Apple Watch Series 5 unboxing + review - is the always-on display worth it
The Apple Watch Series 5: A Mixed Bag of Features and Performance
Noticeably worse than the Apple watch series 4, I'm not someone who really uses my watch all that much to do like crazy stuff. I mean, I mainly just use it for telling the time and notifications. So, if you stream music or use workouts, be prepared to be a little bit disappointed by the battery life. In fact, go ahead and put your charger in your pocket because chances are this thing is going to struggle to make it through a full day. We were a little bit spoiled by the previous Apple watch iterations which had really good battery life. This one not so much. For the very first time, the Apple watch comes with a built-in magnetometer, which means that the watch can determine magnetic north and adjust automatically to true north. This is really cool because it means now you have a compass. There are compass complications, and thanks to this functionality, the Maps app can now tell you which direction you're facing and even third-party apps can join in on the fun and use the magnetometer to tell you which direction you're pointing.
This feature alone is not enough to warrant an upgrade to series 5, but it's definitely nice to have. Apple watch series 5 comes with double the storage from series 4. Series 4 only had 16 gigabytes of on-board storage, while series 5 has 32 gigabytes of on-board storage. This is great for storing all that music right there on your wrist, which can potentially save battery life because you don't have to stream it. You can just play it directly from your Apple watch to your earbuds or other Bluetooth headphones of your choosing. It's also nice to have because now you can download apps directly to your Apple watch without using your iPhone.
Now, some people may be disappointed that there is no speed increase when comparing series 4 to series 5. Series 5 does have what they call the S5 system on a package, which includes the new compass and additional storage. However, this CPU and GPU are exactly the same as those in series 4, so you're not going to notice any speed difference between the two. That's not a big deal because series 4 was already extremely snappy when it comes to launching apps, switching between apps, going to your dock page, or going back to the watch face.
The real excitement comes with the new Watch OS 6, which brings tons of new features to the table. One of those features is finally a calculator on the Apple watch. We've had one before, but it was never really practical to use. Now, we have a calculator that's actually useful. And then there's the App Store, which allows you to download apps directly from your Apple watch without needing an iPhone. That extra storage may come in handy for this feature.
Here is a video walkthrough of some top Watch OS 6 features, including the noise app, voice memos, and a newly redesigned reminders app. If you're considering upgrading from an older Apple watch like a series zero or series one, definitely go ahead and upgrade. But if you're coming from a series four, it's basically the exact same watch with an always-on display. Don't get me wrong, the always-on display is awesome, but I'm hesitant to recommend that everyone upgrade because of the battery life issues.
If money is your main concern, you may even want to consider series 3, which starts at $200 and is still a really good Apple watch. If you're coming from series 3, it's more of a 50/50 thing - if you can hold off for series 6, great, but if you can't hold off anymore, you need to upgrade.
Finally, special thanks to our friends over at Mono Air for sponsoring this video on YouTube. Remember to head over to monoair.com to find any leather Apple watch bands that work with any Apple watch from series zero all the way up to series 5.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enover the past month I've had some significant hands-on time with Apple watch Series five is it worth the upgrade watch our full video for the details but first a word from our sponsor thanks to our friends at mono ware for sponsoring nine-to-five Mac on YouTube mana ware has been in the Apple watch band making business for four to five years and they make beautiful bands like the perforated leather band perfect for a weekend drive to the countryside but also looks great in formal attire what if leathers not your thing and you like to stay active there's the nylon active band there's no buckles at all in it features infinite adjustments for comfort it also dries quick for active lifestyles the urban canvas features a low-profile buckle design with stunning canvas plus leather plus stitching combination that will surely turn heads you may have noticed that Apple didn't have much in the way of new leather bins this year but that's okay because mono wear has you covered click the link in the description to visit mono wear now thanks for watching nine-to-five Mac be sure to thumbs up click the subscribe button and then enable notifications with the bell icon so you won't miss any upcoming videos our 8 ladies and gentlemen the moment we've been waiting for the full review of the Apple watch series 5 it starts at $399 of course this is the follow-up to last year's series 4 release and I have to be honest with you guys it really doesn't bring all that many new features to the table however there is one feature that is significant we're gonna talk about that here in a second so inside the box you do get a 5 watt power adapter you also get your inductive charger and you get the Apple watch series 5 itself now for the first time with series 5 you get a titanium finish option in either a natural or space black color the titanium finishes fall under the Apple watch Edition label along with the return of ceramic and as you saw you get two bands with the Apple watch Edition you get by default the sport band and whatever other band you configure in my case I chose the sport loop alright so we've popped it out of the protective cover let's talk about some