SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch 5 

The galaxy watch 5 has a lot going for it a gorgeous screen new temperature sensor a better fit on the wrist than before and a bigger battery but even though this is still the best android smartwatch you can get right now i'm still left wanting more this year there are two additions a 40 and 44 millimeter regular galaxy watch 5 and a larger 45 millimeter galaxy watch pro this watch looks pretty much the same on the outside as last year's galaxy watch four apart from losing the fan favorite physical rotating bezel on the galaxy watchful classic i am not gonna lie i do miss having a physical rotating bezel to navigate through menus and even just use as a fidget spinner whenever i'm just sitting around and a little bit bored there is a touch sensitive bezel that is active on the galaxy watch 5. it's the same as what we saw on the galaxy watch 4. it does give you a little bit of haptic feedback that kind of clicks almost simulates the feel of a real moving bezel when you do move you finger around the edge it's precise enough if you go slow enough but i would much rather samsung have given us a little bit more physical real estate on that screen maybe an edge-to-edge display if possible rather than having a touch bezel at all i find myself mostly using the touch screen and the buttons the good news is if you're coming from last year's galaxy watch 4 you can actually use the same straps on the galaxy watch 5 i was able to interchange and swap out the straps from my galaxy watchful classic onto the watch 5. the watch 5 has tougher sapphire crystal glass than last year's model i've been wearing the watch for about two weeks and in that time you know i haven't exactly been gentle with it but i haven't tried to destroy it either i don't have any visible scratches or anything like that on the glass or the casing itself but of course if that changes galaxy watch 5 models are ip68 rated that means that they are dust and water resistant so they'll definitely be able to track things like your swims and you know if you need to take it to the shower i guess you can just try not to get any soap with it because that's probably not included under warranty i really find that the redesigned back panel on the galaxy watch 5 helps it to sit much more snug against my wrist especially compared to last year's versions and i definitely find it does help a lot with sensor accuracy particularly around the heart rate sensor and we will get into that just in a little bit okay let's talk software now this is the second generation galaxy watch that's running the newer os platform that's co-designed between samsung and google but really it doesn't feel all that different at all from last year's models it's still running the same one ui interface over the top so it really feels much more like a samsung watch than it does overall as a google watch that said all of the google apps that you'd expect are on board and work really seamlessly you can of course use google maps you can also navigate using the watch there's things like youtube music and most importantly it now comes at launch unlike the galaxy watch for it comes with the google assistant so you can install that right on your watch first thing i did replace bixby with the google assistant i think that was a very good call performance overall is really snappy it's using the same processor as last year as well which is kind of disappointing given that there's a new qualcomm processor out there potentially that this could have used but maybe it just wasn't ready in time to integrate it in the watch but that being said things like the speaker and microphone on board work really really well and this was with the bluetooth and gps version with my phone within range of course if you get the lte or cellular version that costs a little bit extra you can take calls on the go unfortunately i did not get to test that version but stay tuned can you play music from the onboard speaker without bluetooth headphones attached yes i am so happy to report you actually can either with the stock music app when you have music stored on your phone you can also use a third-party app say like spotify if you have a premium subscription and listen to songs without headphones uh look most people probably don't use this feature but i love it you also get some new watch faces on the galaxy watch 5. i like them they're really pretty they also have some extra ones with additional complications so you can customize it with lots of different widgets everywhere the good news is again if you have a galaxy watch for you are going to get these watch faces in a future update so that's really good news some of the input methods include a full size qwerty keyboard this actually works really well i was able to swipe and send messages without too many errors at all i would say if you have slightly larger fingers might be a little trickier on the 40 millimeter watch definitely a larger screen size would help with that i actually found that speech to text was actually really quite accurate in getting my australian accent right and didn't give me anywhere near the amount of errors i was getting with previous generations so i really appreciated that overall though the user experience is very similar to last year's galaxy watch 4 and i know i keep saying this and i'm so sorry