Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 vs. OnePlus Watch 3: Worth the wait?

While OnePlus hasn’t released nearly as many Wear OS smartwatches as Samsung, its latest OnePlus Watch 3 is nothing to scoff at. The wearable takes the crown for the longest-lasting Wear OS watch with true multi-day battery life, and it isn’t crazy expensive. Will the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 offer a better feature set and value proposition?

If you asked Samsung that, the company would probably say yes. Samsung is already teasing new improvements set to arrive with the Galaxy Watch 8, including a major redesign, Gemini control, and new health and fitness features. The smartwatch is still unannounced, but official teasers paired with unofficial leaks give us a pretty good idea of what the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 will bring this summer.

Let’s speculate on how the Galaxy Watch 8 will compare to the OnePlus Watch 3, and help you figure out whether Samsung’s watch is worth waiting for.

For more news and information on Samsung’s upcoming smartwatch, check out our Ultimate Guide.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 vs. OnePlus Watch 3: Design and display

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Samsung is rumored to make the Galaxy Watch 8’s design more aggressive and bulky, more closely matching the look of the Galaxy Watch Ultra. That’s good news for the OnePlus Watch 3, as it also features a large and noisy design. Samsung will likely have the advantage of offering multiple sizes, so people with smaller wrists will actually want to wear the Galaxy Watch 8 compared to the OnePlus Watch 3. But still, these two watches prove loud design is in.

The Galaxy Watch 8 will feature an “innovative design,” according to Daniel Araujo, Samsung’s corporate VP of the MX Division. In an earnings call, Araujo teased the upcoming smartwatch, saying Samsung will “launch a new Galaxy Watch with an innovative design and enhanced health-related features.”

The long-term plan is to make Samsung wearables more successful “with a strengthened premium experience while expanding our lineup across all price segments.”

Leaks and rumors fill the gaps here, as the graphics below reveal that a squircle housing with a circular screen within will make up the Galaxy Watch 8’s design language. The screen size will likely be unchanged, but the case size of the Galaxy Watch 8 could increase to accommodate the design tweaks. Samsung will almost certainly still offer multiple sizes, possibly 40mm and 44mm options, to make the Galaxy Watch 8 work for everyone.

The OnePlus Watch 3 is less versatile, no matter how good its specs are on paper. The giant smartwatch measures 46.6 x 47.6 x 11.75mm, and weighs 81 grams with the included strap. For perspective, the Galaxy Watch 7’s 44mm variant only weighs 33.8 grams with the strap.

You have to like big watches to love the OnePlus Watch 3, but if you do, the smartwatch can be a true Galaxy Watch Ultra or Apple Watch Ultra competitor on a budget.

The OnePlus Watch 3 features a 1.5-inch (466×466) LTPO AMOLED display, capable of reaching a peak brightness of 2,200 nits. The screen is bright and beautiful, and OnePlus’ colorful Wear OS skin helps the entire operating system pop.

By comparison, the Galaxy Watch 8 is expected to be offered in either 40mm (1.3-inch, 432×432) or 44mm (1.5-inch, 480×480) Super AMOLED displays. This would match the size and resolution of the past few generations of Galaxy Watch. While we don’t have specifics yet, the design choice between the OnePlus Watch 3 and Galaxy Watch 8 will come down to whether you want a big or small watch.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 vs. OnePlus Watch 3: Hardware and specs

Samsung will have the clear advantage when it comes to health sensors on the Galaxy Watch 8. It’ll likely use the new optical bio-signal sensor (Samsung BioActive) introduced with the Galaxy Watch 7. Although the hardware isn’t likely to be changed — unless we get a surprise feature like blood-glucose monitoring — Samsung could expand the uses for its BioActive sensor.

This could be the new fitness and health features Samsung executives alluded to in their recent earnings call. Thus, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 may simply have more sensors and data points available than the OnePlus Watch 3. For example, it could have a Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) sensor, which the OnePlus Watch 3 doesn’t.

On the other hand, OnePlus will have a clear battery life advantage with the OnePlus Watch 3. It uses a massive 631mAh battery and two operating systems — Wear OS 5 and RTOS — to minimize power draw for basic functions. That’s how you can get multi-day battery life on the OnePlus Watch 3 and the ability to get full-day battery life with a 10-minute charge.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 is expected to keep the 40-hour battery life estimate we’ve seen on prior models, so it won’t compete with the OnePlus Watch 3 any more than current watches can. A leak confirmed the Galaxy Watch 8’s battery specifications in regulatory filings, and they’re basically unchanged compared to the current Galaxy Watch 7.

For specifics, the 44mm version is expected to slightly grow to a 435mAh capacity this year, while the 40mm model’s capacity is unchanged at 300mAh.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 vs. OnePlus Watch 3: Software

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 will likely launch with a software advantage, at least for a short time. It’s expected to launch with Wear OS 6, the upcoming version of Wear OS with Gemini integration and efficiency improvements. Some smartwatch models will get a 10% bump in battery life simply by upgrading to Wear OS 6, according to Google. The Galaxy Watch 8 could conceivably offer longer battery life without a hardware upgrade as a result.

Plus, Samsung is bringing Gemini integration to the Galaxy Watch 8. Gemini support will arrive on Galaxy Watch “in the coming months,” per the company, and that seems to line up with the Galaxy Watch 8’s expected launch window.

The OnePlus Watch 3 runs Wear OS 5, but could get all these upgrades with a later upgrade to Wear OS 6. Its use of Wear OS 5 and RTOS guarantees that the Watch 3 will have better battery life than the Galaxy Watch 8, regardless of Wear OS 6 improvements. The Watch 3 could get better with future upgrades, too.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 vs. OnePlus Watch 3: Worth waiting for?

We’re likely a little over a month away from learning more about the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, if recent trends hold. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 launched on July 10, 2024, and the Galaxy Watch 6 debuted on July 26, 2023. So, is it worth waiting for the Galaxy Watch 8, or should you go out and buy the OnePlus Watch 3 now?

If you like the design of the OnePlus Watch 3 and value battery life above all else, the decision is pretty clear. At $350, the smartwatch is an impeccable value, and no Wear OS device can compete with OnePlus’ battery life achievements. It might not be an industry-leader in every single category, but it gets the job done for most users.

Meanwhile, those who need a smaller smartwatch will have no choice but to wait for the Galaxy Watch 8 or look at something such as a Google Pixel Watch 3 instead.