricing on the 14-inch laptop in your choice of colorway.
The $1,399 price at B&H Photo and Amazon is thanks to a summer price war between the two Apple Authorized Resellers as back-to-school shopping commences.
Buy for $1,399 ($200 off)
Now $200 off in your choice of Space Black or Silver, the M4 model with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU has 16GB of unified memory and 512GB of storage. The 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display offers up to 1600 nits peak brightness and has ProMotion technology.
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Save up to $480 with today’s top MacBook Pro deals
14″ MacBook Pro M4, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Space Black: $1,399 ($200 off)
Welcome to episode 62 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, we’re prepping for all things Pixel 10. With Made By Google officially announced for August 20th, we have less than five weeks to go until new Google hardware hits our desk. From phones to wearables, earbuds to foldables, there’s a lot to look forward to — and frankly, it might all boil down to some software secrets we don’t know much about yet.
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00:00 – Made By Google announced
03:58 – Tensor G5
12:33 – Pixel 10
22:39 – Pixel Sense and Google’s mobile AI push
28:40 – Pixel Watch 4
35:13 – Pixel Buds 2a
37:34 – Pixel accessories and final thoughts
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India and England produced another great advertisement for Test cricket with a tense encounter at Lord’s in the third of the five-match series. A packed crowd at the home of cricket witnessed a dramatic final day on Monday in which England held on to win by just 22 runs after an admirable Indian fightback led by Ravindra Jadeja.
England were inspired by captain Ben Stokes whose all-round performance including a lengthy spell of accurate bowling earned him Player of the Match.
The result leaves the series delicately poised at 2-1 in England’s favour. But there is so little to choose between the teams, it is impossible to predict the outcome of the fourth Test which begins at Old Trafford on Wednesday.
England will be without spinner Shoaib Bashir who has been ruled out of the rest of the series with a broken finger. Despite his injury Bashir bravely came on to bowl near the end of the Lord’s match and was overjoyed at taking the precious final wicket. Hampshire spinner Liam Dawson has been called up as a replacement.
The Lord’s match provided plenty of drama despite the slow scoring rate and as the game developed things became quite feisty at times as tension mounted.
Spectators also witnessed the rare situation of the teams being tied on 387 after the first innings with England’s Joe Root and India’s KL Rahul both scoring centuries. England were pegged back by some fine fast bowling from Jasprit Bumrah who took 5-74.
Runs were harder to get in the second innings with Root again top scoring for England with 40 as the hosts slumped to 192 all out following a fine spell from Washington Sundar with 4-22.
That left India 193 to win but with Stokes and Jofra Archer picking up three wickets apiece it proved too much for the visitors despite a brave 61 not out from Jadeja supported by the tail.
There was huge interest in the performance of Archer after a four-year absence from Test cricket owing to a long-term injury. Considering his lengthy layoff, Archer performed well, introducing some much-needed pace into the England attack. Taking five wickets in the match including a brilliant caught and bowled to dismiss Sundar, he did enough to justify his selection.
On the fifth and final day Stokes had to remind Archer that July 14 marked a special day In England’s cricket history.
It was the same day six years ago in the Cricket World Cup Final that Archer bowled the winning “super over” against New Zealand after the match had been tied.
England’s team could be forgiven for casting an eye on events in the Caribbean where their forthcoming Ashes foes Australia demolished the West Indies for just 27 runs with Mitchell Stark taking an amazing 6 for 9. It is the second lowest score in Test history, with New Zealand holding the dubious honour of being bowled out by England for 26 at Auckland back in 1955.
The rout saw the Aussies, who have experienced batting problems themselves on the Caribbean wickets, comfortably sweep the series 3-0. It is rather sad to see the once feared West Indies struggling in this way, especially their brittle batting.
West Indies captain Roston Chase glumly summed up the series, “the bowlers kept us in the contest but the batting let us down time after time.”
Samsung just unveiled its $900 Galaxy Flip 7 FE, the most affordable foldable phone the company has ever released. Despite that position in Samsung’s history, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE is still notably pricier than the $700 Motorola Razr 2025, leaving a decided gap in cost that makes their value comparison even more intriguing.
