An important spec is hidden under the hood of Oppo's latest Apple Watch clone

Since Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 chip last month, Oppo has just announced its promised pair of smartwatches featuring Qualcomm's latest chip.

Oppo Watch 3 is the successor to Oppo Watch 2 from last year. They are not direct successors to that earlier model, however. Oppo Watch 3 drops specs to make room for a higher-end Oppo Watch 3 Pro, which appears to split the difference.

The W5 is Oppo's choice over Qualcomm's W5+, a lesser chip offered by Qualcomm for wearables. Oppo may consider Qualcomm's chip to be good enough for its target market, which is 'segment-specific wearables' rather than 'mainstream smartwatches.' 

A segment-specific definition from Qualcomm includes China, as well as health-focused devices for seniors, children, and enterprises. While Snapdragon Wear 4100 was used in last year's Oppo Watch 2, it's interesting that Oppo didn't choose to pack the more powerful W5+ chip into the Oppo Watch 3 Pro. 

Qualcomm promises to improve the Wear 4100 chip's power efficiency by 50% and its performance by more than twice over last year's model. In addition to supporting better health and fitness experiences, the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 platform allows the sensors to remain active at all times. 

Oppo Watch 3 has its co-processor that performs lower-power tasks, but it claims to launch apps and assess vascular elasticity in less than 30 seconds when using the co-processor.

The Oppo Watch 3 may look familiar to you, but you aren't alone. The latest version of Oppo's wearables follows the iconic design of Apple's wearables since it was introduced two years ago.

Nonetheless, Oppo seems to be taking a few more risks than Apple. With its 3D AMOLED LTPO display and a flexible curved face that follows your wrist contour, the Oppo Watch 3 Pro is the first wearable to feature a 3D AMOLED display.

Oppo calls this the 'third form of smartwatches,' and its design resembles Apple's, offering us a glimpse of the curved Apple Watch to come. Oppo's marketing photos are also similar to Apple's.

The Oppo Watch 3 Pro also features mechanical haptic feedback when rotating, similar to a digital crown. The crown is centered on the side of the watch, and there is only one button. One of the two buttons on the prior model is lost on the non-Pro model.

It's the Oppo Watch 3 Pro that comes closest to its predecessor in terms of screen size since it has a 1.91-inch display with a 378 x 496 resolution. 1.75-inch AMOLED screen on the Oppo Watch 3.

Battery capacity has been reduced from last year's 510mAh to 400mAh for the smaller model. With normal usage, it still delivers up to four days of battery life thanks to Qualcomm's Snapdragon W5 and Oppo's Apollo 4 Plus coprocessor. 

With its larger 550mAh battery, Oppo Watch 3 Pro can last five days under similar circumstances. It uses Oppo's chip to handle routine tasks like timekeeping, allowing the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 to sleep when necessary. 

For the Oppo Watch 3 and Oppo Watch 3 Pro, a single charge can last up to 10 days. Both models get a healthy storage boost of 32GB in addition to the new Snapdragon W5 chip. 

Despite the new specs, the rest of the phone remains largely the same, including 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth 5.0, eSIM, NFC, and water resistance up to 5 ATMs. Additionally, Oppo Watch 3 models are equipped with the same 100 workout modes, 150 watch faces, ECG, blood oxygen, and optical heart rate sensors.