Samsung unveiled an entirely new fitness-centric smartwatch alongside the Galaxy S10 handset lineup roughly a year ago, followed by a more serious Apple Watch contender just a couple of days before making the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ phones official. But if you’re expecting something similar to happen ahead of the Galaxy S20 series announcement event next week, you’re likely to end up very disappointed on February 11.
It could be that Samsung somehow kept this product under wraps all this time while leaking S20 series information like a broken faucet, but it’s much more likely that the company simply didn’t start developing the
Galaxy Watch Active 2 sequel until very recently. In fact, that’s precisely what
SamMobile is claiming in a new report that also discloses another key feature of the unannounced smartwatch.
More storage space than all previous Samsung smartwatches
While the budget-friendly Galaxy Watch Active was obviously never intended as a direct sequel to the premium
Galaxy Watch, cutting several corners and downgrading a number of specifications to keep the price point as reasonable as possible, the two devices did have a few things in common as well.
One of them was a 4GB internal storage space count that the
Galaxy Watch Active 2 also retained in both Bluetooth-only and LTE-enabled variants. According to SamMobile’s usually rock-solid inside sources, the time will soon come for Samsung’s smartwatches to make the jump to 8 gigs of local digital hoarding room for apps and music.
In total, the company might be planning to release its next Tizen-powered wearable in four derivations, all of which are expected to come with 8GB storage. We’re talking SM-R840, R845, R850, and R855 model numbers designating two (unknown) sizes, each supporting optional cellular connectivity in addition to a base variant offering just Bluetooth and standalone GPS functionality.
As Samsung has already released
the world’s first 5G-capable tablet, there’s definitely a chance the chaebol will eventually claim similar bragging rights in the smartwatch market. But it’s probably too soon for that, so we should expect the SM-R845 and SM-R855 to “only” support 4G LTE technology for making and receiving voice calls on their own.
The Apple Watch Series 5 will still reign supreme
Apple Watch Series 5 (left), Galaxy Watch Active 2 (right)
Of course, the greatest thing about the
Apple Watch family is the watchOS app support, which Samsung’s Tizen and Google’s Wear OS platforms may not be able to catch up to anytime soon. Speaking of Wear OS, we should probably mention the
Fossil Gen 5 lineup,
Skagen Falster 3, and other recently released members of the family also come with the 8 gigs of storage space expected to be offered by Samsung’s next smartwatch.
By the way, we still have no idea if this will be called the Galaxy Watch 2 or Galaxy Watch Active 3 (or perhaps something else entirely), and no other specs and features are known or at least rumored right now. Only the 330mAh battery size of the SM-R840 model, which is larger than the 247mAh ticker of the 40mm Galaxy Watch Active 2 but slightly smaller than the 340mAh cell inside the 44mm variant.