That’s because Samsung and Motorola have been neck and neck in pushing the envelope for clamshell foldables. The first modern-era Motorola Razr came out in early 2020 and the initial Samsung Galaxy Z Flip came out months later, and ever since, the companies have launched annual refinements iterating on their designs. Last year, however, Motorola split its Razr series into a pair of models, a cheaper one and a premium one, to appeal to two different potential owners. As a result, Motorola has sold around 3 million flip smartphones since 2022, according to an April report by Counterpoint Research. Now Samsung has a model that’s trying to compete when it comes to more cost-conscious phone buyers.
The $200 gap between the Razr 2025 and the new Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE makes the choice very simple for some phone buyers: If they prioritize affordability, there isn’t much in Samsung’s clamshell that should convince them to opt for the pricier handset.
But a deeper comparison reveals the specific audience for each foldable. The Motorola Razr 2025 is for folks who want a clamshell foldable for less than a premium iPhone 16 or Samsung Galaxy S25 and don’t mind lower specs. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE is for folks who want to pay a little more for higher performance but don’t want to spend the full $1,100 for a Galaxy Z Flip 7 or Motorola Razr Ultra (2025).
Though we haven’t tested the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE yet, its specs and similarity to last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 6 do give us a good idea of what it’s capable of — and with some less-impressive benchmarks scored by the Motorola Razr 2025, it’s possible the Samsung outpaces it. Samsung’s Flip 7 FE lacks the Snapdragon processor the Flip 6 had, however, so its performance might be closer to the Motorola’s. Here’s a proper rundown of the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE versus the Motorola Razr 2025.
Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE.
Joe Maldonado/CNET/PCMag
Design and display
You’d be excused for thinking these flip phones look roughly identical. Both devices fold in half, have an outer cover display with twin cameras that can be used while the phone is folded up or unfolded flat, and an inner display with a selfie camera that can only be used when the device is opened up (say, for a video chat). Both also have IP48 water and dust resistance, so they’re protected from being submerged in water for up to half an hour, and they have somewhat of a shield against dust, though they shouldn’t be around a lot of it, or around sand.
The starkest visual difference lies with the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE’s 3.4-inch AMOLED cover screen (720 by 748 pixels), which has an angled cutout around its dual rear cameras. The Motorola Razr 2025, on the other hand, has its 3.6-inch AMOLED cover screen display (1,056 by 1,066 pixels) wrap around the cameras, resulting in more screen real estate (though the lenses block some of that).
Bright sunlight may be tough to see on either phone’s cover display, as Motorola’s handset has a maximum brightness of 1,700 nits, while the Samsung foldable’s outer screen tops out at 1,600 nits. But the Razr 2025 is smoother, with a 90Hz refresh rate compared with the Z Flip 7 FE’s 60Hz.
Motorola Razr 2025.
Mike Sorrentino/CNET
Of course the biggest difference between the two cover screens is the software. The Razr supports nearly any Android app out of the box, allowing you to use the screen just as you would a regular Android phone. The Flip 7 FE’s screen defaults to widgets, though by way of some changes to settings and with an app called MultiStar, you can get apps to run on the display. The experience feels like an afterthought and is nowhere near as integrated as what you’ll find with Motorola’s cover display.
When unfolded, the handsets look roughly the same, though the Motorola Razr 2025’s 6.9-inch AMOLED display is slightly larger than the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE’s 6.7-inch AMOLED screen. Since they’re both 1,080 by 2,640 pixels, that means the Samsung foldable has slightly higher pixel density (around 426 pixels per inch versus around 413 ppi), a difference most people probably won’t notice. What they might see is the difference in maximum brightness, with the Razr 2025 taking the lead with 3,000 nits and the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE topping out at 2,600 nits. Both foldables’ inner displays have a maximum 120Hz refresh rate.
The last comparison the Motorola Razr 2025 handily wins is in colors, as it comes in black, white, pastel pink and light green. As opposed to glass on the backside, the Razr features a number of different materials, like vegan leather. The Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE comes only in black or white.
The Razr has a 50-megapixel wide camera and a 13-megapixel ultrawide camera embedded within the cover screen.
