After weeks of leaks and rumors, Samsung finally announced the $279.99 Galaxy Watch 5 and the $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 to heart. Both the Watch 5 and Watch 5 Pro boast larger batteries, faster charging and increased charge endurance .
With the Galaxy Watch 5 series, Samsung is once again shaking up its range of smartwatches. While the Galaxy Watch 4 series rebrands the main Galaxy Watch and Watch Active lines from the Tizen era, this year’s event introduces an entirely 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. Neither has Samsung’s iconic physical rotating panel, though both have a finer touch panel. For fans of physical bezels, the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic will remain an intermediate option between the Watch 5 and Pro.
The Galaxy Watch 5 comes in 40mm and 44mm, while the Pro comes in one 45mm size. 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 series also has an improved version of the 3-in-1 BioActive 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 training. You also get built-in GPS, contactless payments, optional LTE, Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi. Both watches also have 5ATM and IP68 dust and water resistance.
The Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is aimed at outdoor enthusiasts.
New this time is a body temperature sensor. Doug Wegener, Samsung Electronics America’s head of wearables and accessories, 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, the addition of the sensor is intended to give developers more options when designing new health and wellness features.
The big hardware gains this time around are battery life. The Watch 5 has a 13% larger battery — a 284mAh battery in the 40mm Watch 5 and a 410mAh battery in the 44mm. That should mean about 40 hours on a single charge. The Pro has an even bigger 590mAh battery that’s rated for 80 hours or 20 hours of continuous GPS use on a single charge.
In addition to adding larger batteries, Samsung has also improved charging speeds. It claims you can go from zero to 45 percent battery in just 30 minutes. For people interested in sleep tracking, the company says you can get eight hours of battery life in just eight minutes.
The 40mm Galaxy Watch 5 comes 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 many miles these larger batteries really get, especially with power-hungry features like an 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 short of that mark. Still, if all Samsung does is extend 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 the 3-in-1 sensor makes better skin-to-wrist contact. More significant updates will come from the software. The Watch 5 series will ship with One UI Watch 4.5, which adds a slew of new accessibility features, a better typing interface, and dual-SIM support. Apps like SoundCloud and Deezer are also coming to Wear OS 3, as is the ability to use Google Maps voice navigation directly from the wrist. And after months of waiting, Samsung Galaxy Watch owners can finally use Google Assistant on their watches. (Don’t panic, 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 more flashy updates are reserved for the Pro, given that it’s the new model and aimed at a completely different audience (aka Garmin and Polar). It’s more durable, with a titanium body and a harder 29 GPa sapphire crystal display compared to the Watch 5’s 24 GPa display. It also has a cool new magnetic clasp.
But outdoor enthusiasts will probably be most excited by the Pro’s mapping features. You can now download GPX hiking and biking routes along 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 GPS watches for many sports, it’s not something you typically find in a sophisticated flagship smartwatch. However, Samsung’s ability to woo Garmin enthusiasts will really come down to whether the Pro can actually 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.
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