O
n paper the Apple Watch 5 is one of the most
underwhelming upgrades Apple has ever
unveiled. It’s essentially the Apple Watch
Series 4 — last year’s brilliant update — with a
compass, more cellular bands to call emergency
services worldwide (a noble achievement, if not
something people will rip it off the shelves for),
more storage baked in, and — drum roll — the
screen now never turns off, dimming to an
ambient, always–on display when you’re not
raising it to look straight at it. Apple has fixed
one of the biggest bugbears about its smartwatch,
in this latest update, and it’s the best new feature.
It’ll take previous Watch owners just a few
minutes to adjust from automatically raising or
flicking their wrist to activate the screen, to simply
looking at it. Apple should have taken this a little
further though — the display dims when not in use,
but not enough. If you’re in a darker environment
the Watch 5 still shines like a beacon on your wrist
— if you want to wear it at night then it’s highly
distracting, and we found ourselves activating
Cinema Mode in darker conditions. Apple should
have added an ultra–low brightness mode,
something akin to the luminescent watch hands
on regular watches — easily visible to others, but
not distracting. This would have saved power, too.IS THAT REALLY ALL SHE WROTE?
The Watch 5 design is exactly the same as last
year’s model, which isn’t unexpected given that
2018 saw a big overhaul. Ceramic and titanium
options now join the 40mm and 44mm Watch
range (for different wrist sizes) and though they
are nice, they do command a premium price.
As we mentioned above, the Watch now has
a compass built in, which allows you to see whereyou’re going, and uses GPS to work out your
elevation or height above sea level — great for
hiking. The fitness capabilities of the Watch 5
haven’t been improved, but it’s still a terrific
health tracker: the heart rate monitor is accurate,
an ECG feature offers further heart health
monitoring, and the onboard GPS is pretty
accurate (although not quite as high–performing
as on dedicated running watches). The one thing
that’s missing is sleep tracking. Apple says this
isn’t an issue, as there are plenty of third–party
apps that do this, but having it integrated into the
Health app would certainly be more holistic.
The music and podcast playback of the Watch 5
is strong, and with 32GB of space on board (an
upgrade from 16GB last year) you can load up
more Apple Music tunes or download more
podcasts — although getting content onto the
Watch can still be a struggle.
Battery life is an issue, with the always–on
display pulling more life out of the smartwatch.
The Watch 4 could easily make it past 24 hours,
but the Series 5 struggles to match that, and we
were definitely reaching for the charger more
often here. In fairness, Apple has only ever
claimed 18 hours of use in either, but we think it’s
about time Apple found a way to match its rivals
with a two to three day battery life so we didn’t
have yet another thing to charge every day.
THE BOTTOM LINE. A great smartwatch, for
sure, but it’s not much of an upgrade for Series 4
owners. Apple has also made the Series 3 Watch
available for just $199 — tempting if you’d like to
buy your first Watch GARETH BEAVISApple Watch Series 5
Now with an impressive always–on display
From $399 From Apple, apple.com
Features S5 chip with 64–bit dual–core processor, OLED Retina display
(40mm: 324x394 pixels; 44mm: 368x448 pixels), compassAPPLE HAS FIXED ONE OF THE
BIGGEST BUGBEARS ABOUT
THE WATCH, AND IT’S EASILY
THE BEST NEW FEATURE
APPLE WATCH S5
Always–on screen
More storage
Shorter battery life
Not much of an upgrade
GREAT
Reviews
46 DEC 2019 maclife.com