Mike Sorrentino/CNET
Cameras
Both clamshell foldables have similar camera arrays, at least on paper, with 50-megapixel main cameras paired with an ultrawide camera (12-megapixel for the Z Flip 7 FE, 13-megapixel for the Razr 2025). Likewise, the cameras on each phone can be used either normally when the phone is unfolded or for selfies using the cover screen when the phone is folded up (since their sensors have more megapixels than the inner screen’s selfie camera, they take sharper photos).
Each flip phone also has a front-facing camera on the inner display, with the Razr 2025 likely taking sharper photos with its 32-megapixel shooter compared with the Z Flip 7 FE’s 10-megapixel camera.
“Likely” is the operative word, as we haven’t had time to test the Z Flip 7 FE and thus take its cameras for a spin. Our nearest comparison is last year’s Z Flip 6, which took decent daytime and night shots that are “good enough to post to IG and TikTok,” as CNET Managing Editor Patrick Holland noted in his review. By comparison, the Razr 2025 takes respectable photos, though its AI processing results in unnaturally vibrant colors.
The Z Flip 7 FE can record video in 4K resolution and up to 60 frames per second. The Razr also can shoot 4K video, but at a slower 30fps.
Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE.
Joe Maldonado/CNET/PCMag
Specs and battery
Specs are another area where the phones noticeably differ, most prominently in their chipset, and subsequent performance reveals why the Samsung phone costs $200 more. The Z Flip 7 FE packs a Samsung-built Exynos 2400, the same chip used in the Galaxy S24 FE, another lower-priced version of a flagship phone. In Geekbench 6 tests, the S24 FE performed slightly worse than the Galaxy S24 (which ran a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) but better than the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL (powered by Google’s Tensor G4 processor).
The Motorola Razr 2025, on the other hand, is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 7400X chip, which performed noticeably worse than both the Galaxy S24 FE and the Google Pixel 9A in Geekbench 6 testing. Though CNET Senior Editor Mike Sorrentino found the Razr 2025 to be fine for everyday tasks like running apps and multitasking, he advised that the foldable wasn’t the best option for gaming at high graphics settings.
Both devices have 8GB of RAM, which is the seeming baseline for AI features on smartphones. The Z Flip 7 FE comes with either 128GB or 256GB of storage, while the Razr 2025 is offered only with 256GB. The Flip 7 FE with 256GB costs $960, meaning it’s actually $260 more than the Razr 2025.
Motorola’s foldable has a 4,500-mAh battery, which is larger than the 4,000-mAh capacity battery in Samsung’s clamshell. The Razr 2025’s 30-watt wired charging, which we found recharged the device by 68% in 30 minutes, is also slightly faster than the 25-watt charging in the Z Flip 7 FE (we’ll have to wait until we test the latter to see how much capacity it can recharge in the same period). Both phones support 15-watt wireless charging.
Text-based advice works best with Moto AI, including citing where the data comes from.
Mike Sorrentino/CNET
Software, support and AI
Both clamshell foldables are Android phones, but the Razr 2025 launched in May with Android 15, and the Z Flip 7 FE is scheduled to launch in several weeks with the new Android 16 (as well as Samsung’s OneUI 8 software skin). Google released its newest update back in June, which is months earlier than it usually launches the year’s new Android version.
Though Motorola’s phone will get upgraded, that’ll use up one of the phone’s three years of major software updates (and four years of security) — presumably, this means it’ll be supported through 2028. Samsung, on the other hand, has promised seven years of software updates, so its device is good through 2032 — a major advantage.
Otherwise, Samsung’s foldable packs the company’s bespoke Galaxy AI set of features, which include erasing unwanted photo-bombers from images and Google’s Circle to Search functionality. Whether you find these AI features useful or illusory is up to you. Motorola’s foldable has its Moto AI assistant to answer questions or organize data, though you can also summon Google’s Gemini assistant if you prefer.
Watch this: Ultra Thin: First Look at the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7
The band that sings about having too much time on its hands has been using it wisely in recent years. Circling From Above, out Friday (July 18), is Styx‘s 18th studio album and third in seven years.
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What’s driving the group’s output? “Well, we’re always writing,” singer-guitarist Tommy Shaw, Styx’s most prolific composer (alongside former member Dennis DeYoung), tells Billboard during the group’s current Brotherhood of Rock Tour with the Kevin Cronin Band and former Eagles guitarist Don Felder. There’s also a strong partnership with Will Evankovich, who produced 2017’s The Mission, 2021’s Crash of the Crown and this year’s Circling From Above (he became a full-fledged member of the band in 2021).
