Dan Pražák Apple last week introduced the new Apple Watch Series 5. Shortly after the keynote, journalists had the opportunity to try the watch and many of them received it for testing. Today, exactly two days before the start of sales, foreign media published the first reviews of the watch, and we can thus get a fairly good picture of whether and for whom it is worth buying a new smart watch from the Apple workshop.
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Amaya Toman The fifth series of Apple Watch brings only a minimum of new features. In any case, the most interesting one is undoubtedly the always-on display, around which the vast majority of reviews revolve. Practically all journalists evaluate the new always-on display very positively and mainly praise the fact that, despite the novelty, the new Series 5 offers the same battery life as last year's model. Apple has equipped the watch with a new type of OLED display, which is noticeably more economical.
Many reviewers consider the always-on display to be a feature that makes the Apple Watch even better. For example, John Gruber of Daring Fireball he unashamedly stated that no other Apple watch improvement pleased him more than the always-on display. In Dieter Bohn's review of The Verge then we learn interestingly that the always-on display offered by Apple is of much better quality than that of smart watches from other brands, mainly due to the practically zero impact on battery life and also because the colors are visible on the display even if it is minimally backlit. In addition, the always-on display works with all watchOS watch faces, and the developers at Apple have implemented it in a smart way, where the colors are inverted so that they are still clearly visible and all unnecessary animations that would have a negative impact on the battery are reduced.
In their reviews, some journalists also focused on the compass, which the Apple Watch Series 5 now has. John Gruber, for example, praises the work of Apple, who programmed the compass so that the watch verifies through the gyroscope whether the user is actually moving. This can cleverly prevent the compass from being negatively affected by a magnet located near the watch. However, Apple warns on its website that some straps may interfere with the compass. Anyway, although the compass in the watch is found to be a good added value, most users will use it rather sporadically, which the reviewers also agree on.
The new international emergency call function also earned praise in several reviews. This will ensure that the watch automatically calls the emergency line of the country as soon as the SOS function is activated on it. However, the news only applies to models with LTE support, which are not yet sold on the domestic market.
Ultimately, the Apple Watch Series 5 received only positive reviews. However, practically all journalists agree that the novelty in the form of an always-on display does not convince to upgrade from last year's Series 4, and in other aspects this year's generation brings almost no changes. For owners of older Apple Watches (Series 0 to Series 3), the new Series 5 will represent a more significant upgrade that is worth investing in. But for users of last year's model, much more interesting changes await in watchOS 6, which it will be released this week on Thursday.
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