There’s no smartwatch as popular as the Apple Watch, and Apple keeps selling millions of units every quarter. Apple’s smartwatch is quite easy to tell apart from its main competitors, as its design is instantly recognizable. But come next week, Samsung will launch a Galaxy Watch 2 that looks very familiar.
“The best I can do is pass along details from trusted sources. Nothing I say should ever be taken as gospel until the press release is out,” prominent leaker Evan Blass commented on Twitter about a recent Galaxy Note 10 specs leak he posted. “Unless there are pictures,” he followed, sharing the image above.
This was a week ago, and, at the time, we didn’t know what to make of it. Blass didn’t explain what the smartwatch was, and it looked just like a round version of the Apple Watch rather than a Galaxy Watch. Just check out the colors, the metal and glass blend, the physical buttons, and, most importantly, the watchfaces. It all screams Apple Watch, and some people thought it was a press render of the Apple Watch Series 5.
I'm guessing these are the new 'Apple Watch Series 5'?!?!
— MrcleMakn (@MrcleMakn) July 23, 2019
It’s definitely an Apple Watch.
— Haralampi Stoyanov (@HaralampiSt) July 25, 2019
Just mix and match elements from the following official Apple Watch faces and you might end up with watchfaces similar to the ones in the leaked Samsung image:
The device Blass leaked could not be an Apple Watch, however, because, as other users observed, the image delivered two important clues. First of all, the watch shows the time as 10:08, which is one second earlier than Apple’s usual 10:09 time for the Watch. Moreover, the date was August 5th, and Apple doesn’t have any Watch events planned for August.
At the time, we thought the Galaxy Watch 2 would be introduced during the August 7th Galaxy Note 10 event, which made the press render even more puzzling. A few days later, leaked FCC documentation (via Droid-Life) revealed actual images of the Galaxy Watch 2. As it turns out, the circular watch design looked exactly like the device in Blass’s press render. However, the similarities with the Apple Watch were no longer obvious. After all, while it may be easy to replicate the Watch design and its watchfaces, it’s harder to copy the watchOS software. Not that Samsung would want to do that again, would they?
I’ll also point out that we saw several Note 10 preorder leaks that included Galaxy Watch 2 renders, but you can barely make out the device in these pics:
This brings us to Samsung’s newest teaser– a video in which it briefly shows two of its upcoming products: the Galaxy Tab S6 that has been featured in numerous leaks so far and the Galaxy Watch 2:
Not only does the teaser show the Galaxy Watch 2’s design lines, but it also offers an announcement date: August 5th. And finally, this is what Samsung’s current Galaxy Watch looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-H5Em85SpA
In other words, it sure looks like the Galaxy Watch 2 might have a design that could convince some people that they’re looking at an Apple Watch. I wouldn’t call it a blatant ripoff, because it’s not identical, but this Galaxy Watch 2 design looks like it drew its inspiration from Apple’s best-selling wearable.