“Will and I live close to each other (in Nashville),” Shaw continues, “so we get together a lot and co-write things. But the other guys are great co-writers, too; we’ll get together at my house or at Will’s studio and we’ll start cobbling these pieces together…. Somehow, luckily, we’ve always been able to bring these songs and pieces together and tell a story, and that’s the best thing.”
The California-born Evankovich, who first worked with Shaw on his mid-90s Shaw Blades project with Night Ranger’s Jack Blades, adds that all of the Styx albums he’s been involved with “basically happen organically. There’s stuff Tommy and I were writing at first, and then involving Lawrence (Gowan, singer/keyboardist), they just took off on its own. It wasn’t premeditated. Tommy’s always writing; he’s a very creative guy, and I think finding a new writing partner galvanized his interest. But we do it because we want to do it, not because of how many records we’re gonna sell.”
While there were certainly thematic threads within The Mission and Crash of the Crown, both Shaw and Evankovich are quick to downplay any notions of Circling From Above as a concept album. “No, we’re not trying to make a concept album,” Shaw explains. “We’re just trying to stay on the same track. That’s what interests us, to make it interesting to the person listening to it and tying it all together like that. I think that’s fun.”
Circling From Above does start from a specific idea, however. Shaw — whose avid interest in birds helped put a European starling on the album cover — says the Pink Floyd-esque title track, which slides into the equally proggy first single “Build and Destroy,” was inspired by a continuing interest in outer space. “There’s an app I discovered a while back where you can look up and see all the space junk,” he says. “It blew my mind that all this stuff is floating around up there. Every piece of equipment that’s up there, that’s basically junk, is owned by a country and that country knows where it is and is responsible for it. It’s organized chaos, but it’s a junkyard up there. As we discussed it in the studio we were getting ready to write songs, and that influenced some of the lyrics and ideas kept popping off and we had those two songs that go together.”
Evankovich says the other 11 tracks on Circling From Above are not as interdependent. “Pretty much after that (the album) is its own animal,” he explains. “It becomes like a Beatles’ Rubber Soul, where every song’s a little different.” But, as producer, he sought to create a sonic unity in applying elements of what can be considered classic Styx, helping the band sound more like its rock radio-dominating ‘70s and ‘80s era than it had for a number of years.
“The recipe has always been big harmonies, these car horn-stacked vocals, and the great synthesizers and guitars, and we still adhere pretty much to that recipe,” Evankovich says of the band, which has placed 23 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 (including eight top 10s and one No. 1) over the course of its career. “None of it is premeditated; it just kind of falls into the Styx universe by virtue of the fact you have James Young and Chuck Panozzo (co-founders) and Tommy Shaw in addition to the new guard, which is Gowan, Todd Sucherman (drums) Terry (Gowan, bass) and myself.
“When they took that hiatus from Cyclorama, the record industry was in a state of flux and things were a little confusing about selling new music, especially if you’re a vintage band. So these (recent albums) have kind of merged the two; we’re at an age now where the attention span is pretty quick, so we try to compact all the greatness that we can into three- or four-minute songs rather than do those longer, stretched-out songs — which I love, by the way. But this is the mantra now.”
Shaw and Evankovich say Circling From Above is definitely a full-band project — even more than Crash of the Crown, which was conceived and finished during Covid. “When JY plays, you know who it is,” Shaw notes. “Will knows JY (James Young) very well and he knows JY’s style of playing and the types of things that we depend on JY to put into a song, because they’re signature things.” Young makes his mark in particular on the fluid solo for the bouncy, theatrical “King of Love.”
“What’s great is we’re always thinking of each other,” Evankovich says. “We have in our minds that, ‘This is gonna be a great JY guitar solo, this is definitely his vibe,’ or ‘This is a great Tommy spot.’ The song will tell you who we should we feature, and we all want to lift each other up.” Terry Gowan, who had been playing with his brother before being tapped to replace Ricky Phillips after his departure in 2024, added upright bass to the mix on “Blue Eyed Raven” (with Shaw on mandolin) while Panozzo played on the short interlude track “Ease Your Mind.”
