That was not really mentioned when it came out, and this is one flaw that i found after using this watch that almost chased me back to using garmin watches. I cant believe samsung. Let this happen, but well get into that in a minute now, like i said its been a month since this watch came out, the watch five and the watch five pro so its time to take a step away from the spec sheets and take a deeper look Into what its like to actually use these watches on a day to day basis, as i have been so ive, been switching between the galaxy watch 5 pro and the watch 5 for the past month, and i found a lot that i really liked about these watches. As well as some cons that werent mentioned before Music, so lets start off with the positives im going to talk mostly about the watch 5 pro in this video, because it is so new. The watch 5 is a lot like the watch 4, but i will still talk about some of the pros and cons that are specific to the watch 5 regular, but starting off with the pro the first positive. I really actually do like the raised edges. I didnt think i would like them on here. I thought that, like yeah its great for durability, but i thought itd be annoying to use the sunken in screen. I actually find that it really helps the touch bezel.
It makes the touch bezel experience substantially better because, rather than kind of tracing a circle, you can just put your finger down and push it radially outward and use the raised edge as kind of a guide. So the touch bezel feels a lot more like a physical bezel. I also really like the look and the design of this watch like sure tick marks, probably would have helped it a lot. I think it would look a little better with that, but overall, just a simple, durable, looking watch, i really like the design there, but getting into the first con. This is one that, as i said before, im just so surprised that samsung let this happen. I dug deep and im very confident. This is not something that i did wrong. Uh and the gps was here. Although it is very accurate when it works, it sometimes doesnt work so ill. Explain what i mean by that. First of all, a little bit of background. I always have the location enabled on here. Location is set to precise location as well, so it is very accurate. Secondly, i did not start workouts automatically. They were all manually started. Third, my phone was left at home, so that is not a variable and fourth, i was running in a region that gps had previously worked very well with this watch, so its not like. I was in some cave or something like that, but what happened would be.
I would go to start my run using the native app on here, and it says it has gps ill start running and ill notice, maybe on a four mile run at about the first mile ill notice that its really not that accurate. Its telling me my pace is like 11 minutes per mile when i know its closer to like eight minutes or something like that, and so i start kind of noticing that it wasnt right and then, when i finished the run, the first time this happened, i went And i opened the app and there was no gps – no map there at all, which means that the watch had never actually recorded gps. It didnt actually get gps signal. Now this has happened to me multiple times on the watch 5 pro and on the watch 5. It actually just happened more on the watch 5, but in total out of the probably 15 to 20 runs ive done with these watches. It only happened about two to three times so its not especially common. I havent seen a lot of other people doing this, but let me just say when you go for a four or five mile or even longer run, and you get back only to realize that not only was your pace inaccurate, the entire time, but it didnt record The distance correctly at all, it is very, very frustrating and for a pro watch, its pretty unacceptable now. Fortunately, this is something that i think samsung can fix.
With a software improvement, it seems like whats happening is that it just doesnt recognize gps initially and it starts to work out, and it never adds that back in, but even when gps is recorded, i noticed that the strava link is also sometimes a little bit trash. So there are many runs that the gps is tracked and it works well, but for some reason, when i run four miles, itll show up in strava as 3.4 miles. Why is that? Well, i dug deeper into this and i believe that on some runs, itll kind of be spotty with gps in the beginning. Until about maybe half a mile into your run and then gps signal will really be more solid, so i think really what samsung needs to do here is similar to what we see on garmin watches, which is you start a run and rather than just starting right Away it makes you wait, it says, acquiring gps and then once it gets gps and it locks in then you can start. I wish samsung did that. I think that would be such a good thing to do before a run. Just to make sure you have that accuracy, especially on a pro model, but right now its not something that they do by default now getting back to the positives, as i mentioned before, when the gps does work, it is pleasantly accurate on a four mile run. Im, usually within less than a tenth of a mile off so on four miles, it might say like 4.
05, but again, very, very close and im happy with the accuracy there. The heart rate accuracy is also very impressive on here. I showed this in my original review, but comparing this to a known, accurate, polar h10 heart rate, strap it does a great job optical heart rate sensor. They did a good job of they said its flatter this year, so its supposed to have more contact with your skin and get a better reading, and i found that that is, for the most part, true im able to wear this watch slightly looser than i do. Other watches, so it is more comfortable and at the same time, still gets great readings all the time. I also love the in depth analytics that you get with running so itll. Tell you all about your step symmetry as well as how to improve things like leg spring stiffness, and a lot of really deeper things that give you more insight into how youre running getting into a drawback with the regular galaxy watch? 5. Not the pro. I originally liked the design of this one. I thought it was a just a nice looking watch until i set it down next to some other watches. For example, the apple watch series seven and i realized just how large the bezel is on the watch. Five. I understand its used for touch bezel, but still in 2022. It just seems like a little bit too much black space around the display.
