Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro Review – IGN

That’s not to say that the watch looks particularly nice. It’s one of the bulkiest watches I’ve ever tested—and much thicker than an Apple Watch or Pixel Watch. This thing is thick, with a bulging sensor array and a protruding bezel around the always-on 1.4-inch AMOLED display. It’s one-size-fits-all, and that size is a bit too thick for me – and probably will be way too big for anyone with small wrists.

Although I found the design of the watch to be a bit masculine (it looks a bit like a Tag Hauer to me), it can be adorned with different strap styles and colors, from pink sporty options to faux leather. The model I reviewed came with a simple black D-buckle rubber strap, which was easy to put on and take off after a single adjustment.

Under the hood you’ll find a massive 590mAh battery (more on that later) and the aforementioned health sensor cluster, complete with a heart rate monitor, EKG to measure the rhythm of your heartbeat, a bioelectrical impedance analysis sensor to measure body composition and continuous Sp02 to measure oxygen saturation. It’s impressive stuff, but none of it is new – it was all here in last year’s version. Fortunately, this year it’s getting a boost through software, adding more advanced sleep tracking features, heart rate recovery, stress monitoring, and the ability to import GPX files to navigate the outdoors.

A skin temperature sensor also lets you know if you are warmer or colder than usual. But unfortunately this feature hadn’t been released at the time of testing, so I’m not sure how useful it is.

The Watch5 Pro comes with various Google and Samsung apps – such as Google Maps, Google Pay and Google Assistant – and their Samsung counterparts (Samsung Pay, Samsung Messages, Bixby, etc.). Fortunately, the Watch5 Pro doesn’t require a Samsung phone, and you can turn off Bixby.

There’s a lot to love, but this year it also loses one of its trademark features: a rotating, analog bezel that was unique among all other wearables on the market. Instead, Samsung has opted for a concave touch bezel, which in theory would let you swipe and scroll by simply touching the bezel, but it wasn’t as precise as I’d hoped.

Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro – Performance

One of the hallmarks of the Galaxy Watch5 Pro is its 590mAh battery. It can easily last two full days of moderate use – more than double what the Pixel Watch can achieve. Still, it comes at a price, and I was occasionally annoyed by the size of the watch – especially when trying to test sleep tracking features.

Fortunately, the bulkiness of the watch rarely bothered me during workouts. I lifted weights, ran, walked, biked and much more. And while the exercise activities provided are more limited than the Apple Watch, it provided nearly identical metrics for the available exercises. For example, I went for an hour-long walk with both watches. I got almost identical results, with my average heart rate registering the same, my calories burned very similar, and my total distance only a paltry 0.06 miles different. Just like the Apple Watch, you can earn achievements or compete with your friends in fitness challenges.

However, the Touch bezel really rubbed me the wrong way. The rotating bezel (still available in the non-Pro model) is a unique highlight of the device, while I found the touch bezel too often unresponsive to my swipes. Also, because the screen sits in its notch, I felt like my finger was constantly covering the screen while using it – it seemed much more noticeable than on my Apple Watch.

Fortunately, the Watch5 Pro doesn’t shy away from all physical buttons. There is still a home and back button. You can customize what the home button does with a double tap, which is incredibly useful for quick checkouts at the grocery store or calling up Google Assistant for a quick question.