With Styx playing 1977’s triple-platinum The Grand Illusion in its entirety this summer, the group has only been able to work “Build and Destroy” into its live set to date. But it’s looking forward to adding more of the Circling From Above songs into dates later this year, including the Rockin’ in Paradise Cruise during October. “We’ll definitely get to that as soon as August is over,” Evankovich says. “People come to see the great catalog of music the band has, but I think by September we’ll probably work a few new ones in there, probably two or three once we’ve cycled the Grand Illusion album.”
While Circling From Above is just out, the idea of another album is not far from the Styx members’ minds. “It’ll just take an amassing of songs, like it did for The Mission and for Crash of the Crown and for this album,” Evankovich says. “Once there’s three or four and we’ve got a thread going, then we start. It takes a few years because we’re playing 100 shows a year and away from home about 170 days out of the year, so finding the time is always challenging. But it always seems to happen, and I’m confident it probably will again.”
That maturity has also translated into leadership, both through example and by speaking up.
“She survived the gauntlet,” Sacramone Quinn said. “Now, it’s about doing it another time around and building herself up to be the leader… she works hard, leads by example, and she’s a good vocal leader, too.”
Roberson is working through her own changes.
After being an alternate to the US team in Paris, the 19-year-old took a star turn in her freshman campaign at the University of Arkansas where she qualified for the NCAA Championships as an individual.
Her experience as part of last year’s Olympic team, coupled with her 2023 World Championships appearance, means she’s gone from newcomer to one of the most seasoned names in the field in less than two years.
“I feel really old,” Roberson joked. “I never thought I’d feel old, but it’s because I was teammates with Simone [Biles] and Jordan [Chiles]. They were the big kids, and I was just trying to make it. Now, it’s like, I feel like everybody’s looking at me and waiting on me.”
She’s embracing that position.
“Being a role model is so important to me,” she said. “[The Olympic veterans] passed that torch to me… so it’s really important for me to pass the torch to the younger kids and make sure they feel like I know who they are and care about them – because I do.”
Roberson has been working her way back into elite shape since the NCAA season ended in mid-April. As she got back into two-a-day workouts, the Arkansas Razorback said she was sore for three weeks straight.
Ahead of Classic, she says she feels ready to do the routines she’ll use Saturday evening but is eyeing upgrades – a Cheng vault and harder floor exercise tumbling – for August’s U.S. Championships. Roberson says she’s “80-85%” back to where she hopes to be by October’s World Championships.
Rivera, for her part, is focused only on being normal.
“I just come here to do gymnastics,” she said. “Everything else will follow.”
Ahead of an upcoming technical conference, researchers from Meat’s Reality Labs Research group published details on their work toward creating ultra-wide field-of-view VR & MR headsets that use novel optics to maintain a compact goggles-style form-factor.
Published in advance of the ACM SIGGRAPH 2025 Emerging Technologies conference, the research article details two headsets, each achieving a horizontal field-of-view of 180 degrees (which is a huge jump over Meta’s existing headsets, like Quest 3, which is around 100 degrees).
The first headset is a pure VR headset which the researchers say uses “high-curvature reflective polarizers” to achieve the wide field of view in a compact form-factor.
Image courtesy Reality Labs Research
The other is an MR headset, which uses the same underlying optics and head-mount but also incorporates four passthrough cameras to provide an ultra-wide passthrough field-of-view to match the headset’s field-of-view. The cameras total 80MP of resolution at 60 FPS.
Image courtesy Reality Labs Research
The researchers compared the field-of-view of their experimental headsets to that of the current Quest 3. In the case of the MR headset, you can clearly see the advantages of the wider field-of-view: the user can easily see someone who is in a chair right next to them, and also has peripheral awareness of a snack in their lap.
Image courtesy Reality Labs ResearchImage courtesy Reality Labs Research
Both experimental headsets appear to use something similar to the outside-in ‘Constellation’ tracking system that Meta used on its first consumer headset, the Oculus Rift CV1. We’ve seen Constellation pop up on a number of Reality Labs Research headsets over the years, likely because it’s easier to use for rapid iteration compared to inside-out tracking systems.
