A quick look at the Galaxy Watch 5 & 5 Pro

A few days ago, Samsung launched its new smartwatch range, the Galaxy Watch 5 & 5 Pro. The two new smartwatches, which have already received their first software update, pleasantly surprised us with their performance and innovative looks.

Let's start with their appearance. The Galaxy Watch 5 Pro has a more modern design that is more in keeping with Wear OS and other modern smart devices, such as Galaxy S smartphones and TWS earbuds.

Unlike other Galaxy Watch models, it also lacks a rotating bezel, with a digital bezel around the display taking its place. This ‘sacrifice’ was made to increase the battery capacity, which was possible thanks to its removal.

This range focuses on health, fitness and, of course, appearance. The Galaxy Watch 5 will be available in two versions, 40mm and 42mm, while the 5 Pro will come in 45mm. Their displays feature Sapphire Crystal, which offers 60% greater durability, and the watches have 5ATM water resistance and an IP68 rating. The 5 Pro in particular has a larger battery than the others at 590Mah, while the other models have 284mAh for the 40mm and 410mAh for the 44mm. A quick 8-minute charge delivers 8 hours of battery life.

Inside, all three have an Exynos W920 processor, 16GB of storage and 1,5GB RAM. Additional features include GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and BeiDou, as well as a compass, barometer, temperature sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope and light sensors. They support LTE, Bluetooth 5.2, WIFI and NFC.

The 40mm model comes in Graphite, Silver and Pink Gold and costs 300€, the 44mm comes in Graphite, Silver and Sapphire and costs 320€, while the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro costs €470 for the standard model in Black Titanium and Gray Titanium, with the price of the LTE version reaching 520€.

In general, they are compatible with all Android devices running software version 8.0 or later, with at least 1.56Gb of RAM. However, some features, such as ECG, blood pressure monitoring, AR Emoji on watch faces, phone camera control, Do Not Disturb, Samsung messages and Bedtime mode, are only available when paired with Samsung devices.