Along with the slick looking new iPhone trio, Tim Cook and Cupertino crew also used Apple’s big September hardware event to take the covers off of the newest smartwatch from the company – the Apple Watch Series 5.
With an always-on display, extra health tracking smarts and a revamped OS, it promises to be the best Apple Watch yet… but that’s a given.
Has it done enough to convince the critics though? The first round of Apple Watch Series 5 reviews are in, here’s a pick of what the top tech press are saying about it…
Always on Apple Watch
“The Series 5 is the best smartwatch you can buy,” claims Dana Wollman on Engadget. However, she also states how similar it is to last year’s model – albeit with one pretty major new function.
“There is one visible difference once you set up the device, and that’s the always-on Retina display,” she writes. “Now, when your wrist is lowered, the screen will still show a modified version of whatever watchface you have, with the brightness dimmed to a low level.
“When your wrist is down, a lot of things you wouldn’t want bystanders to see are grayed out by default, even music controls. I was grateful to realize that my fellow subway riders couldn’t see my current Spotify track or what podcast I was listening to.”
The right direction
Caitlin McGarry of Tom’s Guide praises another new addition to the Series 5 – a built in compass.
“Apple is opening the Compass API to third-party apps, and is also using it in its own Maps app to enable a feature that shows you which direction you’re facing. This was incredibly useful after I parked at the base of Runyon Canyon Park and had to figure out which trail to take.
“Maps consistently showed me which trail I was on and how far into the park I was, which helped me realize when I needed to cut the hike short and head back.”
Appy days
WatchOS 6, which will also hit older Watch Series models, adds a raft of new features – including a new way to gather apps on the wrist, explains Andy Boxall on Digital Trends.
“What’s neat is you can use apps on the Watch if you want, and at setup, the iPhone will automatically add the Watch version of apps already installed on your phone.
“You don’t need to install the iOS version of an app on your iPhone if you don’t want to because the App Store is now available on the Watch itself, courtesy of WatchOS 6.”
Trouble sleeping
It’s not all high-praise though. Lauren Goode, over on Wired, lambasts the sleep tracking credentials of the Watch Series 5.
“Almost every single competitor in the wearable market offers a way to monitor your slumber,” she writes. “You can use third-party apps that track sleep patterns on the Watch overnight, but there still is that whole battery life thing. If you’re running an app all night, you’ll have to figure out some other time to charge it up again the next day, and every day.”
She still gave the new Apple smartwatch 8/10 though.
Battery blues
Hugh Langley, on Wareable’s Watch 5 review, gave an even higher 9/10 rating but did have mild criticism for the battery life.
“The addition of that always-on display mode does still does reduce that battery life. While Apple does claim that your Apple Watch should roughly last the same amount of time, we did notice a 10% reduction in longevity.
“It will still last for a full day of moderate use, and we can still stretch that to a day and a half with less interactivity, but while we would often be able to manage our Series 4 through two days, that’s no longer the case on the Series 5.”
Overall though, it’s hard to argue with that Engadget ‘best smartwatch’ tag.