The researchers point out that similarly wide field-of-view headsets already exist the consumer market (for instance, those from Pimax), but the field-of-view often comes at the cost of significant bulk.
A Pimax headset, known for its wide field-of-view. | Photo by Road to VR
The Reality Labs researchers claim that these experimental headsets have a “form-factor comparable to current consumer devices.”
“Together, our prototype headsets establish a new state-of-the-art in immersive virtual and mixed reality experiences, pointing to the user benefits of wider FOVs for entertainment and telepresence applications,” the researchers claim.
For those hoping these experimental headsets point to a future Quest headset with an ultra-wide field-of-view… it’s worth noting that Meta does lots of R&D and has shown off many research prototypes over the years featuring technologies that have yet to make it to market.
For instance, back in 2018, Meta (at the time still called Facebook) showed a research prototype headset with varifocal displays. Nearly 7 years later, the company still hasn’t shipped a headset with varifocal technology.
As the company itself will tell you, it all comes down to tradeoffs; Meta CTO Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth explained as recently as late 2024 why he thinks pursuing a wider field-of-view in consumer VR headsets brings too many downsides in terms of price, weight, battery life, etc. But there’s always the chance that this latest research causes him to change his mind.
Google’s next Pixel launch event, called Made By Google, will take place on Wednesday, Aug. 20. During the event, we expect to see the debut of the Google Pixel Watch 4 alongside the new Pixel 10 series of smartphones. Pre-orders are said to begin on the day of the launch, with wider availability starting Aug. 28.
As per usual, we’ve been busy collecting all the latest Pixel 10 leaks and rumors, but the Pixel Watch 4 has also been leaking lately. So, here’s everything we know so far (based on rumors, speculation, and alleged leaks) about Google’s upcoming smartwatch and fitness tracker.
It may have a dual-chip setup and a much brighter screen
While the main processor is expected to be the same, the whole setup is getting an upgrade. The watch will reportedly pair the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 chip with a new M55 co-processor. The watch may also feature a much brighter AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 3,000 nits.
You’ll still have two sizes to choose from
The Pixel Watch 4 is expected to come in two sizes that mirror the Pixel Watch 3 lineup, though leaks suggest the new models will have a thicker watch module and slightly slimmer bezels. The options will reportedly be a 41mm model (codenamed “Meridian”) and a 45mm model (codenamed “Canari”). Both sizes are expected to be available in LTE and Wi-Fi-only configurations.
Expect a full rainbow of color and band options
A new leak (courtesy of Arsène Lupin) has revealed the full lineup of rumored colors for the watch itself, which are said to be available for both Wi-Fi and LTE models:
Mashable Light Speed
Black/Obsidian
Gold/Lemon
Moonstone
Silver/Iris
Silver/Porcelain
A wide range of band materials and colors are also said to be coming, including a two-tone leather band in jade, a metal mesh band in matte black and polished silver, and many others in active, woven, and new gradient stretch styles.
If you’re curious what the new Pixel 4 might look like, 91Mobiles shared alleged leaked renders back in April. The watch has the signature circular design, which will be perfectly suited to the new aesthetic of Android 16. Earlier this year, Google showed off new animations and features available with Watch OS 6, so we have some idea what the Pixel Watch 4 experience will be like.
Credit: Google
The battery is getting a (small) boost
Android Authority suggests both models will get a battery boost. The 41mm model will reportedly feature a 327 mAh battery (a 7 percent increase over its predecessor’s 300 mAh battery), while the 45mm model may see a 9 percent boost to 459 mAh. Faster charging is also expected, potentially through a new wireless charging mechanism that works without magnetic pogo pins, also per Android Authority.
It’s also rumored to get new health and safety features
Some reports suggest Google will expand health-tracking capabilities to include a revamped blood oxygen (SpO2) tracking feature that’ll run “continuously,” unlike the current overnight-only version. This would allow the watch to provide alerts when oxygen levels are too low.
The alleged “Notification Cooldown” feature may also make its way to the Watch 4, which limits the number of alerts you receive in a given time period. However, this feature won’t be exclusive to the Watch 4, as it’ll reportedly be available on the Wear OS 6 software.
There’s also a rumored “Emergency Satellite Communications” functionality, but details are scarce.
