Galaxy Watch5 series Initial Impressions

[Rydah]

Hello Samsung Members community 😎

I wanted to share my thoughts and opinions on the new Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro. I got to see this new watch on the day it was announced while attending the Unpacked event in NYC just a few weeks ago. Since then, I got my own Galaxy Watch5 Pro and wanted to share my personal views and experience with the device.

Galaxy Watch5 Pro

To begin, the Galaxy Watch5 Pro and Watch5 are now on sale and will be priced at $449.99 (Pro) and $309.99 (44mm)/$279.99 (40mm) and can be purchased directly from Samsung here: https://howl.me/chRd6LiCWhC

Note: Since I have the Watch5 Pro and not the standard 40/44mm model, my personal points will be based off of that.

Some key features of the Watch5 Pro:

• New D Buckle watchband
• New bigger battery (590mAh) than the Watch4/Watch4 Classic
• New health sensors
• New sapphire crystal display
• New super fast USB-C charger

After unboxing the Watch5 Pro, I knew I was in for a treat. Opening the box, I was instantly greeted with the device itself in all of it's glory. The high quality super-tough titanium case and the new sapphire crystal display is straight up gorgeous! Not only that but the Galaxy Watch5 Pro by default comes with the all new D Buckle watch band as well.

The D Buckle watch band is great. After adjusting it to your wrist size, putting it on and taking it off is a breeze. It is held together by a very powerful magnet. Not only that, it feels great as well and doesn't leave me with a tight squeeze feeling yet it feels securely put on my wrist. One thing that is a bit difficult is charging but using the provided charger takes care of that.

I have to say, my favorite feature is the bigger battery. Previously, I had the Galaxy Watch4 (44mm) and found it to have decent battery life with it's 361mAh lasting me about two days on average. I've had my Galaxy Watch5 Pro for a week and am getting just over 3 days on a single charge. I am super happy with this! And when I need to top off the battery, the new USB-C (finally) super fast charger is there to save the day.

Workout detection has taken an improvement and is working great. I am also super stoked and excited to see the new temperature sensor in action however it doesn't appear to be active at the moment.

Overall, coming from the Galaxy Watch4, I can honestly say that I am satisfied with the upgrade. I'd recommend it to all, especially those who like to track their Health & Fitness. For me, I love to track my workouts and sleep patterns. My other favorite changes/additions to the Watch5 Pro over the previous generation are the battery life and the new D Buckle watchband. 

Have any questions? Feel free to ask away. Do you have a Watch5 Pro/Watch5? I'd like to hear what you think of the device!

Take care.

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[surfbaby]

Got the Watch 5. It really is loaded with a lot of features and is truly a sports watch.  I am duly impressed.  However, I have two huge beefs about it.  Why, if Samsung is committed to being the number one in its product, is there not a Starbucks app?  I mean, c'mon guys. Apple has had one for ages.  Even Fitbit has one. How can a world class smart watch not have a simple app like this? I nearly went back to my old watch over this.  It may sound petty to some folks, but the convenience is great and I was using the app every day on my old watch. Heck, they have the Starbucks app for samsung in Korea... could we not, also?  My other complaint is that this watch does not sync with WW weight loss.  This is the biggest weight loss program in the US and every other imaginable smart watch syncs with their program but not Samsung.  What is up with this?  It's a great sports watch but it's not rated so high for the rest of my lifestyle.  Can we remedy these deficits? 

[O4liberty]

My watch 5 is awesome no complaints here at all highly recommend.

[ChaosSaber]

Thanks for this, I have the Pro coming, this was a lot of good information

[userIXuKYhJFjy]

If you want to use ECG and Blood Pressure on your new $450+ watch, you better also buy a Samsung Galaxy Phone since Samsung has chose to lockout this feature in the Untied States for non Galaxy phone owners. Of course there is nothing stating this on their website. You have to dig into forums or read about details on the "Samsung Health Monitoring" app to find this, but who would know to do this before buying the watch. 

[Members_nGdOxZi]

Loved the new watch the first week.  Then after 7 days it disconnected from my Samsung galaxy S22 Ultra phone.  It would not reconnect and it was like it had never been connected to the phone.  Long long long story short, after calling Samsung (just sat on hold, never talk to anyone) and chatting with tech support, I did a factory reset of the watch, set it back up and customized it and it is working fine.  But I have found that other people have had this problem with previous versions, and it keeps happening.  Is there a fix or a way to make sure it does not keep happening?   There must be...?

[SuperOvni]

Where I can found watch faces? The wear app send me to the Google apps and not to the watch faces in the tradicional Galaxy apps???

[ChaosSaber]

Open up Google Play store, click on Apps then Categories and the first 2 are Apps and Faces

[ChaosSaber]

This

[SuperOvni]

Thanks !!!:fire::fire::fire:

[nmklpkjlftmch]

My first thoughts:

I've had mine for over a week, having moved from a Fitbit - mainly because of their associated app, which is becoming more bug-ridden as time goes by, rather than the Fitbit Sense itself. so a lot will be comparing the Watch 5 with a Fitbit Sense. First things first, the grass is not always greener.

Many of you are saying the battery life is much improved compared to previous Galaxy Watches. I don't seem to get a full day out of mine and all I'm really doing so far is looking at the time occasionally and letting it log exercise, either manually or automatically. It's possibly related to the face and it does have the heart rate option on it. I don't have the face always on and even have tried turning on the power-saving option, but will need to carry the charger with me if I'll be having a long day. 

The heart rate seems to be more accurate in some situations, and less in others. I have Achilles problems and found during all the Covid lockdowns and isolation that jogging on the spot while watching the TV is a useful way to get the heart pumping while not hurting the tendons. In these sessions, the Fitbit used to show my HR as rising up to 150 quite quickly, which never made sense considering it wouldn't even reach that after half an hour of solid riding on a bike. The Samsung shows it as a bit over 100, and two fingers on the wrist show it to be way closer to the mark.  On the other hand, when sitting on the couch, the Watch 5 has occasionally shown it to be about 100, while the two fingers on the wrist show it's about 60. 
The automatically logging exercise sessions, especially walking is a plus. The Fitbit doesn't do that and it used to automatically log any ride I did on a motorbike as a pushbike ride, with amazingly low kJ/Calories burnt for the distance and speed. The pulse definitely goes up on the motorbike compared to being in a car so maybe it just has a lower threshold than the Watch5 to call it an exercise session. 

On the app side, which I know is not really relevant to the watch, the energy tracking is nowhere near as useful in Samsung Health. You can set a goal weight, but unless I can't find it, there's no way to indicate whether the current food in/energy out is going to get you there.  The calories in and total energy spent don't even appear on the same page, with the intake shown as a large lemon slowly being filled with lemon juice on one tab and the total burnt appearing on the Daily activity tab. Oh, and calories are the only choice. Every other measurement is allowed to be metric, but kilojoules are not an option. This despite the conversion being a very simple "Multiply that number by 4.184" would be all of 10 seconds of programming and that it seems to be consistently requested and refused for the past 7 or so years. I'm in Australia, so all information panels are in kJ so I have to do a manual conversion each time.