SAMSUNGGalaxy Watch 5 44mm Bluetooth Smartwatch w/Body, Health, Fitness and Sleep Tracker, Improved Battery, Sapphire Crystal Glass, Enhanced GPS Tracking, US Version, Gray grey

Best Smartwatch I have owned. I previously had a Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, Huawei Watch 2 Sport Smartwatch, a Fossil Carlyle Gen 5, and Fitbit Charge 2, 3, and 4. THIS watch blows them ALL away!Pros:First of all, I have to point out that the Galaxy Watch 5 is so much lighter, it feels like the weight of a traditional watch. This was surprising because the battery life is so much better, this watch could run for nearly 3 days without a charge. Unlike previous watches,which at their best could only provide 1 daytime of use and needed to be recharged nightly. I can finally sleep with this watch through the night comfortably and see accurate stats for my sleep quality.It packs all the features you should expect from a Smartwatch and executes them so well. The integration with an android phone is just as easy as previous generations of Wear OS watches using the Wear OS app, but this one uses Samsung's Galaxy Wearable app. From a great little display, with UI that uses the space well while still being very informative and not an eye strain, allowing you to see time and notifications at a glance to the health sensors that can read your pulse, your skin temperature, your oxygen levels, your stress, your body composition, even ECG readings if you have a Samsung Phone as well, this watch covers the full slew of features. Notifications come through the watch as soon as they are on your phone. NFC payments are easy to use, so perhaps you can forego bringing your wallet or at least not having to pull it out of your pocket. Tracking walks and other exercise activity is easy as well.Cons:The fact you must have a Samsung phone for the ECG feature is very frustrating. The feature is built into the watch, the phone should not matter.The integration with other fitness apps and Health Connect is finicky and often requires stopping access and providing it again. Working with more fitness applications and services such as Virgin Pulse or even just better integration with Google Fit would improve the experience.Conclusion:A real smartwatch that can be used as a phone accessory and still look great while running for a lot longer than some other brands!

I had a primary goal in mind when I began to watch shop, and this would not only be my first smart watch, but first watch in general. I knew I wanted the basics of a watch, namely some addition to my style efforts, but getting back into fitness and living a healthy life; a tracker for all the things that may help gauge my progress.Therefore, from a watch perspective, and style perspective, this watch crushes. It tells the time, and the highlight of this is the ability to change the watch face. You can go old school long and short hand, or new school with a digital display and dozens of options in between. The watch is slick, modern, and compliments any outfit. In my opinion, it far surpasses some of the watches out there such as the Apple version which is thick, more square, and an obvious smart watch. I love the Galaxy watch because it doesn't have any tell-tell signs of being a smart watch.I wasn't sure what to expect out of a smart watch since this was my first. One of the most pleasant surprises is seeing the notifications pop up, without grabbing my phone. I frequent sites with two-factor authentication and seeing those codes pop right up on my wrist has been a major time saver. All in all, the immediate view of the time (basic watch functionality), notifications, and the basic customization and slick look drives this watch to be a great thing to own.That however is where the dissapointments begin. As previsouly stated, I purchased this, largely, to be a fitness tracker. I was extremely interested in the sleep tracking as my sleep is terrible, and I'm trying to determine if I have sleep apnea (not from this alone). I also wanted a live time tracker of my heart rate as well as a step counter. I could have gone with cheaper options that do these things, such as the higher end fitbit, or even other smart watches on the market such as the fossil. I watched dozens of reviews on all of them, and ultimately settled on this watch, as I figured it would have the greatest synergy between it and my Galaxy S21 phone. I also figured that with it having a higher price point, that the tracking would be superior. Prepare for disappointment.I don't know. Perhaps the tracking is fine but you have to be within the realm of accurate to feel confident in the results. For example, the sleep tracker is not tracking sleep. If I go to bed at 