key specs you have the always-on display a magnetometer with compass 64-bit dual-core s5 processor 18 hours of battery life 32 gigabytes of storage new titanium case finishes the return of ceramic and it starts at 399 for the 40 millimeter version now I chose the 44 millimeter version for the very first time with an Apple watch and I have a reason for that which I'm gonna discuss here in a bit so here's our sport band go ahead and connect it to our Apple watch and I gotta say man I'm really diggin the look of that dark gray sport band with that new space black titanium case that debuts dwith series 5 now s configured this watch is not cheap at all it is eight hundred and forty nine dollars because it is the 44 millimeter titanium case which is the Apple watch Edition so it's gonna be a lot pricier than the entry-level model if that sounds insane to you I don't blame you at all the good news is that the entry-level aluminum version which starts at 399 is exactly the same as the higher-end version from a technological standpoint the only difference is the case that the Apple watch is made out of that's the only difference they're exactly the same otherwise alright so I have my sport loupe connected I have the Apple watch fire it up and want to go ahead and get it all paired and set up Nellas talked about that titanium finish a little bit so as I mentioned there are actually two different titanium finishes for Apple watch Series 5 there is the natural titanium finish and then there's this the space black titanium finish with diamond light coating it feels substantial on the wrist without feeling too heavy when you look at it closely you see that elegant brushed texture make no mistake it's a great-looking case finish for Apple watch Series 5 however I do wish I would have opted for the natural finish because I think it looks too similar to the Space Gray aluminum color here they are side by side here's the Space Gray aluminum and although they are obviously different when looking up close when you're looking at the two devices from a distance the difference isn't nearly as striking which is why I wish I would have opted for the natural titanium finish I just think it would have stood out a little bit more whereas this finish just kind of looks like Space Gray aluminum if we're being honest here's the natural titanium finish I think it looks a lot better in my opinion what do you guys think No and then of course you have ceramic which cost $1,300 to start this is the best looking Apple watch but it has the same exact internals as the cheapest Apple watch and it'll be outdated in just a few years so it's hard to justify the cost now let's talk about the best new Apple watch Series five feature the always-on display and as you may have guessed it is such a nice thing to have on the Apple watch thanks to an improved LTP Oh ole head Retina display the refresh rate can go from 60 Hertz all the way down to one Hertz meaning one cycle per second so the less refresh you have the less power draw from that display on the battery so notice the minute-hand here it moves ahead one tick so you still get the current time see how it moves ahead one tick like that you still get the current time but it hides the second head it hides all the animation and that coupled with the dark background on that OLED display along with dimming of the pixels that are active saves on battery life and the great thing is that you have an always-on display so even if your watch is like at an angle like this or it's inactive you can still see what time it is go figure that's super useful to have on a watch right so here's series 4 on the Left compared to series 5 both in an inactive state but you see the time on series 5 yes you have an always-on display on series 5 and it works across all watch faces including all the new watch faces here so we're gonna timeout this face this is the Meridian face you can see it goes dark so it doesn't have those pixels on and of course it dims a little bit and it drops down to 1 Hertz so here's the modular compact face you're gonna put it in an inactive state the second hand disappears of course and here is the numerals duo and notice the time it's actually gonna tick ahead to 324 just like that so you still have a live active clock on your display even though it's in an inactive States you can still tell your time and even some complications will be able to give you updated data thanks to that one cycle per second refresh rate so here is the gradient watch face and you can see the second hand moving along there so you'll see that minute hand tic a head even though it's in an inactive state see it right there see it very subtle but you saw it so this is just fundamentally better than an completely black screen on your watch face I can't tell you how much better it is here is the inactivity when in an application so it's just going to show you a digital clock there notice here the inactivity when you're in a workout this is really interesting because there's so much going on screen when a workout is active you have these seconds you have the milliseconds you have a little animation here you have your heart rate moving other stuff but notice in the timeout state the little animation has paused of course because we're at 1 Hertz refresh but here you can see that's enough of a refresh rate to countdown seconds you're not gonna be able to do milliseconds but you can do seconds you can do an updated BPM as well and when I tap it it comes back active again with your animation and all that other data that's the advantage of this updated display so to me this is a game changer for her the Apple watch I mean I never want to go back to how it was before when the screen would just go black and you have to raise your wrist or tap the digital crown or do something to draw attention to the fact that you wanted to see the time which could be perceived as rude by some people yeah that's for the birds this is so much better you can even hide sensitive data while in an inactive State okay so I just talked about the