# Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 Specs Leak: Snapdragon Power, a Monster 800mAh Battery, and the End of Exynos By The Current Tribune · Technology · Published Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:49:12 GMT · Updated Wed, 15 Jul 2026 21:49:12 GMT Source: The Current Tribune — https://currenttribune.com/article/galaxy-watch-9-ultra-2-specs-leak Samsung’s next smartwatches are barely a week away, and thanks to a fresh wave of leaks, we now know almost everything about them before they hit the stage. The Galaxy Watch 9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 look nearly identical to last year’s models on the outside. Still, the spec sheet tells a very different story — one headlined by a Qualcomm chip, a genuinely massive battery bump on the Ultra, and a quiet but meaningful shift in Samsung’s entire wearable strategy. Here’s everything the leaks reveal, why the changes matter, and whether you should hold out for one when they debut at Galaxy Unpacked on July 22. ### Samsung Finally Ditches Exynos for Snapdragon The single biggest change this generation isn’t something you can see — it’s the chip inside. Both the Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 are moving to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear Elite (SW6100), the wearable platform Qualcomm announced earlier this year. That makes this the first time Samsung has skipped its in-house Exynos silicon in a mainline Galaxy Watch, ending a long run of Exynos-powered wearables. This is a bigger deal than a spec-sheet footnote. Built on a 3nm process, the Snapdragon Wear Elite pairs a single high-performance Cortex-A78C core running around 2.1GHz with four efficiency cores at roughly 1.95GHz, plus an Adreno 622 GPU and a dedicated NPU for running AI features directly on your wrist. And the early benchmark numbers are eye-opening. Leaked Geekbench results traced to the new chip show it beating Samsung’s outgoing Exynos W1000 by a wide margin: Benchmark Snapdragon Wear Elite Exynos W1000 Gain Single-core (CPU) ~573 ~371 ~54% Multi-core (CPU) ~1,069 ~683 ~56% GPU (compute) ~1,459 ~993 ~47% That’s a substantial leap in raw horsepower, and Qualcomm claims the platform also delivers up to 30% better power efficiency than its predecessor. On a smartwatch, efficiency often matters more than peak speed, so that figure could end up being the most important spec of all. One caveat: the benchmarked engineering sample reportedly ran 4GB of RAM. At the same time, the retail watches are expected to ship with 2GB — so treat those exact scores as directional rather than final. ### The Battery Story: One Huge Win and One Frustrating Hold If the chip is the headline, the battery is the plot twist — and it’s not the same story across the lineup. The star here is the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, which reportedly jumps from 590mAh on the outgoing Ultra to a whopping 800mAh. That’s roughly a 35% increase, one of the largest single-generation battery gains Samsung has ever put in a wearable. Combined with the more efficient Snapdragon chip, the Ultra 2 could finally deliver the multi-day endurance that adventure-focused buyers have been asking for. The standard Galaxy Watch 9 is a more mixed picture: - **40mm model:** stays put at 325mAh, the same capacity as the equivalent Watch 8. - **44mm model:** rises to 445mAh, a modest but real bump. That flat 40mm battery is the disappointment of this leak. It means the smallest Watch 9 is leaning almost entirely on the new chip’s efficiency to improve endurance, rather than a bigger cell doing the heavy lifting. For context, rivals like the OnePlus Watch 3 can stretch to around five days on a charge, so even with these gains, Samsung still has ground to make up on longevity — especially if you want reliable overnight sleep tracking without a daily top-up. ### Storage, Connectivity, and the Rest of the Sheet Beyond the marquee upgrades, the supporting specs quietly improve across the board. Both watches are expected to carry 2GB of RAM with storage options of 32GB or 64GB — a real step up from the 16GB and 32GB tiers on the Galaxy Watch 8 line, and welcome headroom for offline music, apps, and on-device AI models. Connectivity gets modernized too. The leaks point to Bluetooth 6.0, NFC, and dual-band Wi-Fi across the lineup, with LTE offered as an optional configuration as usual. It’s not yet clear whether the dual-band Wi-Fi tops out at Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 6. Here’s how the two watches stack up on the core hardware: Spec Galaxy Watch 9 Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 Case sizes 40mm, 44mm 47mm Material Aluminum Titanium Water resistance 5ATM 10ATM (100m) Display 1.3″ (438×438) / 1.5″ (480×480) 1.5″ (480×480) Processor Snapdragon Wear Elite (SW6100) Snapdragon Wear Elite (SW6100) RAM 2GB 2GB Storage 32GB / 64GB 32GB / 64GB Battery 325mAh (40mm) / 445mAh (44mm) 800mAh Connectivity BT 6.0, NFC, dual-band Wi-Fi, LTE (opt.) BT 6.0, NFC, dual-band Wi-Fi, LTE Software One UI 9 Watch / Wear OS 7 One UI 9 Watch / Wear OS 7 Displays appear to carry over unchanged from last year, with the 40mm using a 1.3-inch 438×438 panel and the larger cases stepping up to 1.5-inch 480×480 screens. The Ultra 2 keeps its rugged titanium build and 10ATM water resistance, while the Watch 9 sticks with aluminum and a 5ATM rating. ### An AI-First Software Push with One UI 9 Watch Both watches will run One UI 9 Watch, Samsung’s Wear OS 7 skin based on Android 17. Samsung has been teasing the software hard, describing its next wearable as a “health-first, always-on gateway” for personalized AI, with a heavy emphasis on real-time health insights. The teasers and firmware leaks point to a stacked health suite: a Vitals dashboard combining heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, skin temperature, and blood oxygen; a new blood pressure trend feature; sleep apnea detection; a personalized health coach; and Gemini integration with raise-to-talk, echoing what Google offers on the Pixel Watch. On-device AI processing via the Snapdragon chip’s NPU should also reduce how often the watch needs to rely on your phone. ### Pricing and Release Date Samsung will reveal both watches at Galaxy Unpacked on July 22, 2026, streaming live from London, with retail availability expected to follow roughly two weeks later in early August. On pricing, European figures from the leak suggest the Galaxy Watch 9 will start at “at least” €409 (40mm), rising to €439, while the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 LTE lands around €749. In the US, the Watch 9 is expected to hold near its predecessor’s $349 starting point, with LTE variants running $30–$40 more, while the Ultra 2 could sit closer to the $850 mark. ### Final Verdict On paper, the Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 are the most meaningful wearable refresh Samsung has shipped in years — even if you’d never guess it from the outside. The move to Snapdragon Wear Elite is the kind of foundational change that pays off in performance, AI capability, and efficiency for the whole generation, and the Ultra 2’s leap to an 800mAh battery could genuinely reshape its endurance story. The asterisk is the base Watch 9. A flat 325mAh cell on the 40mm model means the smallest option is still fighting the same all-day-battery battle Samsung has struggled with for years, and rivals continue to run circles around it in terms of longevity. If you want the biggest upgrade, the Ultra 2 is clearly where the excitement is this year. If you’re eyeing the standard Watch 9, the 44mm model — with its bigger battery and new silicon — is the smarter buy of the two. As always, these are leaks. We’ll get the official word, final pricing, and the full [One UI 9 Watch feature set when Samsung](/article/samsung-one-ui-9-android-17-update) takes the stage on July 22.