Samsung's Tizen smartwatches are stiff competition for Wear OS on the Android side of wearables, and now it looks like the latest model is nearly ready to arrive. A couple weeks back we saw a presumptive Galaxy Watch 3 strut its stuff at the FCC, and more recently rumors talked about a possible public unveiling sometime in July, but we still didn't have a ton to go on. Now our expectations are starting to really take shape, as possible specs for the upcoming Galaxy Watch 3 have been released, and they look like solid upgrades over the previous generation.

According to this source, the Galaxy Watch 3 series will be offered in two size options: a 41mm band with a 1.2-inch display and a 45mm band with a 1.4-inch display. Those displays are a bit bigger than the original Galaxy Watch, but the overall watch dimensions will supposedly come in smaller, so it's safe to say the bezels won't be quite so thick this year. Corning’s Gorilla Glass DX would be used for the crystal.

Both variants are tipped to include 8GB of internal storage and 1GB of RAM, as well as support for LTE and GPS. The trademark Samsung rotating bezel was left out of the Galaxy Watch Active2 last year, but thankfully, it appears to be back on the Watch 3. The watches would come in stainless steel and titanium variants, have the typical IP68 water resistance, and run Tizen OS 5.5 out of the box.

Tizen OS has come a long way since its launch.

When it comes to health features, the Galaxy Watch 3 is reportedly going to be equipped with a heart rate monitor with 8 pulse-reading photodiodes and support for blood pressure monitoring, plus an electrocardiogram sensor. It's worth noting that the Galaxy Watch Active2 had an ECG sensor worldwide, but it was only enabled in Korea, so hopefully that can be cleared for use in other countries when the watch launches.

Curiously, the batteries on this new series are expected to be a bit smaller than those on the original Galaxy Watch, with the 41mm settling for a 247 mAh cell and the 45mm variant rocking a 340 mAh battery. While it may be a bit counterintuitive to reduce the battery capacity on new models, these are supposedly the same batteries found in last year's Active2 watches, which Corbin got over two days of battery life from in his review.

The 45mm rear cover was revealed earlier this year in an FCC filing.

The Galaxy Watch 3 may make its debut next month before the launch of the Fold 2, though Samsung has yet to share any official dates. Based on these specs, it should be a worthy successor that a lot of users will probably choose over a smartwatch running Wear OS. If you're conflicted about what smartwatch is right for you, check out our comparison while you wait for the Galaxy Watch 3 to be officially announced.

UPDATE: 2020/06/17 10:23am PDT BY STEPHEN SCHENCK

Photos

OK, we've heard plenty of specs and features attached to the Galaxy Watch 3 — so what's it going to look like? While there have been some descriptions, and we had those technical drawings from the FCC docs, an actual photograph of the smartwatch remained elusive.

Galaxy Watch 3 models SM-840 (left), SM-850 (right)

These new pics surfaced at South Korea's National Radio Research Agency. We see two distinct bezel styles, with prominent knurling on the 840, but nothing that absolutely confirms rotation is back.

Samsung's still mum on all of this, but if we really are looking forward to an announcement next month, it wouldn't be surprising to start seeing some official teasers soon.

UPDATE: 2020/06/23 6:27am PDT BY SCOTT SCRIVENS

More leaked images appear

We still don't have a very clear look at Samsung's next smartwatch, but we do have more low-quality images to look at courtesy of TechTalkTV on Twitter. This time we can see the circular app launcher interface which may well be controlled by a rotating bezel once again. An official unveiling shouldn't be far away at this point.

UPDATE: 2020/06/24 9:09am PDT BY RYNE HAGER

Better images, plus app screenshots

An anonymous source has supplied us with better-quality versions of the images included in the previous leak, plus some screenshots of a Galaxy Watch 3 paired with Samsung's Galaxy Wearable app:

Screenshots of a paired Galaxy Watch 3 in the Galaxy Wearable app.

Surprisingly, the app screenshots don't actually provide that much more information. We can get a ballpark estimate of battery life based on the battery level and remaining time prediction — a bit of math indicates around 30 hours of total life — but there's no telling how it may have been used here.

Still, with photos and screenshots trickling out like this, Samsung's official announcement can't be too far off.

UPDATE: 2020/06/25 8:22am PDT BY CALEB POTTS

New product pictures

Over on the Evleaks Patreon, new images have been posted showing off two different views of the 45mm version of the upcoming watch.

Source: SamMobile