best thing about the new Apple watch the always-on display but that always-on display comes at a cost a significant cost actually and that cost is battery life despite Apple's best engineering efforts to help this thing's sip on battery it's not sipping folks it's a gulp and the battery life on the Apple watch series 5 is noticeably worse than the Apple watch series 4 and I'm not someone who really uses my watch all that much to do like crazy stuff I mean I mainly just using it for telling the time and notifications so if you stream music or you use workouts prepare to be a little bit disappointed by the battery in fact just go ahead and put your charger in your pocket because chances are this thing that's gonna struggle to make it through a full day I think we were a little bit spoiled by the previous Apple watch iterations which had really good battery life this one not so much for the very first time the Apple watch comes with a built-in magnetometer which means that the watch Cannell determined magnetic north in adjust automatically to true north and this is really cool because that means now you have a compass there's compass complications and thanks to this functionality the Maps app can now tell you which direction you're facing and even third-party apps you can join in on the fun and use the magnetometer to tell you which direction you're pointing in it's a very nice feature to have if not a little overdue certainly not a feature that by itself warrants an upgrade to series 5 but definitely nice to have an Apple watch series 5 Apple double the storage from series 4 so series 4 only had 16 gigabytes of on-board storage series 5 has 32 gigabytes of on-board storage which is great for storing all that music right there on your wrist which can potentially save battery life because you don't have to stream it you can just play it directly from your Apple watch to your ear pods or your beats or other bluetooth headphones of your choosing and it's also nice to have because now you can download apps directly to your Apple watch without using your iPhone now some people may be disappointed that there is no speed increase when comparing series 4 in series 5 now series 5 does have what they call the s5 system on a package which includes that new compass it includes the additional storage so the system in a package is actually new technically but this CPU in the GPU the main components of that package are exactly the same so you're not going to notice any speed difference between series 4 in series 5 that's not a big deal because series 4 was already extremely snappy launching apps switching between apps going to your dock page going back to the watch face whatever the case may be it is very fast on series 4 and likewise it's fast on series 5 and then finally I kind of alluded to it already but there's watch OS 6 which brings tons of new feature to the table like the calculator finally we have a calculator on the Apple watch and then there is the App Store which allows you like I say it to download apps directly from your Apple watch no middleman iPhone required at all so that extra storage may come in handy for that so here you can see I'm downloading outcast for Apple watch and then I can launch that as soon as it's finished downloading be sure to check out our full video walkthrough of the top watch iOS 6 features one of those features is the noise app which tells you how loud it is in your environment then you have voice memos which makes its debut in watch OS 6 and a newly redesigned reminders app as well so I know what you're thinking Jeff you've used series 5 for a month now should I upgrade or not if you have an older Apple watch like a series zero or series one if you're coming from something like that yes definitely go ahead and upgrade but if you're coming from a series four I just can't recommend that it's basically the exact same watch with an always-on display now don't get me wrong the always-on display is awesome and if the lack of such a feature has made you dislike your Apple watch then yeah go ahead and upgrade but the reason why I'm so hesitant to tell people to upgrade is because the battery life is very lackluster at least at this time maybe Apple will push an update to address the issue now if money is your main concern you may even want to consider series 3 which is still a really good Apple watch and starts at only 200 bucks now if you're coming from series 3 it's more of a 50/50 thing if you can hold off for series 6 great but if you can't hold off any more you need to upgrade go ahead and do so what do you guys think do you agree or disagree let me know down below in the comments and also be sure to thumbs up and subscribe for more videos like this special thanks to our friends over at mono air for sponsoring 905 Mac on YouTube remember head over to mono where design.com to find anyone leather Apple watch bands mono wear has bands that work with any Apple watch from series zero all the way up to series 5over the past month I've had some significant hands-on time with Apple watch Series five is it worth the upgrade watch our full video for the details but first a word from our sponsor thanks to our friends at mono ware for sponsoring nine-to-five Mac on YouTube mana ware has been in the Apple watch band making business for four to five years and they make beautiful bands like the perforated leather band perfect for a weekend drive to the countryside but also looks great in formal attire what if leathers not your thing and you like to stay active there's the nylon active band there's no buckles at all in it features infinite adjustments for comfort it also dries quick for active lifestyles the urban canvas features a low-profile buckle design with stunning canvas plus leather plus stitching combination that will surely turn heads you may have noticed that Apple didn't have much in the way of new leather bins this year but that's okay because mono wear has you covered click the link in the description to visit mono wear now thanks for watching nine-to-five Mac be sure to thumbs