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Do either of you understand that the screen is only black when it’s not moved? Even with AOD turned off the screen is constantly illuminating as you move your arm (even slightly) and especially if you raise your wrist to look at the time. As both of you have admitted this is your first AW, you probably don’t fully understand the technology.
So it turns on when you raise your wrist? We know. Don’t really know what you mean. The vast majority of the Apple watches I’ve seen in public are blank
 
You shouldn’t assume people are stupid just because their opinion differs from yours. I’m very familiar with how an Watch works. Just because I didn’t have one doesn’t mean I didn’t know people with them. It also doesn’t mean I’ve never worn one either. If you had read my earlier post you’d know I’m disabled. I don’t move a lot. To activate my watch requires me to move my entire arm or tap the screen. Both are inconvenient if I’m driving my wheelchair. I wear my Watch on my right wrist which is also my driving hand. But even if none other that were the case I still see people with Watches and guess what. They are always just little black squares on wrists. I didn’t want that.
I didn’t say anything about you being stupid or that I think that because we have a different opinion. I don’t know anything about other posters personal mobility issues either, nor do I keep a memory for such admissions, so no I didn’t read that. Just offering my opinion here after owning and using Apple watches for several years now and the fact I’m not really missed AOD. It’s nice to have a decent battery back. If you find it useful then great, there is no correct answer.
So it turns on when you raise your wrist? We know. Don’t really know what you mean. The vast majority of the Apple watches I’ve seen in public are blank
The screen illuminates at very minimal movements, yes. Does it matter if a screen is blank if the user is not looking at it?
 
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I didn’t say anything about you being stupid or that I think that because we have a different opinion. I don’t know anything about other posters personal mobility issues either, nor do I keep a memory for such admissions, so no I didn’t read that. Just offering my opinion here after owning and using Apple watches for several years now and the fact I’m not really missed AOD. It’s nice to have a decent battery back. If you find it useful then great, there is no correct answer.

The screen illuminates at very minimal movements, yes. Does it matter if a screen is blank if the user is not looking at it?
It’s still not always on. It comes on when you raise your wrist or when it thinks you did. If you didn’t, it turns back off very quickly. It’s nowhere near “always on”. It matters to me if it’s off because like I already said, it looks stupid to me wearing a blank screen around. It’s supposed to be a watch
 
I didn’t say anything about you being stupid or that I think that because we have a different opinion. I don’t know anything about other posters personal mobility issues either, nor do I keep a memory for such admissions, so no I didn’t read that. Just offering my opinion here after owning and using Apple watches for several years now and the fact I’m not really missed AOD. It’s nice to have a decent battery back. If you find it useful then great, there is no correct answer.
You didn’t say it. It just seemed implied. One thing we can agree on is there’s no correct answer.

The screen illuminates at very minimal movements, yes. Does it matter if a screen is blank if the user is not looking at it?
It isn’t very minimal though. I’ve been moving my forearm a lot since I’m reading on my Kindle and putting it down to pick up my phone to reply to this thread. My watch hasn’t illuminated at all. But even so some of us just do not want to wear a blank screen. It’s as simple as that.
 
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My first was bought in October 2019 and the replacement came in March 2020. The second is fairly recent so is this something that was corrected within the last few months?
I bought my first AW 5 when it was first released; I bought my second one in June of this year. This year's watch gets the best battery life of the two.
 
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I definitely echo the “no right answer” sentiment, but for me AOD made earlier series obsolete overnight. By contrast I bought an S0 and didn’t see any reason to upgrade until the S3, and mainly for speed when I did (LTE wasn’t available to me until December ‘19). In other words I didn’t see the value in water resistance or GPS - I don’t swim and I use a Garmin device to track cycling so didn’t care about the watch being able to GPS itself. What matters to you may not matter to me and vice versa.

Obviously the battery takes a hit if the display is on. Personally I don’t bother to check my remaining battery when I take the watch off, and I can say that I rarely get a low battery warning, and when I do it’s almost always because I didn’t seat it properly on the charger, and that’s my fault.

I don’t personally see an advantage in having 40% left rather than 20% when I put the watch on charge, but my personal usage pattern doesn’t need to eke out maximum duration from a charge and yours might, so YMMV.