i sound like a broker on record but it really shows you just how much of an iterative update things have been so far at least in terms of workouts and heart rate sensor accuracy and all of those other health and fitness features on board the galaxy watch 5 does have quite a bit it does of course track over 90 different workout types it can also auto detect a range of different workouts including things like outdoor walks runs and elliptical workouts this was really reliable for me in terms of kicking in after 10 minutes of doing say an outdoor walk it would pop up when i forgot to start the activity and say would you like to track this walk and it would give me credit for that previous 10 minutes that i'd already done i definitely find the heart rate sensor on the galaxy watch 5 is more accurate than the galaxy watch 4 and to verify this claim i did test against a chest strap i did a couple of different workouts but really for a steady state cardio workout say like a walk or a light jog the watch actually did a really good job of keeping close to the strap there's also a bio impedance sensor on board this is able to track your body composition so talking about things like overall fat levels as well as muscle composition now i'm not really a heavy user of this feature at all so it's pretty much the same as what we saw last year on the galaxy watch 4. however i can see it being pretty useful for somebody if you're trying to say lose weight or build muscle you can also set targets over time which might be really nice if you're working towards a particular goal there's also an ecg or electrocardiogram app it is fda cleared and it does help detect signs of atrial fibrillation it is an on-demand sensor though it's not doing any background checks or readings say for irregular heart rhythm like something like the apple watch or the fitbit does so do keep that in mind the other thing to note is that this is one of the features that you will need to pair the galaxy watch 5 with a samsung phone to actually be able to us i did pair this watch with a pixel and alas you cannot access the samsung health monitor app and you need that to access the ecg and we've got to talk about that skin temperature sensor because that's the big new feature on the galaxy watch 5. i wish i could tell you more about it but at the time of recording it is not active now this is located on the underside of the watch we can see exactly where it is samsung has said that this will be used during sleep tracking potentially to help detect signs of fever maybe even to help track menstrual cycles again all right it's the part you've been waiting for i know it's the part that gets me excited about smartwatch reviews i mean not really but it's really important to talk about battery life because if you've got to keep charging your watch all the time that's pretty annoying now what i can say is that the galaxy watch 5 does have a larger capacity battery than last year's models does it make a huge difference in practice not really and i'm kind of disappointed to say that i really tried to push this watch to reach the samsung claims of total battery life it could potentially achieve i really struggled to get there so samsung claims that this particular model the 14 millimeter galaxy watch 5 can reach up to 40 hours of use however i don't know how i would possibly get there without turning off all of the essential features that i would want a smartwatch for using airplane mode most of the time and just using my watch to tell the time again kind of defeats the purpose of a smartwatch now my regular usage includes things like getting a few notifications from my phone throughout the day i also use a few apps sparingly and the googl assistant maybe once or twice and do a 30 minute one hour gps workout i also try and track sleep with the always on display turned off i'm able to get 24 hours between charges on the galaxy watch five so better than the watch four at least the watch for 40 millimeter that i was using it's still not as good as it could be if i turn the always on display on that number reduces to around 21 hours so if i do want to track sleep overnight i do need to put the watch on its charger just to give it a little bit more juice before the morning fortunately you can do some quick charging on the galaxy watch 5. you can go from flat to 45 in 30 minutes that's the claim i also tested it out with a timer i was able to pretty much get that number on the money however you do need to also budget in a 25 watt adapter a usbc adapter to reach those numbers and guess what doesn't come in the box i guess just the same as the apple watch when you know that fast charger doesn't come in the box either it's good that it's there but it is an extra investment especially if you don't already have a 25 watt charger or more for your android phone so in sum the galaxy watch 5 really does have a lot of great features it is definitely the best android watch for now but there is a lot more upcoming competition that really could give this a run for its money and if you do have last year's galaxy watch 4 there's not a huge reason to upgrade unless you want something like the larger galaxy watch 5 pro that has some additional sports features a more durable construction and of course a slightly larger battery.

Buy Now> SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch 5