Apple Watch Series 5 Hands On: Always-On Display is Great, but Otherwise Not Much of an Upgrade

[lordofthereef]

I have a series 3 stainless and this feature alone is almost enough for me to upgrade. Unfortunately a stainless series 5 is $750. I want to say that's $250 over what I paid for my watch brand new?

Kind of hard to justify. I wish they offered an option to go aluminum with the sapphire screen. That screen is the reason why I'll never go back from stainless again. Just today I was shoveling rock and rigging a drainage trench with my watch on, bumping it into all sorts of things. The screen in that thing still looks mint.
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Raising my wrist isn't uncomfortable for me and I never really felt I needed to have the display on constantly.

For me it's genuinely not a comfort issue. It's that it simply doesn't always work especially when I'm on a run or generally moving (ie not just sitting on the couch or at a desk).

Certainly not a deal breaker (I have a s3 and have loved it since launch), but I do see this as a QOL improvement.

 

[iSayuSay]

That wasn't what I meant.

I think they had the tech and the whole product as something that could have released last year as a "better" S4 than what they released and they purposely broke it up to make 2 releases out of 1.

Oh okay, I read it wrong. But of course you get it. Apple (and any other tech companies) will keep something on its sleeve.

This LTPO OLED could lead to dynamic refresh rate on future pro iPhones so it can do the same thing as 120Hz iPad Pro display. Not to mention potential switch to USB-C on 5G iPhones

If you have AWS4, I’d just ignore Series 5.

 

[turbineseaplane]

If you have AWS4, I’d just ignore Series 5.

I've honestly yet to own an AW.
I'm still on the sidelines and sort of going the other direction with tech to some extent.

I've thought that after my SE I might go for a Cellular AW if it's full featured enough by then (battery life in particular), but I still don't know what I'd do about a camera.

This is what's so frustrating to me about the iPhone lineup now.
They're all huge, heavy and massively expensive and I simply don't want or need anything like that and they seem to be moving even MORE towards that over time.

The lineup is just *begging* for an "iPhone Air" to appeal to those of us who love our iPhones, but have much more minimal needs and want smaller and lighter options.

The "rebadged iPhone 8" that's rumored for "soon" is totally unappealing. If I wanted that form factor (I don't) I could already just buy an iP8 for very reasonable prices. No interest. Form factor is too big.

 

[gswilder]

I've owned every version of the AW. For me, Series 4 was the biggest jump because of the larger display. I like lots of stuff on my watch face.

AOD would be #2 on my list. So I am torn whether to spend $700 on it, and get $110 credit for my old S4. LOL...

Actually my biggest wish is a round Apple Watch. Or the ability for 3rd part watch faces. Apples selection kind of sucks IMO.

 

[lordofthereef]

.

Actually my biggest wish is a round Apple Watch. Or the ability for 3rd part watch faces. Apples selection kind of sucks IMO.

I could take or leave a round watch but some better watch faces would be wonderful. For something that is technically capable of being infinitely customizable and changeable it sure is needlessly limited by Apple's blandness (which is somewhat funny because I don't think of Apple as bland in comparison to most tech companies).

 

[iSayuSay]

The lineup is just *begging* for an "iPhone Air" to appeal to those of us who love our iPhones

The "rebadged iPhone 8" that's rumored for "soon" is totally unappealing. If I wanted that form factor (I don't) I could already just buy an iP8 for very reasonable prices. No interest. Form factor is too big.

Yeah if you love smaller iphones there’s nothing left on Apple’s inventory. The closest thing would be the new 11Pro and it’s still a bit bigger compared to OG 4.7” iphones.

Me personally would just go with regular 11. Love the colors, battery life, and the camera (wide and ultra wide is definitely useful, I rarely need telephoto).

I also stick with my upgrade plan. I know AOD is a great feature to make Apple Watch looks like a normal watch. But I own an AWS4 so it’s not my time to upgrade.

 

[dampfnudel]

Do we really think they couldn't have brought the AOD to the S4 last year?

This feels purposely held back just to have "something" for this year.

Which probably means a noticeable change is coming next year (and wasn’t ready this year) because other than a redesign, what else can Apple now add that doesn’t elicit a yawn from the media and public?

 

[Mactendo]

So about four years it has burn in. I wonder how much this has to do with its age or older display design. I guess if you plan on keeping it for years this might be an issue but personally I couldn't imagine keeping my AW more than two years.

