Samsung Galaxy Watch5

Good watch for linking to phone but expect short lifespan. The watch is a great addition to a phone with decent sports and health features. Features are good for the price. What is unacceptable is the lifespan of the product and the after sales service which didn't last the warranty period. Samsung acknowledged it was a faulty watch but… Read more

refused to replace the product because there was no official replacement stock - even though there were watches available in the actual store. They then used pressuring language for me to take a refund quickly or they would not honour the warranty at all (it was really quite rude). I took the refund and bought a Garmin - they last forever and are much better sport watches.

Poor battery, ecg, bp and frequent pay failures – I am a great fan of Samsung. Have been using it for many years. But I regret buying watch 5. It has very poor battery life, does not last even 12 hours. I always face trouble using Google pay. Fails frequently. And worst of all, I am unable to use ECG an BP - contacted Samsung care and their reply was because I bought my Samsung Phone in other… Read more

country. This is ridiculous because I bought watch in Australia and this is watch function, not a mobile feature.

DANGER! burned my wrist – I used this watch for just under a year and was happy with its functionality until the battery discharged while I was wearing it and it burned my wrist. I contacted Samsung immediately and after a lengthy process they have refused to give me a refund even though I sent them photos of my injury. Not good enough. Show details

Very good android watch - hard to fault – Upgraded my Galaxy watch of 4 years (excellent watch with the rotating bezel) with the 40mm Watch 5 – my wife also has the Watch 4 which has proven to be a very good watch already. The difference between the 4 and the 5 is not dramatic but coming from the galaxy watch some noticeable differences. The rotating bezel has gone, now there is a… Read more ·  1

virtual rotating bezel on the 5’s outer rim – it’s easy to master and it flicks through the app’s very well. Scroll up from the bottom and every app appears in the visual display – simple tap and you are in, no problem.

For the leap from the galaxy watch, the watch 5 looks more modern and smarter, is significantly lighter and noticeably thinner, so all ticks as far as I am concerned. The screen is beautiful and vivid and very clear and responsive – the screen is sapphire glass which offers a lot more scratch and knock resistance. The buttons and functionality are much the same as all galaxy watches and the band is very neat and comfortable, and the way the extra tail length tucks back under the band is very neat!

The watch 5 has a 5ATM water resistance rating (IP68) which is the same as my old galaxy watch – if I went in the pool or was heading to water, I always used the water lock function, which this watch has as well – haven’t had any problems with water ingress previously and don’t expect any with this watch 5, but I don’t push it too hard either just in case!

The new operating system is good (Google's Wear OS) and offers a lot of extra apps and performance compared to my galaxy watch on the Tizen platform. I had to upgrade the Samsung wearable app to run the watch 5 and with the new options available the healthcare app was also updated. You can also download the Samsung Health monitor to run the ECG function.

The ECG function seems to work fine (I verified it against my Omron blood pressure monitor for atrial fibrillation etc. and it wasn’t different) – The watch also offers blood pressure monitoring app – this requires a 3 level verification against a proper blood pressure monitor to calibrate – after doing that the watch runs the blood pressure monitor very well and so far has been consistent results – whilst we shouldn’t play doctor, the checks I have done against my own blood pressure monitor shows that the watch is pretty good – Samsung caution that the app does not and is not designed to give medical advice.

One thing that is different in the galaxy 5, is that when you load your credit card into Samsung pay, you no longer input the pin number whenever the card is activated on the screen when you call up the card first time. You just have to unlock the watch 5 with a pin number when you first put it on your wrist and therafter you dont need the pin to access Samsung pay etc. – have seen some reviewers criticize the watch for this, but it seems if the watch happens to be off your wrist, when you put it back on you have to unlock the watch with a pin – once the watch is on your wrist, you only have to input the pin number once to access the watch settings or Samsung pay and so long as the watch is not removed from your wrist it stays unlocked. It’s not difficult to get used to this and it’s actually a pretty good security feature – if you lose your watch, or if you misplace it, nobody can access your credit card without the pin number, so it actually makes some sense. This is proving to be a good feature.

I have noted a lot of discussion about battery life and criticism that you can’t reach the hours suggested by Samsung – I have seen people testing this battery time with the watch screen in “always on” mode and other things connected – I leave my Wi-Fi off (don’t need it to connect to phone etc.) and run the screen brightness at about 60% - I estimate that in this mode I could get 30 – 40 hours running before charge required, but I am in the habit of charging nightly before bedtime and then putting the watch into sleep mode during the night where the power consumption is minimal – I can easily get around to the next evening for re-charge with about 20% of the battery life left – I believe there are some watches that claim 2 days battery life which is what Samsung say in their specs, but screen brightness, Wi-Fi, phone calls, messages and other apps use all have an impact on the battery which you can adjust to. The Galaxy watch 5 Pro apparently offers more battery life, but it is thicker case as well because of the larger battery.

The sleep function seems to work fine, though I am a little skeptical of the SP O2 monitor which records blood oxygen levels whilst you sleep – I think the measurement skews a bit low sometimes – have tried to validate this with a dedicated sp o2 finger pulse monitor which gives a higher reading than the watch.

This watch is obviously designed to work seamlessly and integrate with Samsung phones – I have no experience with other android phones and how compatible that it is, but it works very well with my Samsung S20FE.

All in all, very happy with this watch – form and function it is very good, looks nice, is well built, has a beautiful amoled screen, performance is very good, battery life is good for at least 30 hours (charge it every night whether it is fully depleted or not) - usually about 25% left after 24 hours.

I could be picky and rate this watch 4.5 stars but seriously compared to my original galaxy watch (which was very good) this performs very well, very nice watch, so in my view, 5 stars are appropriate! Pros: • Well built – very light, slimmer than the original galaxy (2019 galaxy watch) • Good operating system - Google wear OS, improvement over Tizen system • Silicone band is very comfortable – tail tucks under the band for comfort and neatness • Waterproof to 5ATM (IP68) with water lock function • Sapphire crystal glass is a bonus over the gorilla glass • Watch is available in 5 colours – Graphite, Silver, Pink Gold, Purple and Sapphire • Pairs and operates seamlessly with Samsung phones (and potentially all Android phones) • Having to input the pin number in when setting up Samsung pay is actually a +ve. Samsung pay works well, when you press the back button (responsive) Cons: • No serious cons identified – some reviewers have complained about having to input the pin number in, but you only need to do this once when you put it on your wrist.