9PM, lay there for an hour, then sleep from 10-5, but also lay in bed after waking; the watch counts this from laying down to getting up, 9PM to 6AM. Night after night, I sleep with varying factors, some nights tossing and turning, but each morning, the watch gives me about the same result. Knowing I'm a poor sleeper, the deep sleep and REM time ratings simply can't be accurate. My previous partner use a fitbit, not even the highest end model, and the sleep rating for her felt a lot more accurate, not counting the time she laid in bed, but rather the time she truly slept.It supposedly tracks blood-oxygen levels while you sleep. One day it showed me at 89%, not healthy but perhaps believable. Last night, it showed me at 55% which, I'm fairly certain I would be dead at that rate. I would think the watch may try to wake me if that was true. It supposedly tracks body-weight but I knew that wasn't correct when it put me at 9% - I WISH! The next day it put me at 14%. Sadly, neither are true right now.The absolute most infuriating piece of this poor tracking is quite simply that it doesn't do it in live time. If I want to track my steps through out the day, I have to be "recording" my walk. It doesn't seem to capture my steps on an elliptical, although I can switch it to elliptical mode. Keep in mind there are so many different modes, you may be switching them constantly throughout a workout. The more annoying one in this situation is the heartrate monitor. I wanted to be working out and glance at my watch to see this in live time. Nope, you have to click on the heart rate, then run it to get your heart rate. Then, again, every time you want an updated rate.Conclusion on fitness tracking; it sucks. I check my sleep record in the morning for very rough, arguably not accurate report on how I slept. If desperate, in the gym, wanting to know my heart rate, I can stop and run the reader and hope it's accurate. Compared to the treadmill reader, it is not accurate. All in, I would not recommend this for a fitness tracker.And that's really where you have to question if you need a smart watch. I will keep this because it adds to my style, and I do love the notifications. However, the navigation, even with this being the 5th iteration of the watch, leaves a lot to be desired.Swiping Right = Brings up notifications, but it's difficult to scroll to previous notificationsSwiping Left = Brings up available trackers such as the aforementioned step counter for various activities (but not things like the heart rate tracker even though those would be great here)Swiping Up = Brings up an apps menu, of which I have used none. This is frustrating because it is pre-loaded with a dozen apps and you can't seem to remove ones you don't need. And Finally,Swiping Down = Same as your phone - various indicators, silence functions, etc...If you have a galaxy phone like the S21 or later that doesn't have a physical button, you're likely used to swiping right to go back - this does not carry over to the watch, you must learn to use a home button again. While you may want the heart rate counter, or step counter ready on the go, there appears to be zero way of activating those, other than the small buttons on the face that you can add, but only on some of the watch faces, most of which only hold a maximum of four widgets. AND, one of those widgets is the battery indicator. If you want to have a quick view of your remaining battery percentage, and you want to use another widget for the date, that only leaves 2 spots or less for the things you do want. Considering this watch supposedly tracks quite a few things, you're limited at clicking into only two points of tracking. AND, if you want to view more, you seem to have to go into your phone, change the watch face, and add those trackers, which will replace the other ones you may want to see. Conclusion; it's pretty crappy if you want to track multiple items as you can't just switch to those trackers from the watch face. They must be added in advance, or you have to pull out your phone and completely change how your watch is setup. I believe you can potentially add them as "Tiles" which is accessed by scrolling the screen in a circular motion but try doing that when you're in the middle of a workout.While I've decided to award this watch only 3 stars, it is nice enough to recommend it. I'm not sure if any of the other models would have been better. Some folks complain about the battery life, but it charges so quickly, it's not a deal breaker for me. It's a nice watch, still worth the price, but the moral of the story; don't trust the trackers, nor expect an easy going time dealing with them.I hope this review helps someone make their decision!

