Next-gen Mobvoi TicWatch Pro smartwatch shown off in first major leak

Potential premium upgrades on the superb TicWatch Pro 3 GPS.

What you need to know

• Italian YouTuber Andrea Galeazzi showed off the packaging for the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS but didn't show the watch itself.
• Mobvoi hasn't announced any such smartwatch as of yet.
• The Ultra will reportedly use the Snapdragon Wear 4100+ chip, a slight upgrade on the latest TicWatches.
• The current TicWatch Pro 3 costs just under $300, making a potential Ultra watch even more expensive.

Mobvoi may have plans to release yet another smartwatch to compete against premium brands, as a follow-up to last year's powerful, stylish, and expensive TicWatch Pro 3 GPS. In the linked video below, prominent Italian tech YouTuber Andrea Galeazzi briefly showed off an official-looking box labeled TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS.

NotebookCheck first spotted the video, and notes Galeazzi's statement (in Italian) that the watch uses the Snapdragon 4100+ and military certification for damage protection.

Current TicWatches use the standard 4100, which is powerful but lacks an efficient coprocessor for running tools while in Always-On Display (AOD) mode. The 4100+ has the same powerful speeds and battery life as the standard one, except its revamped coprocessor can handle tasks like health tracking and AOD watch faces while leaving the battery-draining central processor dormant.

Currently, the Fossil Gen 6 is the only smartwatch with the 4100+ chipset.

While Galeazzi doesn't give you a close-up view of the box art or text, you can see dual pushers and a premium-patterned metallic bezel that looks attractive enough. However, it's hard to see too much difference between it and the standard Pro 3 GPS. The current Pro 3 costs just under $300, so expect the Pro 3 Ultra to jump at least $50 higher, if not more.

Newer TicWatch devices won't receive their Wear OS 3 updates until mid-2022, which would apply to the hypothetical TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS as well. That could be the biggest knock against it, making the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 (which already has it) your main Wear OS 3 alternative.

TicWatch is currently on fire as a brand. The new TicWatch Pro 3 and TicWatch E3 both sit near the top of our best Android smartwatches list, thanks to great hardware, performance, battery life, and health tracking tools. That makes the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS worth checking out, and we're hopeful there will be an official announcement soon.

An affordable alternative

TicWatch E3

$200 at Amazon $200 at Walmart $200 at B&H

Due for a Wear OS upgrade

Rest assured that the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS will be an expensive smartwatch. If you want something more affordable that's also due to receive a Wear OS 3 update next year, the TicWatch E3 is among the best options available. It has three days of battery life in Smartwatch mode, Google Assistant/ Pay, fast performance, GPS, and plenty of helpful health sensors.