Speaker 1: The galaxy watch five pro strikes a good middle ground between true smart watch and sports watch. It's got a big battery turn by turn navigation and a super tough construction. That means you can use it pretty much anywhere, but it only comes in 1 45 millimeter size, which does restrict the appeal to people who are okay with wearing a pretty large smart watch. Samsung has two galaxy watch fives, the pro edition, which is this one and the regular [00:00:30] galaxy watch five. Now they actually share pretty much all of the same senses, most of the same functionality and the same interface. So I have fully reviewed the galaxy watch five. You can check out that review right here, all linked in the description because I'm really gonna focus and concentrate on what makes this galaxy watch five pro different in terms of all of the construction, sports features and things like sensor accuracy.
Speaker 1: So does the galaxy watch five pro [00:01:00] really deserve its pro name? Let's find out first things. First, we have to talk about what this watch doesn't have on the outside. And that is the physical rotating BELE, the stalwart of all galaxy watches. Pretty much since the original galaxy watch back in 2018, I can see why Samsung removed the physical rotating bale from this addition, at least because if you're doing something super active, your outdoors, you don't necessarily want this to get jammed [00:01:30] up with dirt or sand or anything like that. But I miss it. And it's really not as easy to navigate this watch, especially if say your hands are sweaty or they're wet to make up for it. There is a software based touch bale, the same one that's on the galaxy. Watch five. I think it does work a little bit better on the galaxy watch five pro only because there is that raised edge around the screen.
Speaker 1: So you can actually move your finger around and kind of keep it within the bounds of the display because your finger's [00:02:00] resting against the rim rather than kind of sliding around anywhere without the edge on the regular galaxy. Watch five. We also have to talk about the size and the bulk of this watch. Now I am used to wearing pretty big sports watches, say like the garment epic two that's 47 millimeters. You can even get bigger ones with the garment Phoenix series, for example, for people that have smaller risks in mine, I can really see this being a little bit too bulky. And especially if you're wearing something like a tight sleeve top, or, you know, you have [00:02:30] a hiking jacket with, you know, cuffs and things like that, trying to get it over. That might be a little bit of a difficult issue. So to give you a visual here, it is on my wrist and here it is on a man's wrist to give you an idea of what it might look like on you.
Speaker 1: Speaking of durability, this watch is rated IP six, eight, so it's dust and water resistant. It also has a much more scratch resistant screen than the regular galaxy. Watch five with its Sapphire glass, as well as a titanium construction. Now, I haven't been gentle [00:03:00] with this watch. I have dropped it by accident several times when I've been putting it on the charger, just because I kind of can't get the balance right. When I have the strap kind of still buckled in, I have also taken it to the beach and got sand and stuff on it. And, uh, I have definitely knocked it against concrete accidentally, cuz I'm clumsy. When I walk through doorframes, what can I say? And it still looks brand new. Of course the real test is gonna be long term durability and on something like a construction site. So I do have some more durability testing [00:03:30] to do so stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Now speaking of that watch band, it is a new magnetic D sports band it's really quite durable and comfortable to wear. I really like the design of it. It takes a little bit of extra fiddling to make sure that it's exactly the right size to your wrist, but once you've got it locked in, it's great, really, really seamless and stays on really well. Especially when you're doing something super active, like during a workout, for example, the screen itself super bright, responsive, sharp, it's [00:04:00] pretty much the same functionality as you find on the regular galaxy watch five, one thing that I really did notice about this display when I was using it in always on mode specifically during a workout outdoors was kind of how dim it was and how difficult it was to see, especially when it was super bright outside. I'd either have to shade the screen, stop my workout to make sure I could see my metrics clearly or alternatively, you know, raised to wake and make sure the screen would come on at full brightness.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that a future software update could [00:04:30] potentially address this because I have noticed the always on displays kind of almost too bright indoors when there's like not much ambient light, but it's too dim when you are outside and there's way too much ambient light. So I think a little bit of extra calibration would be nice. Fingers crossed that that's possible in an upcoming update, please. This watch has a couple of exclusive tracking features and sports features that you won't find on the regular galaxy watch five. The [00:05:00] first is track back. Now this works in only two activity types at the moment, hiking and outdoor cycling. So to turn this on, you need to go over to the settings cog, turn on track back. And what it's going to do is route you back exactly the same way that you came in. It's gonna give you turn by turn navigation and it's also gonna give you some vibrations and audio cues on your wrist.
Speaker 1: If you want that. The second exclusive feature is turn by turn navigation. Again only works with hiking and cycling activity types at the moment [00:05:30] to turn this on, you'll need to go to that specific workout, find settings and then tap target to turn it on and then tap it into it again and scroll down to find the route option you'll then be prompted to open it up on the phone and choose the route that you want to use. Turn by turn navigation on it will port it to the watch and then you can also get voice and map guidance quite similar to how it works with the track back feature. Really nice, easy to use for beginners, except [00:06:00] it's kind of a little bit buried in those menus. So you have to use those steps to find it. And the third exclusive option is more generally using GPX files to either import or export route information to your watch. All you have to do is go into the Samsung health app. I found it really simple to export a quick route that I did from Strava as a GPX file and then put it straight onto the watch within about five seconds. It had synced over and I was ready to do one of my favorite bike ride routes.
