Square Up, Samsung: Why Galaxy Watch 7 Needs to Ditch Round and Go Bold
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Samsung might be ditching the round watch face for a square one, according to a rumor making the rounds this week on Sammobile. It's unclear if this change will hit the upcoming Galaxy Watch 7 or a future model, but it has me excited! Let's be real, borrowing (air quotes) Apple's watch design is a smart move by Samsung. After all, Apple wasn't exactly the first to slap a square face on a smartwatch.
Square vs round across time
Imagine it's 2013. Back then, the smartwatch scene was like the Wild West – anything went! Remember the first Samsung Galaxy Gear? Square. Same goes for the Gear 2 and Live. Heck, most of the early Android Wear options were square too. LG, ASUS, Sony – everyone was jumping on the square bandwagon.
But things started to change around 2015. Two things, I reckon, really swung the pendulum. First, the Moto 360 came out with this super cool round design that everyone loved. Then, Apple threw its hat in the ring with the square Apple Watch. And well, the rest is history.
Android watches use the round shape to distinguish themselves from the Apple Watch, but they historically started square.
Remember those cool square smartwatches that used to be everywhere? Yeah, they've vanished from the world of Wear OS. For years, new releases have all been round, like some kind of unwritten rule. It's almost like Apple has a secret deal on the square design, leaving Wear OS watches stuck in a circle. Honestly, the only thing Wear OS really had on the Apple Watch for a while was that round shape.
It’s a matter of choice
The beauty of Android, for me, is all about having options. Whether you're looking for a phone, tablet, TV, car, there's something for everyone, no matter how different our styles or needs are. So why shouldn't watches be the same?
It turns out, I'm not the only one who feels this way. We put the question out to you, our readers on Android Authority, as well as on Twitter and YouTube: round or square watch? We got a huge response, with over 5,000 votes. As expected, round watches were the favorite for most people, at over 60%. But hey, that still leaves almost a fifth of you who prefer square, and another 20% who don't care about the shape as long as the watch gets the job done.
The benefits of a square design
The debate between square and round watches has been around forever, but I want to focus on the three reasons why I love squared-off designs.
First of all, they let watchmakers cram more tech inside. It's pretty clear that stuffing rectangular components like batteries and chips into a round watch isn't the most efficient use of space.
Secondly, and this is a huge pet peeve of mine, text doesn't get cut off on the corners of a square watch. This was my biggest gripe with my Pixel Watch 2 and the Galaxy Watch 4. Everything, from messages to fitness graphs, had to be crammed into the middle of the screen to be readable. It felt like the top and bottom of the display were wasted space because that's where my eyes and finger naturally went – not ideal for using apps or menus. But with the Apple Watch, the entire screen is usable, which makes a huge difference.
When it comes to smartwatches, it's hip to be square — and very useful no matter how you look at it.
Imagine this: you have a round watch, and you want it to be bigger so it fills up your whole wrist. But the problem is, if you make a circle bigger, it gets wider too, not just taller. That's what happened with the OnePlus Watch 2 - giant and wide!
Another thing I've noticed is that even with a bigger round screen, you don't always get more information displayed. Samsung went from a 1.4-inch to a 1.5-inch display on their Galaxy Watch, but that extra 0.1 inch didn't show anything new, just the same stuff a little bigger.
Here's where rectangular watches come in (hear me out, math nerds!). They can get taller without getting wider, which means more screen space without the watch looking goofy on your wrist. This translates to more lines of text, more room for icons, and just generally more info to see at a glance.
Think about it like this: would you rather go back to old phones with super skinny screens, or do you like seeing more stuff on your phone now? Exactly! That's why I think Samsung (and other brands!) should totally make square smartwatches. Square isn't just an Apple thing, remember? Android Wear watches were rocking squares way before.
So yeah, please watchmakers, give us square options! There are plenty of us out there who dig the sporty look and would love a watch that fits our wrists and shows us more at the same time.
