The Apple Watch 5 houses a slightly larger battery than last year's Series 4

The differences between the Apple Watch Series 5 and the previous generation Apple Watch Series 4 are hard to find. In addition to the marketing-promoted new functions, many changes did not even occur under the hood.

Known server iFixit in the meantime, he managed to completely disassemble the Apple Watch Series 5. It is probably not too surprising that it is not fundamentally different from its predecessor Apple Watch Series 4. Nevertheless, a few small things were found.

The Apple Watch Series 5 uses the case and internal design of the Series 4. So nothing fundamental has changed, and there was no reason to change. The main marketing-promoted novelties are the new always-on display, compass and chassis materials, i.e. titanium and ceramic.

The iFixit technicians were expecting some special modification of the display, as Apple boasted at the Keynote that it is a completely redesigned type of screen called LTPO. However, after disassembly, it still looks like a regular OLED display. The changes took place directly inside the screen and are thus invisible to the naked eye.

Apple Watch Series 5 almost identical to Series 4

In the end, however, some changes were found. Namely:

• The Series 5 have a new light sensor right below the OLED screen, and the compass is built into the motherboard along with the S5 chip.
• The board now carries 32 GB of NAND memory, double the previous 16 GB capacity of the Watch Series 4.
• The Series 5 watch literally has a few mAh more capacity. The new battery has 296 mAh, while the original one in Series 4 had 291,8 mAh. The increase is only 1,4%.

From the last point, it can be concluded that the display technology mainly affects the endurance. The S5 processor is just a renumbered S4 processor, and an increase in battery capacity by a percentage would not help the endurance in any way.

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It seems that the Taptic Engine has also received changes, as its connectors are arranged differently.

As a result, however, the Apple Watch Series 5 is identical to the previous generation Apple Watch Series 4. So owners of the four really don't have much reason to upgrade.

Discussion of the article

[Marek Smrček]

296 vs 220 is a difference of 1,4%?