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The Apple Watch is unquestionably the best smart watch ever. There, I said it. It is a boring conclusion that remains the cold and hard truth. You may prefer a round face or a different operating system. You can shout on a better battery life and on the faces of others until your death, the purple face of asphyxiation. Series 5 still reigns. This is true even though this time, most updates are small changes rather than game changing factors.
What is it?
Apple's latest smartwatch with permanent display
Price
$ 400 for GPS only; $ 500 for cell. Silver bags for high end materials like titanium and ceramics.
As
Adds women's health The WatchOS 6 and iOS 13 updates are solid. The LTPO screen is an impressive engineering.
Not as
You must always charge every night
Now, if you already have an Apple Watch, there is no reason to upgrade unless yours is about to die. (Or if you want to burn your money in a bonfire.) I say that because you can get the essential of what makes the series 5 awesome by downloading WatchOS 6. This includes new features such as women's health monitoring, noise monitoring, tip calculator, the new App Store on the wrist, a compass and updates from Siri, who is still the worst of the three main assistants.
The most compelling reason to shell out $ 400 or more for a 5 Series would be if you want a permanent display. This is not new in the world of smartwatch, nor unique to Apple. Many Android watches introduced permanent display modes a long time ago, and Fitbit just did it with the Versa 2. That said, the always lit display of the 5 series does it better.
Part of this is the low temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) screen. In simple terms, the screen can be refreshed at a speed varying from 1Hz to 60Hz. To ensure that the permanent display does not interfere with battery life, Apple has also optimized the efficiency of its sensors, and faces are endowed with a "darker" mode when you do not look directly at the watch. For example, the new Meridian face goes from white to black when you do not look at it and eliminates the animation of the second hand. However, I must note that the dials of the watch always on are not monochrome as with the Versa 2. You can always see the complications and there is always a flash of color depending on the watch face.
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The other party is fully aware that everyone is busy. True story, seeing a wandering message appear on an Apple Watch was how one of my friends caught a significant cheater. Although you can still receive notifications and see complications, Apple also includes a "Hide sensitive complications" option in the watch settings. When you have your wrist under your wrist, the notifications you will not want to hide from the corner of your eyes will be hidden – messages such as emails, messages, heart rate, and calendar events. It's a small touch, but it could depend on your job or your situation.
If you are worried that the always on display will spoil the night at the movies or while you sleep, do not do it. Apple has said that another change with the 5 Series is the ambient light sensor. That too is always on now. This means that if you are lying in your bed trying to sleep, it may indicate that the lights are off and attenuate accordingly. I have tried it. It works and there is always the theater mode if you want to play safely.
Personally, I found that the permanent display was neat, but not necessary in everyday life. I think it's been years since I reviewed smart watches – the movie on the wrist is second nature. That said, I can see how this could be beneficial for new smartwatch owners accustomed to their analog watches. The thing for which I found the most useful was the race. Not because it was great in direct sunlight – that's not the case – or for taking a look at my stats from my peripheral vision. (I do not know how you run, but it's embarrassing to try to watch your watch without lifting your wrist.) This is useful because the display is already on, which means there is no shift when you activate the wrist to wake up the watch. Statistics simply become brighter and easier to see. It always gets me out of the box when I have to lift my arm a few times to check my pace, so that was a welcome change.
As for the battery life, you should always charge every day, but you will not have to pack a charger into your bag. The permanent display lights more battery than previous models, but not significantly. One day when I picked up the charger's watch at 8 am, walked through the entire Bronx Zoo and returned home around midnight, there was still about 30% battery left on the Apple Watch. Of course, the amount of your charge will depend on the frequency of use of LTE, Bluetooth and GPS technologies. As a reference, a 30-minute GPS with a permanent display turns on about 20% of my battery, but at bedtime I still had 36% left. I have not approached the 36 hours of the 4 series, but as long as you can charge every night, everything will be fine.
The other hardware upgrade allows the Apple Watch to make emergency calls in other countries. The data will still depend on transactions between Apple and international operators, but the idea is that if you make a bad fall, the watch can call the emergency services for you. You will probably never need this feature, but hey, that's it.