Speaker 1: [00:06:30] Let's touch on some of the other health and fitness features on this watch. The first is automatic workout detection, really reliable on the galaxy watch five series who would always kick in after about 10 minutes of me doing an outdoor workout, say like a walk or a run. This watch also has high and low heart rate alerts and heart rate sensor accuracy overall is really important to talk about. I always compare against a chest strap and the galaxy Watchfire pro [00:07:00] really surprised me with how well it kept up with the chest strap for this almost two hour outdoor bike ride. As you can see from this chart, it sticks really, really close to that chest strap. It's almost beat for beat just as well because you cannot pair an external heart rate monitor via Bluetooth with the galaxy watch five pro at least not yet.
Speaker 1: This watch also has an ECG or electrocardiogram app. This is one of the features you will need a Samsung phone to use though, because it [00:07:30] requires the Samsung health monitor app and that's not available on the play store. You can also turn on full detection on this watch and you can also have it active during workouts if you want. So if you take a hard fall and you don't respond, then the watch will alert your emergency contacts. The one of the mysterious sensor that's on the galaxy watch five series is skin temperature with an infrared sensor on the underside of the watch. Unfortunately at the time of recording this video, that sensor wasn't active yet. So I can't really tell you much more [00:08:00] about how it works, but hopefully by the time you watch this video, maybe it will be released and available. And I will update my full text review, which is linked in the description with lots more detail.
Speaker 1: So what's missing from the health and fitness features on the galaxy watch five pro compared to some other sports and fitness watches out there. Well, for me, the big one is recovery metrics. I would love to see some sort of indication on this watch of recovery time needed after I finish [00:08:30] a workout or even just an overall kind of score. It gives me an idea of how my body is coping with how I'm training other watches, do this like garment, body battery, for example, and Fitbits daily readiness score takes into account things like your overall sleep activity levels and heart rate variability, to give you an idea of how well you are coping, and if you should push yourself to do that workout or not, maybe you don't care that much about the health and fitness features on the galaxy [00:09:00] watch five, but you're really looking at it because it has a larger capacity battery than the regular galaxy watch five series.
Speaker 1: And yes, I can verify and you know, do a little bit of a dance in my seat because it does last longer and it meets the claims in some respects. First up Samsung claims 80 hours of regular use from this watch. I couldn't quite get there, but there's a couple of reasons why. And I think if you have really light usage patterns, you could meet that [00:09:30] target. So I was able to get between 58 and 60 hours of continuous use from this watch before I needed to charge that took into account, having the always on display, active, doing a one hour GPS workout every day, also doing sleep tracking, overnight tracking things like continuous heart rate and blood oxygen. Plus getting notifications from my phone for GPS use only the claim is 20 hours. And while I could not achieve a 20 hour continuous [00:10:00] hike for you, as much as I would try more power to you, if you can, I did do a bit of a battery drain test.
Speaker 1: So I started at a hundred percent. I made sure the watch was in airplane mode. I went on my two hour hike and at two hours in the battery had only dropped 10% and it was sitting at 90%. So with those exact usage patterns, I can definitely see, it would get to 20 hours of GPS use, which was nice. Like the regular galaxy watch five. [00:10:30] This also has some fast charging features on board. You can put it on a charger from flat to 45% within about 30 minutes. And overall it takes for me at least a little over two hours to reach a full charge. The one catches you will need to use a 25 wat charger to achieve these fast charging speeds, which is not included in the box because of course it's not. So can the galaxy watch five pro go head to head with other dedicated sports watches?
Speaker 1: [00:11:00] Well for serious athletes, probably not just yet only because this watch doesn't have certain things that you might need such as recovery metrics as well as more in depth navigation. That goes beyond what we talked about in terms of the track back features and turn by turn navigation that works with other activities that aren't necessarily hiking and cycling. And also don't forget that the battery, while it is really good compared to the regular galaxy watch five, it's [00:11:30] not gonna be enough if you are taking this out for multi-day activities outdoors, especially compared to when other fitness Watchers can last a week or more under the same conditions. All that said for most people, the galaxy watch five pro is gonna be a great option. If you want the best of all worlds, you want some sports tracking options. You also want an LTE version, so you can stay connected when you are out on the go.
Speaker 1: You also have the smarts of everything that where OS has to [00:12:00] offer, including all of the Google app flexibility, third party apps and near seamless connection with your phone because that's something that many other serious sports Watchers don't have. Thanks so much for watching. If you have extra questions about the galaxy watch five pro I have a full written review, which is linked in the description. It's got pretty much everything you need to know about that. Watch any extra questions you have. You can hit me up either in the comments or on your favorite social media platform until [00:12:30] next time I'll see you later.
