TicWatch Pro 5 Review: Best Galaxy Watch Alternative?
The smart wearable market has grown tremendously in the past couple of years, and we’ve seen an influx of Wear OS-powered devices hit the market during this time. Compared to earlier wearable devices, they do offer a ton of improvements and features, a lot of which were mere technological concepts years ago.
With that in mind, the TicWatch Pro 5 is one of the latest Wear OS devices to come out this year, and it promises to give users an edge over competing smart wearables. Today we have it here with us, and we’re going to go over some of the features that it packs inside.
Design and Hardware
Going over the watch’s design, the TicWatch Pro 5 greatly resembles the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra, although there are key differences between the two. For example, the two control buttons on the side are now gone, and are replaced by a rotating crown and a single button.
The watch features a 1.43-inch AMOLED touchscreen covered with Gorilla Glass, and also retains a secondary display that only shows essential info like time and date, and saves your battery life. There’s a bezel that surrounds the display which adds a bit of a premium look and feel to the watch, although it doesn’t rotate unlike the one found on the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic.
The watch goes for a very industrialist and rugged design – its body is made from a combination of aluminum and nylon material, and Mobvoi says that the watch has been certified to comply with US-MIL-STD 810H standards, so it will be safe from outdoor elements including rain, ice, sand, and even shocks and bumps. We would’ve loved to see a full aluminum casing on the watch, although that probably would’ve brought up its price.
Underneath you’ll find several sensors as well as the charging pins – unlike the clean magnetic charging cable on the Galaxy Watch or Apple Watch, the TicWatch Pro 5 still relies on pins whenever you need to top up your battery. Meanwhile, the silicone straps are interchangeable, so you can switch up the look of the device.
Inside, the TicWatch Pro 5 is powered by the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 Wearable Platform, and ships with Wear OS 3 with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, which should allow for enough space to install apps on the wearable.
There’s a robust selection of sensors on the TicWatch Pro 5, which comes with an Accelerometer, Gyro Sensor, Heart Rate Sensor, SpO2 Sensor, Skin Temperature Sensor, Low Latency Off-Body Sensor, a Barometer, and a Compass.
Other hardware features include a vibration motor for haptics and notifications, a speaker, microphone, Bluetooth 5.2 and 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, as well as NFC. The watch is powered by a 628 mAh battery, which Mobvoi says can last up to 80 hours on average.
Based on my usage so far it was able to last around two to three days, which is pretty impressive especially considering that most other smartwatches don’t make it past a day. This is with moderate usage though, so expect to be on the charger more often if you use your watch frequently.
Set-up and Software
Setting up the TicWatch Pro 5 is pretty straightforward, as you’ll just need to install the Mobvoi app on your phone, and pair the watch to your device. The watch ships with Wear OS 3, although we’re hoping that we get the Wear OS 4 update as well, without any delays.
Using the watch has been a good experience so far, and if you’re coming from a TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra, it should feel very familiar to you. The interface is nice and fluid, and navigating through the device using the touchscreen, rotating crown and action button is pretty straightforward. Despite the large size, it doesn’t feel too heavy on my wrist either.
The TicWatch Pro 5 does come with several pre-installed apps from Mobvoi, including several watch faces and exercise modes, and a ton of fitness tracking software. One weird omission from the Pro 5’s feature list is Google Assistant, and at the moment it doesn’t seem like there’s a workaround to its absence. This might be a bit of a disappointment, especially for users who are after Google Assistant functionality on their wearables.
With that being said though, there’s a multitude of different exercise modes on the TicWatch Pro 5, and if what you’re after is a device that can keep up with your activities, then the watch will do a pretty good job with that. I do wish that the Mobvoi app was a bit more visually intuitive, as some UI elements seem all over the place at times. Additionally, there are several “Tic”-themed fitness apps, which could have been consolidated into a single app altogether.
Final Thoughts
For a price of around $350 bucks in North America and £329 pounds in the UK, the TicWatch Pro 5 is a bit more affordable compared to competing devices like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 and 6 series, and it does come with some impressive features such a sturdy design, a large and responsive display, as well as good battery performance.
There are some factors to consider however such as the lack of Google Assistant support, the over-abundance of separate Mobvoi apps, and the lack of other size options, but if these don’t bother you, then the TicWatch Pro 5 will be enough to get you the essentials from Wear OS.
