The Google Pixel Watch 4 is an excellent Android-only smartwatch, though improvements over prior generations aren’t massive.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Excellent battery life | Requires an entirely new charger |
| Really nice curved display | Can’t get all colour choices in both sizes |
| Smarter onboard Fitbit coaching | Some coaching features hide behind a subscription paywall |
Score: 4/5
 |
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In this review
Pixel Watch 4 Specifications
Pixel Watch 4 Design
Pixel Watch 4 Performance
Pixel Watch 4 Battery
Pixel Watch 4 Verdict
Ethical disclaimer: The Google Pixel Watch 4 used in this review was supplied to me by Google Australia, and as far as I know, they’re not asking for it back.
Corruption most foul?
Nope.
Whether or not a product stays or goes (and most do go) makes no difference to how I handle my reviews, and that’s very deliberate. Disclosure is one of those parts of a review that are often either wholly overlooked or buried down deep to avoid any kind of visible conflict of interest, perceived or otherwise.
I’d much rather be upfront about such matters, definitely the style I also use for reviews as well, but to be clear, Google’s going to be able to see this review at exactly the same time you are. Maybe a little quicker if their AI robots scour the page a bit faster, but you get the point, and I’m starting to digress… again.
For more on ART’s Ethics position, see here.
Design
Year on year, Google’s made subtle refinements to its particular take on Android wearables. Last year saw the debut of the larger 45mm size for the Pixel Watch 3, and that’s a choice you’ve still got with the Pixel Watch 4 generation… with a couple of tradeoffs for either the 41mm or 45mm sizes.
Also read:
Google Pixel Watch 3 review
Both watches are rated by Google at 320ppi, but what that means technically is that the smaller 41mm display will have a slightly sharper screen, because it’s packing the same number of pixels into a tinier screen. I’ve only had a few minutes at an earlier briefing to look over the Pixel Watch 4 41mm variant – it’s the 45mm model Google sent my way – and the differences there could well be minor for most apps.
The bigger catch here is that while Google produces the Pixel Watch 4 in a number of colour choices, they’re not equally available across both watch sizes. The 41mm can be yours in polished silver aluminium, champagne gold or matte black, while the 45mm version comes in Satin Moonstone Aluminium, Polished Silver Aluminium or Matte Black finishes only. For what it’s worth, Google sent me the 45mm Matte Black finish model, which by default comes with an Obsidian (AKA “also black, but with a marketing name”) band.
Google has made some small but subtle changes to the actual display on the Pixel Watch 4, with a reduction in bezels giving more overall screen size to each watch, a brighter display at up to 3,000 nits as well as a fully rounded glass top to the watch itself.
The effect is subtle, and I suspect something that’ll be a little divisive. I rather like the elegance of this approach, because it gives the display an almost liquid feel, but I could see the point of view that it’s also one that can add some unusual reflections on the glass at some angles. Those didn’t bother me per se, but I could see how they might.
In terms of durability, the Pixel Watch 4 features Corning Gorilla Glass 4 and is rated at IP68 for up to 50m of immersion, though I wouldn’t push that too far if I were you.
The Pixel Watch 4 retains Google’s custom connector for watch bands, and older bands should, I believe, fit the Pixel Watch 4 as long as you match the 41mm and 45mm sizes; they’re not interchangeable and I remain somewhat annoyed by Google’s band fitting mechanism. It’s not impossible to use, but it is rather fiddly if you want to change bands in a hurry.
Performance
The Pixel Watch 4 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 processor with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage; if that was a phone it’d be beyond mediocre by 2025 standards, but then smartwatches don’t require the same kinds of processing grunt or storage capabilities as the smartphones they’re paired with.
The Pixel Watch 4 will work with any Android phone running Android 11 or better, and not surprisingly, you’ll also need a Google Account to go along with it.
I’ve long held the view that smartwatches can be very useful, but the features they’re best for are problems that have largely been solved by now; they’re generally good for fitness tracking, superb for notification purposes – though tweaking what you want to be notified by on your phone is always a smart idea – and passable if you have to take calls on them, though please don’t do so on public transport near me.
All of these features are things that the Pixel Watch 4 can do with ease… so what’s new?
Google’s all-in on AI these days – you can check my review of the Pixel 10 Pro XL for more on that – and for the Pixel Watch 4 that’s most evident in the ability to wake Google’s Gemini Assistant simply by raising your wrist without requiring the typical “Hey Google” command word.
Also read:
Google Pixel 10 Pro XL Review
I am not a big fan of most AI approaches – I genuinely do think that there’s some huge issues with the recycling and regurgitating of awful content synthesised from original works often without consent – but I do what I must, so I reluctantly enabled the raise gesture on the Pixel Watch 4.