up click the subscribe button and then enable notifications with the bell icon so you won't miss any upcoming videos our 8 ladies and gentlemen the moment we've been waiting for the full review of the Apple watch series 5 it starts at $399 of course this is the follow-up to last year's series 4 release and I have to be honest with you guys it really doesn't bring all that many new features to the table however there is one feature that is significant we're gonna talk about that here in a second so inside the box you do get a 5 watt power adapter you also get your inductive charger and you get the Apple watch series 5 itself now for the first time with series 5 you get a titanium finish option in either a natural or space black color the titanium finishes fall under the Apple watch Edition label along with the return of ceramic and as you saw you get two bands with the Apple watch Edition you get by default the sport band and whatever other band you configure in my case I chose the sport loop alright so we've popped it out of the protective cover let's talk about some key specs you have the always-on display a magnetometer with compass 64-bit dual-core s5 processor 18 hours of battery life 32 gigabytes of storage new titanium case finishes the return of ceramic and it starts at 399 for the 40 millimeter version now I chose the 44 millimeter version for the very first time with an Apple watch and I have a reason for that which I'm gonna discuss here in a bit so here's our sport band go ahead and connect it to our Apple watch and I gotta say man I'm really diggin the look of that dark gray sport band with that new space black titanium case that debuts dwith series 5 now s configured this watch is not cheap at all it is eight hundred and forty nine dollars because it is the 44 millimeter titanium case which is the Apple watch Edition so it's gonna be a lot pricier than the entry-level model if that sounds insane to you I don't blame you at all the good news is that the entry-level aluminum version which starts at 399 is exactly the same as the higher-end version from a technological standpoint the only difference is the case that the Apple watch is made out of that's the only difference they're exactly the same otherwise alright so I have my sport loupe connected I have the Apple watch fire it up and want to go ahead and get it all paired and set up Nellas talked about that titanium finish a little bit so as I mentioned there are actually two different titanium finishes for Apple watch Series 5 there is the natural titanium finish and then there's this the space black titanium finish with diamond light coating it feels substantial on the wrist without feeling too heavy when you look at it closely you see that elegant brushed texture make no mistake it's a great-looking case finish for Apple watch Series 5 however I do wish I would have opted for the natural finish because I think it looks too similar to the Space Gray aluminum color here they are side by side here's the Space Gray aluminum and although they are obviously different when looking up close when you're looking at the two devices from a distance the difference isn't nearly as striking which is why I wish I would have opted for the natural titanium finish I just think it would have stood out a little bit more whereas this finish just kind of looks like Space Gray aluminum if we're being honest here's the natural titanium finish I think it looks a lot better in my opinion what do you guys think No and then of course you have ceramic which cost $1,300 to start this is the best looking Apple watch but it has the same exact internals as the cheapest Apple watch and it'll be outdated in just a few years so it's hard to justify the cost now let's talk about the best new Apple watch Series five feature the always-on display and as you may have guessed it is such a nice thing to have on the Apple watch thanks to an improved LTP Oh ole head Retina display the refresh rate can go from 60 Hertz all the way down to one Hertz meaning one cycle per second so the less refresh you have the less power draw from that display on the battery so notice the minute-hand here it moves ahead one tick so you still get the current time see how it moves ahead one tick like that you still get the current time but it hides the second head it hides all the animation and that coupled with the dark background on that OLED display along with dimming of the pixels that are active saves on battery life and the great thing is that you have an always-on display so even if your watch is like at an angle like this or it's inactive you can still see what time it is go figure that's super useful to have on a watch right so here's series 4 on the Left compared to series 5 both in an inactive state but you see the time on series 5 yes you have an always-on display on series 5 and it works across all watch faces including all the new watch faces here so we're gonna timeout this face this is the Meridian face you can see it goes dark so it doesn't have those pixels on and of course it dims a little bit and it drops down to 1 Hertz so here's the modular compact face you're gonna put it in an inactive state the second hand disappears of course and here is the numerals duo and notice the time it's actually gonna tick ahead to 324 just like that so you still have a live active clock on your display even though it's in an inactive States you can still tell your time and even some complications will be able to give you updated data thanks to that one cycle per second refresh rate so here is the gradient watch face and you can see the second hand moving along there so you'll see that minute hand tic a head even though it's in an inactive state see it right there see it very subtle but you saw it so this is just fundamentally better than an completely black screen on your watch face I can't tell you how much better it is here is the inactivity when in an application so it's just going to show you a digital clock there notice here the inactivity when you're in a workout this is really