Within Samsung’s latest announcement, we have the new Galaxy Watch5 Pro. It’s a rather different type of watch when compared to all of the other smartwatches that Samsung had offered in the past. I’ve been wearing this watch for more than a week now and I have quite a lot of things to share with you.

We’ll start off with the unboxing. The Galaxy Watch5 Pro comes in a standard smartwatch box and inside, we only care about two items – the Galaxy Watch5 Pro itself and also the wireless charger which we’ll talk about later.

Taking a look at the watch first, the general reaction toward this watch is rather controversial. For this generation of the Galaxy Watch, the rotating bezel is gone and this new design is meant to replace that. Of course, some people do not like this new design but some do – and I initially thought this thick bezel looks weird but I eventually grew to like its design.

If we look at it straight on, the bezel looks like it serves no purpose. But if we tilt the watch sideways, we can see that there is a curved slope from the screen going up to the rim of the watch chassis. Combined with the virtual rotating bezel feature, we can put our finger there and just swipe. That slope acts as a guide and this is the reason why I eventually grew to like this thicker bezel design.

And hey, since the chassis is higher than the display, it offers protection too. The watch chassis is made out of titanium and the screen glass is made out of sapphire – that means this watch is made to be durable.

Oh – the Galaxy Watch5 Pro that we have here is also in the Grey Titanium color. It is also available in the Black Titanium color too – and it comes with a matching watch strap color.

Speaking of the watch strap – introducing the new magnetic D-buckle sport band. How it works is actually quite interesting. You first have to slot the end of the silicone band into the belt thing and adjust how wide you want the strap to be. Then, lock the belt thing and the watch strap can be snapped into place.

To me, this strap is like a combination of designer watches with a metal clasp style of buckle but using silicone material and that belt thing to provide the best possible fit that you want.

This is a new type of watch strap that Samsung made exclusively for the Galaxy Watch5 Pro – though you can buy it a la carte from them and put it on your Galaxy Watch4 or Watch5 since all of them are using the same 20mm width watch straps.

But, a lot of people called this watch strap a “flawed” design because it doesn’t work with Samsung’s own Wireless Charger Duo or Trio accessory because the strap needs to be under the charging pad. Honestly, I agree. Though, it isn’t an issue for me since I was already using the Milanese loop on the Galaxy Watch4 for the past year and it had become a part of my muscle memory to loop the wireless charger in between the watch and the strap.

Anyway, should tell you a bit of a secret. On the specs sheet, the Galaxy Watch5 Pro is listed as a 45mm watch. But in truth, Samsung reused the same screen from the Galaxy Watch5 44mm for the Watch5 Pro. It’s also using a 1.4-inch Super AMOLED screen with 450×450 pixels in resolution – but that increase of 1mm is actually due to the bezels.

You know what? Samsung even reused the chipset too. It’s powered by the same Exynos W920 chipset – which still performs very well to this day, actually.

One big change that I can feel is the vibration motor. It has been upgraded to a tighter feeling vibration that I can feel throughout my arm, but I cannot hear the vibration with my ears. It’s fantastic.

In terms of the software, it looks, feels, and works the same as before but it does have an updated UI for a few things – particularly on how we view notifications and how we can reply to them.

For me, I also installed SmartThings and added a tile so that I can control my room lights directly from the watch.

All the other features are also the same, as shown in the Samsung Wearables app. We can do the exact same settings on the watch directly too – but I think using the Z Fold4’s larger screen to do these settings is much easier.

Secondly, we also have the Samsung Health app. Again, all the health tracking features are the same so I’m just going to speedrun through.

Two things worth highlighting is the body composition analysis that we can do via this watch – and it has advanced sleep tracking feature too so that it can tell us our sleep quality if we wear this watch to sleep.

The Galaxy Watch5 Pro also has a skin temperature sensor that doesn’t seem to do anything as of now.

There is a new “track back” feature that does what we expect it to do – backtracking via voice or vibration-guided turn-by-turn navigation. . This feature seems to only be available for both cycling and hiking. Go the distance, then use Track Back to return right back to where you started.

To use this feature, however, will require you to download something called the GPX data into your phone so that the phone knows what route you’re going to take and then it’ll make sure you’re following that route. You can actually generate your own route into GPX format with tools like this.

And then – since this watch is made for those hikers and bikers and rugged uses while looking stylish at the same time – you’ll need good battery life. This Galaxy Watch5 Pro comes with a 590mAh battery and to put things in perspective – I use this watch with every health tracking feature turned on, wore it to sleep as well, and turned Low Power Mode off.

I logged all of the battery usage and I’ll show you the entire chart here. I have to say – it consistently is able to last for about 2 and a half days – or more than 60 hours out of a single charge.

That is unheard of – and I even took the bet of wearing the watch out when it only said 24% battery left – and I returned home 6 hours later with 18% battery left. That is crazy good.

And mind you, I get heaps of notifications on weekdays so that will also drain the battery even more.

As for the charging speed – we’re going to talk about the charging cable yet again. This new cable takes in 5V and 2A, totalling up to 10W. I don’t know the power output – but it takes about 2 hours to charge from less than 10% to 100%.

You could also charge the Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro by directly plugging the charging cable into the phone and convert the phone into a power bank for the watch.

Or, you can use Samsung’s own Wireless PowerShare feature to charge the watch but you’ll be repeating the same problem as the Wireless Charger Duo as the strap will need to go underneath the watch.

In fact, Wireless PowerShare doesn’t really work with the Galaxy Z Fold4 and the Galaxy S22 Ultra either.

And so finally – at the price of RM1,899, I do think the price is very hefty but it is undefeatable in two ways – number 1, the superb battery life. For a true smartwatch, this is insanely good.

Number 2, this is still the most advanced Wear OS 3.5 smartwatch that money can buy. No other smartwatch can rival what the Galaxy Watch5 Pro has to offer.

If you’re wondering – should I upgrade to the Galaxy Watch5 Pro? Honestly, yes – especially if you’re wearing the Galaxy Watch4 or older. The Wear OS will unlock so much more new possibilities and the battery life is just insanely good.

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