It certainly does work, though it’s not doing any processing on the watch itself in terms of how it handles your requests. I can see the utility here especially for some specific disabilities, but having my watch capable of listening just because I’m looking at my watch face annoys me at a privacy level, so I can’t say I’ve used it much.
I win at… sleeping… maybe.
The Pixel Watch 4 will handle sleep tracking, and over a couple of weeks of testing that out – and again, wearing a watch to bed isn’t amongst my favourite things to do – I can report that it works about as well as any other wrist-based tracker I’ve tested. It can be useful and informative to get a broad picture of my sleeping habits (AKA why I drink so much coffee to keep going) but it’s not 100% accurate all of the time.
More than once I’ve woken up and laid in bed for a while, and the Pixel Watch 4 has counted that as light sleep time, even though I was on my phone at the time! Unless I’m capable of sleep doomscrolling – and I’m pretty certain I’m not – that can’t be right.
Google’s owned Fitbit for a while now, and I could describe the Pixel Watch 4 as a souped up Fitbit… and I’d be right to do so.
Fitness and sleep tracking are both handled by the Fitbit app, and Google does include, as it’s done in prior years, a six-month Fitbit Premium membership with the Pixel Watch 4. That gets you access to AI-guided run coaching and a range of premium features alongside the regular tracking that you can do without spending extra. The trap here as always is that if you get very used to the premium features, you’re more likely to be trained to pay for them once the six months is up.
In terms of run tracking, the Pixel Watch 4’s dual GPS antennas did a good job of tracking my regular street runs, my usual Parkrun location and the location of a Parkrun that I did on the way back from Melbourne after PAX 2025.
I’ll pause here for a quick shoutout to the Euroa Parkrun, because it’s very pretty and exceptionally welcoming… but I digress.
The one area where the Pixel Watch 4’s fitness tracking did falter a little was on treadmill runs, where it consistently tracked much lower than the actual treadmill I was on. Given the treadmill is measuring the rotation of its tread, I’m more inclined to trust its measurements, but this is a very common issue with smartwatches, no doubt because the motion you make on a treadmill can only ever really lead to an estimation of movement, not a fully GPS-tracked one with proper accuracy.
Battery
I was very impressed with the improved battery life on the Pixel Watch 3 last year, but I did have to chalk some of that up simply from jumping from the 41mm-only Pixel Watch 2 the year before. For the 45mm Pixel Watch 4, Google has increased battery size by 35mAh up to 355mAh. That might not sound like much, but it absolutely did make a difference in ongoing battery life.
Testing out the Pixel Watch 3 last year I could comfortably make a day, maybe a day and half before its battery conked out. The Pixel Watch 4, or at least the 45mm variant I’ve been testing out can comfortably make that day and a half and even two days when I’m not getting quite so many notifications.
Google does provide some battery saving features such as whether or not you want the always-on display or the tilt-to-wake gesture active if you want even more battery life; I’m convinced for some users this would make it a two-day smartwatch most of the time.
The Pixel Watch 4 can also charge very quickly, but there’s a slight catch here. Prior Pixel Watch models used custom pogo pin chargers, which always left me wanting for wireless Qi charging, because I’m not a fan of custom chargers for anything. The Pixel 10 lineup are the first Google phones to feature Qi2, so the Pixel Watch 4 does as well, right?
Wrong.
Google has moved away from the Pogo pins approach, but instead it’s opted for side mounted contact points on the left hand side of the watch face that connect up to a mostly vertical charger puck that’s supplied in the box.
This does let you set the watch in an attractive reclining style when powering it up, but I still would have preferred Qi charging, because then it would be easy to replace if the custom charger is lost or broken.
It is at least quick; my typical routine has been to to pop it on the charger when I’m having a shower, and it hasn’t missed a beat over a fortnight’s testing period.
Google Pixel Watch 4: Alex’s Verdict
Google’s Pixel line are meant to be premium devices, and if you take the basic Fitbits as being the everyday models, it’s pretty easy to see where that premium designation fits the Pixel Watch 4.
It’s got a genuinely nice design style, the battery life is good and everyday functions work quite well, though that’s been true for most smartwatches for some time.
I’m still left waiting for that all-new “killer feature” to come to smartwatches that makes a particular model truly stand out, and the Pixel Watch 4 doesn’t really change that at all. That doesn’t make it a great upgrade prospect from earlier Pixel Watches unless you’re really struggling with battery life, but in the premium space, this is a strong competitor.
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Google Pixel Watch 4: Pricing and availability
The Google Pixel Watch 4 retails in Australia with pricing starting at $579; the 45mm LTE model as tested retails at $849.
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