interesting because there's so much going on screen when a workout is active you have these seconds you have the milliseconds you have a little animation here you have your heart rate moving other stuff but notice in the timeout state the little animation has paused of course because we're at 1 Hertz refresh but here you can see that's enough of a refresh rate to countdown seconds you're not gonna be able to do milliseconds but you can do seconds you can do an updated BPM as well and when I tap it it comes back active again with your animation and all that other data that's the advantage of this updated display so to me this is a game changer for her the Apple watch I mean I never want to go back to how it was before when the screen would just go black and you have to raise your wrist or tap the digital crown or do something to draw attention to the fact that you wanted to see the time which could be perceived as rude by some people yeah that's for the birds this is so much better you can even hide sensitive data while in an inactive State okay so I just talked about the best thing about the new Apple watch the always-on display but that always-on display comes at a cost a significant cost actually and that cost is battery life despite Apple's best engineering efforts to help this thing's sip on battery it's not sipping folks it's a gulp and the battery life on the Apple watch series 5 is noticeably worse than the Apple watch series 4 and I'm not someone who really uses my watch all that much to do like crazy stuff I mean I mainly just using it for telling the time and notifications so if you stream music or you use workouts prepare to be a little bit disappointed by the battery in fact just go ahead and put your charger in your pocket because chances are this thing that's gonna struggle to make it through a full day I think we were a little bit spoiled by the previous Apple watch iterations which had really good battery life this one not so much for the very first time the Apple watch comes with a built-in magnetometer which means that the watch Cannell determined magnetic north in adjust automatically to true north and this is really cool because that means now you have a compass there's compass complications and thanks to this functionality the Maps app can now tell you which direction you're facing and even third-party apps you can join in on the fun and use the magnetometer to tell you which direction you're pointing in it's a very nice feature to have if not a little overdue certainly not a feature that by itself warrants an upgrade to series 5 but definitely nice to have an Apple watch series 5 Apple double the storage from series 4 so series 4 only had 16 gigabytes of on-board storage series 5 has 32 gigabytes of on-board storage which is great for storing all that music right there on your wrist which can potentially save battery life because you don't have to stream it you can just play it directly from your Apple watch to your ear pods or your beats or other bluetooth headphones of your choosing and it's also nice to have because now you can download apps directly to your Apple watch without using your iPhone now some people may be disappointed that there is no speed increase when comparing series 4 in series 5 now series 5 does have what they call the s5 system on a package which includes that new compass it includes the additional storage so the system in a package is actually new technically but this CPU in the GPU the main components of that package are exactly the same so you're not going to notice any speed difference between series 4 in series 5 that's not a big deal because series 4 was already extremely snappy launching apps switching between apps going to your dock page going back to the watch face whatever the case may be it is very fast on series 4 and likewise it's fast on series 5 and then finally I kind of alluded to it already but there's watch OS 6 which brings tons of new feature to the table like the calculator finally we have a calculator on the Apple watch and then there is the App Store which allows you like I say it to download apps directly from your Apple watch no middleman iPhone required at all so that extra storage may come in handy for that so here you can see I'm downloading outcast for Apple watch and then I can launch that as soon as it's finished downloading be sure to check out our full video walkthrough of the top watch iOS 6 features one of those features is the noise app which tells you how loud it is in your environment then you have voice memos which makes its debut in watch OS 6 and a newly redesigned reminders app as well so I know what you're thinking Jeff you've used series 5 for a month now should I upgrade or not if you have an older Apple watch like a series zero or series one if you're coming from something like that yes definitely go ahead and upgrade but if you're coming from a series four I just can't recommend that it's basically the exact same watch with an always-on display now don't get me wrong the always-on display is awesome and if the lack of such a feature has made you dislike your Apple watch then yeah go ahead and upgrade but the reason why I'm so hesitant to tell people to upgrade is because the battery life is very lackluster at least at this time maybe Apple will push an update to address the issue now if money is your main concern you may even want to consider series 3 which is still a really good Apple watch and starts at only 200 bucks now if you're coming from series 3 it's more of a 50/50 thing if you can hold off for series 6 great but if you can't hold off any more you need to upgrade go ahead and do so what do you guys think do you agree or disagree let me know down below in the comments and also be sure to thumbs up and subscribe for more videos like this special thanks to our friends over at mono air for sponsoring 905 Mac on YouTube remember head over to mono where design.com to find anyone leather Apple watch bands mono wear has bands that work with any Apple watch from series zero all the way up to series 5\n"