That's really it. In terms of accuracy, the Series 5 provided the same results as the Series 4 during a 2.44 km GPS race. That is to say, the distance is slightly underestimated (2.39 km) compared to the GPS of my phone, while the heart rate was well below 5 beats per minute of a Polar H10 chest strap. Again, unless you absolutely must have this LTPO screen or more sophisticated materials in titanium or ceramic, the upgrade is not worth it. I have downloaded WatchOS 6 on my 4 series and everything is fine. You may encounter a slight delay with an older model, such as Series 2, but one or two milliseconds of latency will not kill you. You may also find less battery life with some WatchOS 6 applications, but before you go to the Apple Store, go for a service, download the update, and go with it for a while. one week. If the performance is really unbearable, the 5 Series is not going anywhere anytime soon.
WatchOS 6 and iOS 13 health updates are robust, but more passively iterative than breathtaking. The App Store on the wrist is long overdue, but as in all stores based on the wrist, limit. Application navigation is difficult on a small screen, even with a dedicated application section, but that's not a problem for Apple. Downloads are easy, but some will need your phone nearby. The Compass app will probably appeal to hikers or perpetual losers, but it's not the most exciting feature to write.
Noise monitoring works, but its usefulness is longer term. For example, most people know when they are in a noisy environment, so a notification saying "Hey, you're in a noisy place right now" is a bit useless. During the tests, I passed a resounding ambulance that recorded 105 decibels on my watch. I knew it was loud and bad for my ears, so the notification that accompanied it was redundant. It is more interesting to go to the Health app to examine your level of noise exposure over a week or a month. A week in New York, for example, allowed me to achieve a mean level of noise exposure of about 75 decibels for a duration of 76 hours and 48 minutes. This is probably more useful for people whose work can lead to hearing loss, such as musicians. For me, it's something that I can put away in my arsenal of discussions for the next time someone asks me what I'm doing in life.
The monitoring of the cycles is however a welcome change. I only spent about a week with this software, but I am tempted to use it as the main rule tracking application. Its design is crisp and the connection of my wrist is easier than on other smartwatches. It is also a good idea whether you can choose whether or not to participate in the logging of fertility or sexual activity, as well as to what extent this information is displayed in the Health app itself. Both are sensitive information that, despite Apple's promise of privacy, are things that women may want to keep for themselves or at least safe from subway users. Apple also gets points for text inclusion discouraging users from relying on fertility window forecasting for contraception – a low threshold, but that some women's health apps fail to erase. My only complaint is that like many applications of the time, there is no option to register certain contraceptive options, such as NuvaRing or the contraceptive pill.
Similarly, the new health app is a marked improvement. Navigation between menus takes a while, but the new Highlights section is a useful context. It's strangely motivating to see that at 10:30 am, I'm 3,000 feet behind my daily average. Or that I do on average less minutes of exercise this month than last month (23 minutes a day in September, versus 25 minutes a day in August). It's certainly not as advanced as the applications associated with a Polar or Garmin smartwatch, but it's more effective than Fitbit in tracking your trends over time.
Small improvements are always improvements. Series 5 may not represent a major change in the same way as Series 4, with its larger screen and ECG capabilities, but is the watch more complete. And given the lack of serious competition, it's not as if Apple should rush with the number of features it adds each year. It is free to progressively improve the future in the foreseeable future, because at present, all other smart watch manufacturers are still behind in the quality and scale of their features. Except for the life of the battery. But if all I can say is battery life – what most Apple Watch users seem ambiguous anyway – what is he really complaining about?
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- The main hardware updates are the LTPO screen, which allows its permanent display, as well as emergency cell phone calls worldwide.
- iOS 13 and WatchOS 6 improve health monitoring. iOS 13 offers a reorganized Health app, while WatchOS 6 adds noise monitoring, women's health, a tip calculator, a compass and an App Store on the wrist.
- The life of the battery, even with the permanent display, should last you all day, but expect to recharge it every night.
- This is the best solution for smartwatch, but you do not need to upgrade your computer with Series 3 or 4. If you have an older model, download WatchOS 6 before you start selling.
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