It’s not my watch. I googled ‘Apple Watch burn in’ it and found it on twitter. The tweet was from 2017 and stated it happened after 2 years of use. Not 4.

 

[dampfnudel]

I've owned every version of the AW. For me, Series 4 was the biggest jump because of the larger display. I like lots of stuff on my watch face.

AOD would be #2 on my list. So I am torn whether to spend $700 on it, and get $110 credit for my old S4. LOL...

Actually my biggest wish is a round Apple Watch. Or the ability for 3rd part watch faces. Apples selection kind of sucks IMO.

I think you would be better off waiting until next year’s S6. I think Apple knows they need to make the next Apple Watch look visually different to fire up sales

 

[tkukoc]

I've owned every version of the AW. For me, Series 4 was the biggest jump because of the larger display. I like lots of stuff on my watch face.

AOD would be #2 on my list. So I am torn whether to spend $700 on it, and get $110 credit for my old S4. LOL...

Actually my biggest wish is a round Apple Watch. Or the ability for 3rd part watch faces. Apples selection kind of sucks IMO.

I honestly can't think of a good reason to go from 4 to 5 based on what was announced today. If say come Feb 2020 they release WatchOS 6.1 and it's power packed with some new feature specifically for 5 that blows my mind then ok.. but the fact they dropped series 4 just shows how close it is to 5.. so always on display is cool.. but 4 could have that with a simple software update.. I know I know.. Apple won't do it.. but that's why I'll wait for the proper hardware upgrades next year and get a new phone/watch at the same time.

 

[doelcm82]

That wasn't what I meant.

I think they had the tech and the whole product as something that could have released last year as a "better" S4 than what they released and they purposely broke it up to make 2 releases out of 1.

So you’re thinking they gave the Apple Watch development team the year off, since they had already done the work for this year?

 

[mr.steevo]

I’ve been waiting for more pics of the titanium model, I don’t know if it’s worth the jump from my stainless series3, yet

My experience with titanium watches is they blemish easily. It looks like a dust or chalk mark that you can't rub off.

Personally, I like the idea of ceramic as it is hard enough to not show scratches. But that price for a watch that will be obsolete in 2024 is painful.

 

[richwoodrocket]

I really was expecting more from this announcement. I'm sticking with my S3

 

[russell_314]

It’s not my watch. I googled ‘Apple Watch burn in’ it and found it on twitter. The tweet was from 2017 and stated it happened after 2 years of use. Not 4.

Anything is possible but I think it's best taken with a grain of salt. It's not beyond the realm of possibility for someone to go out of their way to purposely burn in an image for their fifteen minutes of internet fame. Obviously I don't know either way. I do know that my S4 with almost a year now has zero burn in. Perhaps this was an issue with earlier AW displays though because I would expect display technology to be improved. It would be an interesting experiment to see what it would take to burn in an image on a S4 or S5 AW. I don't have the $$$ just to destroy an AW but I'm sure some YouTuber out there does LOL

 

[turbineseaplane]

So you’re thinking they gave the Apple Watch development team the year off, since they had already done the work for this year?

No… It’s widely known that these products are years in development and what they have been working on this exact last year is not necessarily what was just released, especially on hardware which has really long design lead times.

I think a conscious decision was made in the planning stages a while back to not push harder to make the S4 even more feature rich and instead make it two less aggressive products and allocate more resources to the next big design change and/or iteration.

 

[Abazigal]

Apple is designing their apple watches with the expectation that the average users holds on to it for 3 years on average. I don’t get all these people claiming that this year’s model isn’t enough to get them to upgrade from last year’s series 4, when that’s practically the whole point.

 

[Easttime]

Got my daily driver S0 at release. Looking forward to the S5 I just ordered.

 

[dotzero123]

If money were no object I'd probably move from 4 to 5 just because I like new technology. The always on feature will be a must have for many. To each his own. Surprised to see the s3 come down so far in price. The 3 was a very good watch too - I only upgraded for the larger screen.

 

[doelcm82]

My experience with titanium watches is they blemish easily. It looks like a dust or chalk mark that you can't rub off.

Personally, I like the idea of ceramic as it is hard enough to not show scratches. But that price for a watch that will be obsolete in 2024 is painful.

