Google Pixel Watch

Google’s premiere smartwatch is a rock-solid wearable that complements its Pixel phones well. A vibrant display and attractive design make the Pixel Watch easy to like looking down at, and the battery life lives up to the 24-hour claims, but a limited selection of apps and less-than-stellar integration with Google’s own hardware ecosystem means that it may not be quite time to leave your phone at home.

Google’s Pixel Watch is an excellent Wear OS smartwatch that integrates tightly into Google’s ecosystem but suffers a bit from sub-par battery life. However, the Pixel Watch finally gives us a solid Apple Watch alternative for Android users.

The Google Pixel watch prioritises striking looks over stamina.

With a unique design and familiar Wear OS and Fitbit features, Google's Pixel Watch is one of the best Android-compatible smartwatches you can buy.

I like the Pixel Watch, but I’m not in love with it. I’m tempted by its lustrous appearance, its bodacious curves and its general shininess. It’s a perfectly capable smartwatch that does the things modern smartwatches do, and it does many of them well. But short battery life and odd Fitbit-related choices take the Pixel Watch from reliable companion to problematic partner. At $350, the Pixel Watch is slightly cheaper than the Apple Watch Series 8, but much pricier than the $280 Galaxy Watch 5.

As a smartwatch, the Pixel Watch experience is generally very good. You get pretty much everything you need from a wrist-worn gadget. There's contactless payments, great fitness tracking, interaction with notifications/messages, downloadable third party apps and - crucially - watch faces you can customize.

For a first-gen watch to be a little rough around its proverbial edges is normal. It's more disappointing that after years of development the Pixel Watch doesn't make a splash on the smartwatch scene, rather more of a skip, like a pebble on water. The user experience manages to just meet expectations, though it has sharp enough aesthetics to leave an impression.

I’m hesitant to say this is the best Wear OS smartwatch just yet. Samsung’s watches, even though they exclude non-Samsung phone owners, deliver a more polished overall experience. And, we’ve yet to see what Fossil’s next-gen smartwatches powered by the more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Plus platform will look like.