The OnePlus Watch 4 has been announced with an unusual software surprise, but if you’re hoping for big changes, you might be disappointed

• OnePlus has announced the Watch 4 wearable
• It features a new version of Wear OS ahead of OnePlus’s older devices
• But some users are disappointed with the lack of sizeable upgrades

If you’re in the market for a new wearable, you might want to check out what OnePlus has added to its lineup. The company has just announced the OnePlus Watch 4 and revealed the device’s full list of features and specifications, and there’s an interesting software surprise nestled in the listing.

Head over to the OnePlus website, and you’ll find all the details for the new smartwatch. It’s got a 466×466 pixel LTPO OLED display with a sapphire crystal face delivering 600 nits of brightness and 3,000 nits of peak brightness in sports mode, 2GB of memory, and 32GB of storage. The 646mAh battery can power the device for three days of heavy usage and up to 16 days in power saver mode. The weight has been cut compared to the Watch 3, and an IP69 rating has been added.

Interestingly, the OnePlus Watch 4 is driven by Oxygen OS Watch 8, based on Google’s Wear OS 6, right out of the box. That’s unusual because OnePlus has previously said that Wear OS 6 will be coming to the older Watch 3 and Watch 2 models later this year, so getting it loaded onto a brand-new wearable before that timeframe is a pleasant surprise.

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You’ll be able to get the OnePlus Watch 4 in Evergreen Titanium and Midnight Titanium colorways. Yet despite a soft launch on the OnePlus website, there’s no info yet on pricing or release date. We’ll have to see when that arrives.

One to avoid?

Despite the upgrade, some notable drawbacks will probably prevent the OnePlus Watch 4 from becoming one of the best smartwatches around, which is a shame considering how much we liked the Watch 3.

For one thing, the Watch 4 uses the same Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 processor and BES 2800 co-processor as the Watch 3 and Watch 2 before it. That’s a disappointing concession and means there’s no sign of the Snapdragon Wear Elite chip here.

And not all OnePlus fans are impressed, particularly when it comes to the relatively minor upgrades over the Watch 3. On Reddit, for example, user DueCompetition1249 expressed their displeasure by saying, “Nothing new. Either it will be really cheap … or it will be a flop.”

That sentiment was mirrored by user Realistic-Button1810, who said, “Not much hardware change, not really worth an upgrade if you have a two or three … better to wait until the new hardware is released.”

If you already have a OnePlus Watch 3 — or even a Watch 2 — you might not feel the upgrade is worth it, especially considering the lack of a new chip. In the absence of significant changes, the OnePlus Watch 4 might be one to avoid for recent OnePlus customers.

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Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he’s learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That’s all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.