I got the S0 in Stainless Steel. At the time some of us thought maybe Apple would somehow let you replace the internals of the Watch instead of having to buy a whole new one. That clearly didn’t happen. I also thought the stainless steel and sapphire crystal would be more durable.

My sister got an S2 in Space Gray aluminum. After a year it still looked fine, and my S0 seemed slow. I was ready to upgrade. Long story short, I decided I was likely to upgrade every two or three years, and the aluminum Watch was durable enough to last me that long. The aluminum S3 I’m wearing now seems to bear that out.

For myself, I can’t justify spending two or three hundred dollars more for stainless steel or titanium, or even more for ceramic or vibranium or uru or unobtainium. I’ll never get the extra “investment” back monetarily. It won’t (and didn’t with my S0) add to my enjoyment of the Watch, and it won’t impress my friends.

I’ve ordered the S5 in Space Gray aluminum.

 

[Mactendo]

Anything is possible but I think it's best taken with a grain of salt. It's not beyond the realm of possibility for someone to go out of their way to purposely burn in an image for their fifteen minutes of internet fame. Obviously I don't know either way. I do know that my S4 with almost a year now has zero burn in. Perhaps this was an issue with earlier AW displays though because I would expect display technology to be improved. It would be an interesting experiment to see what it would take to burn in an image on a S4 or S5 AW. I don't have the $$$ just to destroy an AW but I'm sure some YouTuber out there does LOL

It’s a known limitation of all OLED screens. One year of seldom usage with changing onscreen content is ok, but my question was about how this new ‘always on display’ may affect the display knowing this issue. It may be a kind of planned obsolescence. Or maybe they do some interesting tricks to prevent it. But it still uses OLED.

 

[Breaking Good]

Did they increase the internal storage?

Apologies if this got answered already, but yes. It went from 16 GB to 32 GB.

 

[russell_314]

I got the S0 in Stainless Steel. At the time some of us thought maybe Apple would somehow let you replace the internals of the Watch instead of having to buy a whole new one. That clearly didn’t happen. I also thought the stainless steel and sapphire crystal would be more durable.

My sister got an S2 in Space Gray aluminum. After a year it still looked fine, and my S0 seemed slow. I was ready to upgrade. Long story short, I decided I was likely to upgrade every two or three years, and the aluminum Watch was durable enough to last me that long. The aluminum S3 I’m wearing now seems to bear that out.

For myself, I can’t justify spending two or three hundred dollars more for stainless steel or titanium, or even more for ceramic or vibranium or uru or unobtainium. I’ll never get the extra “investment” back monetarily. It won’t (and didn’t with my S0) add to my enjoyment of the Watch, and it won’t impress my friends.

I’ve ordered the S5 in Space Gray aluminum.

I agree with you. I guess if you're the kind of person that wears $1000 outfits on a daily basis spending a few hundred extra to get a more stylish looking watch is a non issue. I think it would be silly to extend the upgrade cycle to buy the fancier looking watch though. If money was no object I would probably buy that white ceramic model for a dress watch but the aluminum one would still be my daily wear watch because it weighs less.

 

[russell_314]

It’s a known limitation of all OLED screens. One year of seldom usage with changing onscreen content is ok, but my question was about how this new ‘always on display’ may affect the display knowing this issue. It may be a kind of planned obsolescence. Or maybe they do some interesting tricks to prevent it. But it still uses OLED.

There's no "seldom usage" with my watch. With the exception of a few days (Less than 10) that I forgot it, it's every day with 15 plus hour days. Of course I'm not purposely trying to keep the display on for hours at a time with the same content trying to get a burn in either. As to tricks on the S5 they said the brightness is reduced for the always on part but maybe there is software tricks that move the always on display items. I'm sure Apple isn't going to release it where a large number of users experience burn in. If this happened they would end up replacing screens and that would be very costly to them. There's an expectation of Apple to stand behind their products long after the warranty has expired. I sure wish this was true for other brands.

 

[PTVMan]

So every year people expect some gigantic leap in tech and models, which is not realistic or sustainable, but when Apple only delivers small, incremental upgrades everyone thinks the sky the is falling. Pathetic. Buy the Watch 5 or don’t. Who cares.

 

[Dopestar]

This was a surprise. I’d love to get this!

Sometimes my 3 doesn’t turn on when I twist my wrist. It happens enough that it becomes annoying.

I have the same issue and it is annoying, that is why it sold me with the Always on Display (AOD).