The Apple Watch 5 is a premium smartwatch, but one that doesn't offer a huge upgrade over the Watch 4, apart from the very welcome always-on display. It hasn't risen in price, and there's more storage on offer – but many will find the cheaper Apple Watch 3 a more attractive device.
 
The Apple Watch 5 is no longer the latest Apple Watch, that honor goes to the Apple Watch 6 (and the cheaper Apple Watch SE). So if you're looking for Apple's top-end smartwatch, this isn't it anymore - to see how it compares to the new model, check out our Apple Watch 6 vs Apple Watch 5 article.
Not only is this no longer the newest Apple Watch, but on paper the Apple Watch 5 was one of the most underwhelming upgrades Apple had ever unveiled. It’s essentially the Watch 4 – one of our best smartwatches, admittedly – with a compass, more cellular bands to call emergency services worldwide (a noble achievement, if not something people will rip it off the shelves for) and not much more.
Oh – except the screen now never switches off, dimming to an ambient, always-on display when you’re not raising it to look straight at it. Apple has fixed one of the biggest bugbears about its smartwatch, and that’s by far the biggest feature of this newer device.
 
The always-on display is really useful, and we quickly got used to glancing at the Watch to see the time. It’s actually a little too bright, as in dark conditions it glows rather alarmingly – so we found ourselves turning off the always-on feature regularly.
 
The Watch 5 design is exactly the same as the previous year’s model, which isn’t unexpected given that 2018 saw a big overhaul. Ceramic and titanium options now join the 40mm and 44mm Watch range (for different wrist sizes) and they look pretty sweet, although they do command a premium price.
 
The fitness capabilities of the Watch 5 haven’t been improved, but it’s still a terrific health tracker: the heart rate monitor is accurate, an ECG feature offers further heart health monitoring, and the onboard GPS is pretty accurate (although not quite as high-performing as on dedicated running watches).
You can swim, do high-intensity interval training, cycle and even practice yoga with the Watch 5 to fill up those all-important rings that monitor your daily active performance. However, this is all true of the slightly-smaller Watch 3, which is cheaper and still being sold by Apple.
The music and podcast playback of the Watch 5 is strong, and with 32GB of space on board (an upgrade from 16GB last year) you can load up more Apple Music tunes or download more podcasts – although getting content onto the Watch can still be a struggle.
WatchOS 7 brings some cool new features, with a noise meter and cycle tracking for women among our favorites: you can protect your hearing and get better period and fertility predictions right from the wrist, with both features feeling slick, and useful in a smartwatch.
We’re not huge fans of the new App Store on the Watch though, as it seems like the screen is still too small to access the portal properly.
 
The fitness capabilities of the Watch 5 haven’t been improved, but it’s still a terrific health tracker: the heart rate monitor is accurate, an ECG feature offers further heart health monitoring, and the onboard GPS is pretty accurate (although not quite as high-performing as on dedicated running watches).
You can swim, do high-intensity interval training, cycle and even practice yoga with the Watch 5 to fill up those all-important rings that monitor your daily active performance. However, this is all true of the slightly-smaller Watch 3, which is cheaper and still being sold by Apple.
The music and podcast playback of the Watch 5 is strong, and with 32GB of space on board (an upgrade from 16GB last year) you can load up more Apple Music tunes or download more podcasts – although getting content onto the Watch can still be a struggle.
WatchOS 7 brings some cool new features, with a noise meter and cycle tracking for women among our favorites: you can protect your hearing and get better period and fertility predictions right from the wrist, with both features feeling slick, and useful in a smartwatch.
We’re not huge fans of the new App Store on the Watch though, as it seems like the screen is still too small to access the portal properly.