This new Wear OS watch beats the Pixel Watch in one major way
The Pixel Watch might need to watch its back. The TicWatch Pro 5, available as of May 24, enters the Wear OS 3 market with a powerful processor and impressive battery life that could blow some other Android-compatible watches away.
As a follow up to the TicWatch Pro 3, the TicWatch Pro 5 launches with specs that just might justify the skipped number in naming. The Wear OS 3 watch runs on the latest Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 chipset that initially promised a major breakthrough for smartwatch battery life. It appears the TicWatch Pro 5 delivers, with an estimated 80 hours of battery life.
Paired with a large 628mAh battery, the newest TicWatch’s claimed stamina sounds seriously impressive. For comparison, the Pixel Watch has a 294mAh battery and about 24 hours of battery life and the 40mm Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 has a 284mAh battery and up to 40 hours of battery life.
80 hours of battery life means over three days of use, which also means you can leave your charger at home when you take the TicWatch Pro 5 on a weekend trip. It’s somewhat pitched as an outdoor sports watch with a compass and barometer, so continuous GPS use will cut down the battery life if you’re out running, hiking or biking, of course.
Parent company Mobvoi’s fitness tracking platform connects to the watch, powering activity tracking for over 100 workout modes, VO2 max readings, automatic workout tracking, sleep tracking, stress monitoring and more. The watch also has a One Tap Measurement feature for a collected overview of health metrics. That’s a feature I enjoy on Amazfit GTR 3 Pro and will certainly be welcomed on the new TicWatch device.
TicWatch Pro 5 outlook
TicWatch devices have cemented a second-tier spot in the Wear OS market, with the likes of Fossil behind Samsung and Google. But priced at $349.99 — the same as the Pixel Watch — it has a first-tier price.
Justifying the price tag might not come easy, as certain TicWatch models struggled with laggy performance. But the TicWatch Pro 5 is the first from the brand to launch running Wear OS 3, plus the boost from the Snapdragon’s top wearable chip could make this device the dark horse among the best smartwatches of the year.
I’ll be testing the TicWatch Pro 5 to see how it stacks up, and whether it lives up to the attractive specs, so stay tuned.