Interesting theory that S5 battery life might have got better later in production. I do casually notice sometimes how far round the ring goes when I put the watch on charge. I have a SS model from December and an SBSS from perhaps April. I have long thought that the SBSS tends to use less battery, but I had put that down to the LTE not being activated on that one.
 
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I bought my first AW 5 when it was first released; I bought my second one in June of this year. This year's watch gets the best battery life of the two.

I'm sure you know that lithium-ion batteries degrade over time. And this is mainly due to charge cycles and also ageing. With Apple Watch its especially relevant bc its being run dry and recharged every day (or almost every day). Thats alot of strain on that little battery structure. Stick a fresh battery in that older Watch and see how it does.
 
Not bothered about AoD. I wear my Apple Watch to show ME information, not everyone else. It does that just great when I raise my wrist to look at it.

I believe there are 2 camps when it comes to the watch... one that view it as something that tells the time, but also does other things, and those that view it as a “wrist computer” that happens to also tell the time. I’m in the latter, I don’t care how “watchy” it is.
 
I'm sure you know that lithium-ion batteries degrade over time. And this is mainly due to charge cycles and also ageing. With Apple Watch its especially relevant bc its being run dry and recharged every day (or almost every day). Thats alot of strain on that little battery structure. Stick a fresh battery in that older Watch and see how it does.
 
My older Apple Watch 5 was just a few months old. It had less than desirable battery life from day one. One other point, I recently gave my series 0 watch to my nephew. It still gets good battery life. I bought it the first day the Apple Watch went on sale back in 2015.
 
My older Apple Watch 5 was just a few months old. It had less than desirable battery life from day one. One other point, I recently gave my series 0 watch to my nephew. It still gets good battery life. I bought it the first day the Apple Watch went on sale back in 2015.

When I got my Watch it had battery issues. I used to have to charge it 4 times a day. I could literally watch the number tick down. I was going to send it to  but an update fixed it.
 
I haven't read all the replies, so it's possible that this has already been said, but I think it's one of those things that you'll know right away whether you want or not.

Personally, I have no desire for AOD. I have a Series 5 & I turned mine off. There is a slight delay when the watch transitions from the AOD dim display to the Normal display, and it drove me nuts to always have to wait that split second to do anything. But I also have had apple watches since V2 & have never felt the need to have AOD.

The watch responds very quickly when you flick your wrist, and for me, it's fast enough for my needs. I also had an issue with AOD where I like to see my texts on the screen when I get them, but I don't want others to see them potentially, so I had to use the 'block sensitive information' setting so that my texts, etc don't show up on the screen where they can be read. But then now I have to open them (or at least turn on the watch, I can't remember which-it's been a while) to actually read them, so for me, for several reasons, the AOD was a step down.

That being said, Im glad they offer it & a lot of people find it valuable, I'm just not one of them.
 
There is only no battery impact compared to the Series 4 if you disable AOD. It’s been well documented and from my own personal experience I know there is a percentage of the battery consumed by AOD. It’s logical though really when we consider the screen is illuminated and this in turn consumes battery power.

WRONG, sorry your watch sucks. But this thread isn’t meant to litigate battery life.
 
It’s still not always on. It comes on when you raise your wrist or when it thinks you did. If you didn’t, it turns back off very quickly. It’s nowhere near “always on”. It matters to me if it’s off because like I already said, it looks stupid to me wearing a blank screen around. It’s supposed to be a watch
I never said it was ‘always on’ in that instance? If you sole point is about it ‘looking stupid’, then that only really matters to you. It’s a plain looking gadget, not a stylish watch anyway.
You didn’t say it. It just seemed implied. One thing we can agree on is there’s no correct answer.


It isn’t very minimal though. I’ve been moving my forearm a lot since I’m reading on my Kindle and putting it down to pick up my phone to reply to this thread. My watch hasn’t illuminated at all. But even so some of us just do not want to wear a blank screen. It’s as simple as that.
You said you’d never bothered with the Apple Watch until the series 5 because AOD wasn’t present? Have you turned it off to test or am I missing something here?

Not trying to convince you, I turned AOD off on my series 5 and haven’t noticed much difference to my use. It works for me much like it did with my series 2. I’ve found the AOD feature a battery drain and within a few months the screen shows signs of burn in. I’m happy without it, others not, that’s life.
 