Update one year later: Watch showed alot of promise for 11 months, I was largely satisfied BUT about 6 weeks ago it stopped recording any activity. Even bike riding, walking , exercise, etc. It also stopped recording "casual activity" or even activity where my heart rate was elevated 25% or more, which is supposed to activate the Activity counter. Sent it in....TWICE. They gave me a new one. It worked properly for 4 days, and right back to same old behavior. I used factory settings and I changed the fon I sync'd it to in order to eliminate possible issue with my fon. But even with the fon off, it still misbehaves. its got some sort of bug. And if you search the internet this is a known issue. I never came across a solution, so its an on going issue. So right now my watch shows 0 activity even though I went for a walk for an hour. I reset the fon, first time I go to activity screen is shows 98 minutes of activity.....pretty close to actual, and as I watch the screen it zeros out my activity and also decreases my steps by about 2500 . So its wiping out self initiated activity and recording NONE of my heart rate activated activity. If its wiping out activity, how can is possibly be reliable? I would STRONGLY dissuade you from purchasing this thing. I have tried to work with Samsung to resolve but ......its just the watch, its flawed and its not just mine as I have had 2 now and both have same issue. Again I used factory settings and my fon is off as I write this. The watch is useless for anything but time keeping and alarms. Lots of bells and whistles but fails at the core functionality - VERY DISAPPOINTED. I am not sure where I go from here, perhaps Garmin as I understand their stuff is solid, but I will never buy one of these watches again. I originally has this at a 3.5 stars but dropped it to 2 stars given the HEALTH side of the app is just too unreliable.Original Review: Battery life, I get about 36 hours out of it. Has tons of apps and lots of capability. I wanted it for the basics - sleep , water, exercise, etc. You can also sync it with external paid apps if you interested in something specific. Overall its very capable. This is either the 3rd or 4th exercise band I tried and the first one I liked. I gave it 4 out of 5 for the following reasons.1) I found my activity measurement to be woefully short almost every day. The criteria for "activity" which includes more than just pure exercise, but yard work, physical excursion, etc. The criteria is an elevated heart rate above "rest". I find this measurement to be inaccurate. The last 5 days I had registered ZERO activity.....and no I am not in a coma. I sent it in for service but the point is I had a heart rate of 92, as an example, and it did not register as "activity". That is nearly (low) workout HR. 2) I found the sleep monitoring to be suspect as well. I think it works OK but its almost always 1.5- 2hrs delayed in "starting" my sleep. Especially if I fall asleep on the sofa or something, it never captures that type of sleep, ever. And sometimes that can be hours for me. I messed with the settings in trying to get more accurate readings but.....wasn't to be. So....it works but I find the sensors to be inaccurate. And now of course mine is at Samsung Service in TX...... Its the best one I have had to date but would I buy it again?? NO

I mean. I love the watch. Its my first smart watch. And its a flagship device.. its nice.. but let me start by saying, I used someones prime to order this item and am now leaving the review. I ordered the 40mm version which comes with a s/m band that did not fit my 8 and a half inch wrist (circumfrance). So I returned it and bought the 44mm which looks better on my wrist and came with a perfect m/L band. So if your a male with 8+ inch wrists, get the 44mm.But after wearing the watch for a few days, both versions, I realized why my AOD keeps turning off or I dont get notifications... tattoos!The cenosor that detects if your wearing the watch or not cannot penetrate dark ink tattoos. If I place it perfectly on a small piece of skin between my tattoos it will work. Or if I wear it on my right wrist (refuse to continue that). It stays in place pretty well once you strap it on, so sometimes I can go hours with it on my tattooed wrist before it moves slightly. But this is not a fix.1 fix I have researched is 1 inch clear epoxy bottlecap stickers. Theyre a small dome like clear sticker that you can place over the censor to "magnify" the light and videos all over are proving it works and doesnt add discomfot. So I ordered a pack of 300 for 11.99 on Amazon and hopefully they work so I can have some freedom of the watch moving on my wrist.I would have gave 5 stars if it wasnt for this issue because theyve known about the issue for 2 and a half years and have yet to release a update allowing users to have a toggle setting to turn off wrist detection... they ignore it like it doesnt exist since the watch 4 so Im not hopeful by any means theyll fix it anytime soon.Pretty wild to me that they wouldnt fix this for tattooed users... if the stickers dont work Ill probly send it back and get a better watch.But if you dont have tattoos, its a 5 star watch all day. Battery life is nice.. but I guess thats all perspective. I dont mind charging my devices daily so with average use of the watch it lasts me about 24 hours with AOD on. Im sure you couod get multiple days out of it with some features turned off and powet saving enabled but, I didnt spend 330$ on a watch for it to run at 20% capacity lol... then again, I spent 330$ on a watch that cant even realize Im wearing it.. so lol.UPDATE 1 MO LATER: The epoxy stickers WORK. You sadly cannot charge the device with the sticker on though so you must replace it with a new sticker everytime you charge it because when you remove the old sticker it messes up the clarity of the sticker which allows the light of the censor to "passthrough" to get "magnified". I found a pack of 300 stickers for 11.99 on amazon and I see some people are selling half of that for more.. so dont get ripped off. I kept the watch as Ive found it to be very useful at work.. still rating it the same for its lack of functionality for tattooed users and simply because the compamy itself has been so negligent to the resolution for years. Hope this helps!Update #2 (9 months laters, or so)Ended up selling the watch because the sensor and doing the whole put the epoxy sticker on n off routine got real old real quick. The stickers would leave behind a residue after being warmed up by my wrist that I would have to clean off everytime I wanted to charge the watch. Maybe it was just those stickers. Idk. Idc. But if you have dark tattoos, not a good buy.