Samsung Galaxy Watch 9: Promotional renders show Snapdragon Wear Elite branding for the first time

Evan Blass has shared promotional renders via his leak newsletter that appear to confirm our earlier reporting on the Galaxy Watch9's chip switch. The images include a slide bearing the "Powered by Snapdragon Wear Elite" branding and an exploded-view render of the watch module, providing the first visual confirmation of the new chipset inside the device rather than just a name on a spec sheet.

Samsung is replacing its own Exynos W1000 with Qualcomm's newer silicon. Both chips use 3 nm processes, but the W1000 is manufactured using Samsung's own foundry node, while the Wear Elite is fabricated by TSMC, which generally offers the better process of the two. Leaked benchmarks reported by SamMobile put the Wear Elite roughly 50% ahead of the W1000 on Geekbench, though those results come from a pre-release test board. The bigger change may be the NPU: this is Qualcomm's first wearable chip with dedicated on-device AI hardware, enabling features such as smart replies and AI fitness coaching without requiring a connection to a phone.

The renders also show four colorways for the watch body: white, navy, olive green, and black, each with a matching silicone band. The case and button layout appear unchanged from previous generations.

Samsung has not commented on the leaked marketing materials. The Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra2 are expected to launch on July 22 at Galaxy Unpacked.