After weeks of leaks and rumors, Samsung finally announced the $279.99 Galaxy Watch 5 and $449.99 Galaxy Watch 5 Pro today at its Unpacked event. And while there weren’t too many surprises, the company seems to have taken criticism about the Galaxy Watch 4’s poor battery life very seriously. Both the Watch 5 and Watch 5 Pro have larger batteries, a faster charging and increased durability to boot.
With the Galaxy Watch 5 series, Samsung is once again shaking up its line of smart watches. While the Galaxy Watch 4 series renamed the main Tizen-era Galaxy Watch and Watch Active lines, this year’s event introduces a new model: the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. While the vanilla Galaxy Watch 5 is the entry-level flagship, the Pro is meant to be a more premium version aimed at outdoor enthusiasts. It also doesn’t have Samsung’s iconic rotating physical bezel, though both have the more subtle touch bezel. For fans of the physical bezel, the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic will remain a mid-tier option between the Watch 5 and Pro.
The Galaxy Watch 5 comes in 40mm and 44mm, while the Pro comes in a single size of 45mm. All watches are powered by the same 1.18GHz Exynos W920 processor, with 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The Galaxy Watch 5 line also has an improved version of the BioActive 3-in-1 sensor first introduced in the Watch 4, which enables ECG, heart rate and body composition analysis. Samsung says the improved sensor adds more advanced sleep tracking features to the Watch 5, including personalized sleep coaching. You also get built-in GPS, contactless payments, optional LTE, Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi. Both watches also feature 5ATM and IP68 water and dust resistance.
The Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is aimed at outdoor enthusiasts.
The novelty this time is a body temperature sensor. Doug Wegener, head of equipment and accessories at Samsung Electronics America, told The Verge that the temperature sensor will add another data point for sleep tracking, but that’s about it for now. According to Wegener, adding the sensor was intended to give developers more options for designing new health and wellness features.
The big hardware gains this time around have to do with battery life. The Watch 5 has a 13 percent larger battery: a 284mAh battery in the 40mm Watch 5 and a 410mAh battery in the 44mm. That should translate to about 40 hours on a single charge. The Pro has an even larger 590mAh battery that lasts for 80 hours or 20 hours of continuous GPS use on a single charge.
Apart from adding bigger batteries, Samsung also improved the charging speed. It claims you can go from zero to 45 percent battery in just 30 minutes. For those interested in sleep tracking, the company says you can get eight hours of battery life in just eight minutes.
The 40mm Galaxy Watch 5 is available in graphite, rose gold and silver with a purple strap. The 44mm version is available in graphite, sapphire and silver.
We’ll have to see in testing how much mileage these larger batteries get, especially with power-hungry features like always-on display and Google Assistant enabled. After all, Samsung promised 40 hours of battery life last year, but both the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic fell well short of that estimate. Still, if all Samsung does is nail battery life, it will go a long way toward fixing the issues we had with the Galaxy Watch 4.
Otherwise, the Galaxy Watch 5 is an incremental update. The main design changes are a more durable sapphire crystal display and a more curved back so that the 3-in-1 sensor makes better skin-to-wrist contact. The most significant updates will come from the software. The Watch 5 series will ship with One UI Watch 4.5, which adds a number of new accessibility features, a better typing interface, and dual SIM support. Apps like SoundCloud and Deezer will also come to Wear OS 3, as well as the ability to use voice navigation in Google Maps directly from the wrist. And after months of waiting, Samsung Galaxy Watch owners can finally use Google Assistant on their watches. (Fear not, Bixby lovers. Samsung promises all five of you that Bixby is still available on the Watch 5 and Pro.)
The Watch 5 Pro is available in black or gray titanium.
The most flashy updates are reserved for the Pro, as it’s the new model and is aimed at a completely different audience (aka the Garmin and Polar folks). It’s more durable, with a titanium case and a tougher 29 GPa sapphire crystal display compared to the Watch 5’s 24 GPa display. It also has a sleek new magnetic clasp.
But outdoor enthusiasts will probably be most excited by the Pro’s mapping features. You can now download GPX routes for hiking and biking, with turn-by-turn navigation. It also has a backtrack feature so you can go back the way you came. While this is a staple of multi-sport GPS watches, it’s not something you generally find on a high-end flagship smartwatch. Still, Samsung’s ability to keep Garmin lovers away will really come down to whether the Pro can deliver multi-day battery life.
The Galaxy Watch 5 and Watch 5 Pro are available for pre-order starting today and will ship starting August 26. The Watch 5 starts at $279.99, while the Pro starts at $449.99. LTE versions cost an additional $50. Both watches will also have a Bluetooth-only Golf edition that starts at $329.99.