Tag Heuer’s new Connected Calibre E4 offers better specs and a sleek, smaller 42mm model – The Verge

Tag Heuer has officially debuted its fourth-generation of luxury Wear OS-powered smartwatches, the Connected Calibre E4 series, offering a faster and more powerful processor, longer battery life, an improved displays, and additional software features. Tag Heuer is also bringing back the smaller 42mm size alongside the “standard” 45mm version, which the company didn’t offer back when the E3 series was released in 2020.

From the outside, the new 45mm Connected Calibre E4 has a more streamlined design than the 2020 model, with less chunky buttons and a more pronounced crown to help navigate around the watch. It has a more traditional design, though, with a flat sapphire crystal covering the OLED panel and a pricier titanium option. The 42mm variant, on the other hand, is the more stylish of the two, with a thinner case and smaller bezel that blends neatly into the display underneath a domed sapphire crystal.

Both watches, however, benefit from the bigger internal upgrades that Tag Heuer is making with the new models. That includes an upgrade to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4100 Plus, the company’s most powerful smartwatch processor, the addition of Bluetooth 5.0 (which Tag Heuer says will enable data to sync to a smartphone twice as quickly as the previous generation), and an altimeter (which joins the existing accelerometer, heart rate monitor, compass and GPS sensors).

Tag Heuer is also promising a full day of battery life on both models. The larger 45mm variant (with its larger battery) is rated for a full day of activity with either one hour of running and two hours of walking or five hours of golf tracking mixed in. The 42mm model, on the other hand, is rated to only reach a full day’s worth of battery life with an hour or less of run tracking. There’s also a new stand-style charger, which magnetically snaps onto the watch and helps display it on your nightstand when you’re recharging overnight.

There’s also some additional software improvements. Tag Heuer is adding guided workouts that run entirely on the Connected smartwatches with the new update, along with a variety of new watchfaces that integrate more data from things like fitness, sports, weather, and more.

Unfortunately, the Connected Calibre E4 won’t ship with Wear OS 3, Google’s overhaul of its smartwatch operating system that it’s collaborating on with Samsung — instead, it’ll come with the existing Wear OS 2 platform, with Tag Heuer promising that a free upgrade will arrive in the future “when the update becomes available.”

Lastly, there’s the elephant in the room: the price. Despite the fact that they’re smartwatches, the Connected Calibre E4 models (like their predecessors) still carry Tag Heuer’s luxury fashion price tags. The 42mm model is set to cost $1,800, while the 45mm starts at $2,050 for a steel model with a rubber strap, $2,250 for steel with a bracelet, and $2,550 for the full titanium model.

To soften the blow, Tag Heuer is continuing its upgrade program, wherein owners of older Connected smartwatches can trade them in for credit on the new model, but its still a hefty price to pay for a smartwatch that will likely be outdated in just two to three years.

The Tag Heuer Connected Calibre E4 is set to go March 10th.