I never said it was ‘always on’ in that instance? If you sole point is about it ‘looking stupid’, then that only really matters to you. It’s a plain looking gadget, not a stylish watch anyway.

You said you’d never bothered with the Apple Watch until the series 5 because AOD wasn’t present? Have you turned it off to test or am I missing something here?

Not trying to convince you, I turned AOD off on my series 5 and haven’t noticed much difference to my use. It works for me much like it did with my series 2. I’ve found the AOD feature a battery drain and within a few months the screen shows signs of burn in. I’m happy without it, others not, that’s life.

I’ve turned it off in my battery testing. I Did Not Like AOD Off. I don’t care if it saves battery life. I get all day battery life already. I only use theater mode at the theater, when that was still a thing, and while sleeping. If I didn’t want AOD I could’ve saved money and bought an S4.

But again let me say this S5 is not the only Watch I’ve worn. It’s the third. And in case you’re wondering I didn’t try either of them at an  Store. A friend let me try her S3 when she won an S4 from her job. The second was my Mom’s S5 Black titanium edition. She got it at launch. I got the space gray aluminum in January. But this is all irrelevant because I don’t need to have worn one to know how they work. Watches are everywhere. And I’ve had plenty of people in my life who have had them for years. You can only see the time when the watch detects movement or when it’s touched.

No, I don’t have burn in. I switch watch faces all the time depending on what band and Rhinoshield case/rim I’m wearing. I match my watch to my outfits, mood, and wallpaper on my iPhone, iPad, and iMac.
 
I’ve turned it off in my battery testing. I Did Not Like AOD Off. I don’t care if it saves battery life. I get all day battery life already. I only use theater mode at the theater, when that was still a thing, and while sleeping. If I didn’t want AOD I could’ve saved money and bought an S4.

But again let me say this S5 is not the only Watch I’ve worn. It’s the third. And in case you’re wondering I didn’t try either of them at an  Store. A friend let me try her S3 when she won an S4 from her job. The second was my Mom’s S5 Black titanium edition. She got it at launch. I got the space gray aluminum in January. But this is all irrelevant because I don’t need to have worn one to know how they work. Watches are everywhere. And I’ve had plenty of people in my life who have had them for years. You can only see the time when the watch detects movement or when it’s touched.

No, I don’t have burn in. I switch watch faces all the time depending on what band and Rhinoshield case/rim I’m wearing. I match my watch to my outfits, mood, and wallpaper on my iPhone, iPad, and iMac.
I think that’s all rhetorical and isn’t really any different from what I have said already, so good stuff
 
I’m not wrong, if a screen is always on compared to one that isn’t, this will be reflected somewhat in battery usage.

No amount of capital letters in a response makes that any less true.

But it’s not the same screen. And I’ve been comparing to a Series 4. No difference. No amount of your disbelief makes that untrue.
 
But it’s not the same screen. And I’ve been comparing to a Series 4. No difference. No amount of your disbelief makes that untrue.
Why is it a common point that’s been raised since the S5 was released that the battery is not as good compared to the S4? It’s been talked about on dozens of threads here and many of the top reviewers have admitted it.
 
Why is it a common point that’s been raised since the S5 was released that the battery is not as good compared to the S4? It’s been talked about on dozens of threads here and many of the top reviewers have admitted it.


Ha! You’d also think that all butterfly keyboards end up sticking, all MacBook screens delaminate, all iPads end up with light bleed etc. You know how forums are. Someone starts a gripe thread and everyone with that gripe is attracted to it. Those that don’t have that problem don’t bother. I didn’t know it was “a common point” at all. Based on my experience, you all are crazy. And you know what? Just like delaminating screens and light bleed, you guys are a significant minority. Emphasis on minority.

What this boils down to is this, you can’t convince someone who doesn’t have battery issues with their watch, that their watch has a battery issue.
 
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Why is it a common point that’s been raised since the S5 was released that the battery is not as good compared to the S4? It’s been talked about on dozens of threads here and many of the top reviewers have admitted it.

It probably would behoove you to list/post those links for the sources of the ‘top reviewers’ You’re referring to. I mean, since you’re jiving with another member, it probably be helpful to see these what top reviewers said specifically, what tests were implemented, etc.
 
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