I wish they would make it smaller or maybe put a rotating crown on there or some do something to make it a better screen to body ratio. The pro, i think, does a better job having the raised edge around there. So you dont see the the bezel nearly as much if they put tick marks, youd be even better yet, but getting back to the pros again with the design on either one of these the the buttons on them are very tactile. I love the buttons, they just feel nice, they feel premium and of course they also double for bio, impedance and ecg, and things like that, so the buttons are really a great design by samsung. The pro model, i think, does need at least one more button, or at least something to actually move so when youre running, if youre, sweaty or if youre, whatever youre doing sometimes when youre doing workouts using a touch screen, is not always that convenient. So, with a lot of other watches, i like to disable the touchscreen during workouts and just use buttons to control music and laps, and things like that, and so with this watch, i find that the buttons like you really need at least one more button on here, But i dont know it is what it is something i really love about. The pro as ive been saying before the comfort for this one. I know people were really worried about the size of this.
Originally i was worried before i got it, but its a lot lighter than it looks and with the strap i find its just incredibly comfortable. I love how you can just put it on and take it off very easily im sure you can get this strap with other watches as well, but with this one it just feels especially well implemented, where its its comfortable, its not it doesnt, really feel like too Big of a watch, and at least on my wrist like you, can see right there. I dont think its actually like it doesnt, really look bad, it doesnt look too big and i have a pretty average sized wrist. I dont know off the top of my head, but ill show it on screen what it is in inches and centimeters for your reference, but, like i said, super comfortable despite the size, the weights not bad at all, and i dont have any issues with the dimensions. However, as dc rainmaker pointed out, the thickness specs can be misleading, so when they say the thickness is 10 and a half millimeters its actually about 15 millimeters according to dc rainmaker, and what they did not include is basically entire back. They only included the side. So if youre, somebody that has a good idea of what 10 and a half millimeters is, this is thicker than youd expect. I dont off the top of my head know what 10 and a half millimeters is exactly on a watch so for this its about as thick as i expected, but it doesnt feel bad at all.
So again, shout out to dcrainmaker check out his video on the measured thicknesses and how theyre incorrect on actually all watches, um very interesting on how he did that getting back to the positives. I love the battery life on this watch. Now some people might say hey. This is measured in days garmin and coros and polar measure in weeks. Thats. Fine, i get it, but this is just a very different experience. Youre, getting a much higher quality display, youre, getting more apps on here, better connectivity with wi fi and a better interface, and so, with all things considered within what this watch actually does. The battery life is substantially better than a lot of other watches, like the apple watch or the regular galaxy watches, and so having just that extra day or two of battery for me makes it feel a lot more like. I can actually track my sleep. I can actually use this watch and not have to plug it in all the time and im not always worried about being on like 10 battery. So i love the battery life on here, thats, a huge positive, and if you like, the galaxy watch 5, that the battery life alone might be a reason to upgrade to this model and of course this is samsung. So its no surprise, the display on here is absolutely fantastic, with great color, great brightness, very readable in broad daylight, and a great always on display. That just makes it look more premium than a lot of other watches and, of course, as far as watch faces go im one to change this, like all the time i love having different watch faces, so the whole selection of watch faces is great on here, but I especially like the pro ones where you really get more out of it.
That makes sense with a pro model here, so weve got like a compass on the outside as well as it shows you like the whole meter for your battery life or whatever. You want step count for the day and, of course, on the bottom, a little quick tap to start a workout or something like that. But, however, i i did notice that the compass is not especially accurate, like it once its calibrated, its, not bad, but if you spin it around itll, be all wacky and again not exactly correct. But the positive here is that i think most of the issues i mentioned in this video related to the galaxy watch 5 pro can be fixed with software. I think that this is a really easy fix for samsung to just come out with an update that really covers all these bugs and besides the software bugs the galaxy watch. 5 is really a solid device for android users. I think that anybody who has an older android watch would probably really like coming up to this one, getting wareos 3 on there getting samsungs integration as well and, of course, getting a more durable and longer battery life in a watch really a great design. Overall. Now, as far as the galaxy watch 5 regular, this feels a lot like the galaxy watch 4 from last year, so between the two, its kind of a toss up, whichever sale you find. But between this and the galaxy watch five regular.
I was previously recommending the watch five regular because youre just getting so much more value out of it. When you look at the price versus you know, it has the same chip, same storage, same ram, really the same experience but im going to say it again. Im still going to be wearing the galaxy watch 5 pro, if you can afford it its definitely a better device all around. I like how it looks and feels but leave a comment below thats my experience from wearing the watch 5 pro for the past month.ssj-XHk7d0Y
