Apple Watch Series 4 vs Series 5

The Apple Watch Series 5 has been released for a couple of months now, but some people are still skeptical on weather they should upgrade or not. We’ll cover all the major differences between the two generations.

1: The Display

The biggest difference and the main selling point of the Series 5 is the always-on display. The display uses LTPO technology to vary the refresh rate of the content from 60Hz to as low as 1Hz. The screen also dims its brightness, however still shows information that would usually be there, such as the time, date, weather, workout data, and more.

Once you raise your wrist, the display sprigs back to full brightness and changes to a higher refresh rate. The Series 4 doesn’t come with the always-on display technology, and that’s about the biggest difference between the two models.

2: A compass

All models of the Apple Watch Series 5 have a built-in compass. A compass can be quite useful in a smartwatch, while hiking, travelling, or just getting more accurate directions. The compass app shows your current elevation, incline, and longitude and latitude. It’s a nice thing to have in a smartwatch.

The Series 4 doesn’t come with a compass, so you’ll have to resort to the compass on your iPhone. Keep in mind that some Apple Watch bands have magnets in them, which can affect the accuracy of compass results on Series 5.

3: Battery life

The Apple Watch Series 4 and 5 receive the same 18-hour battery life rating from Apple. The thing is that the Series 5 doesn’t have a battery all that much bigger, so some tests find that the Series 4 beats the Series 5 in battery life. This can be explained by the always-on display in the Series 5, to which users can find an average of 20% battery decline from that throughout their day.

Of course you can turn the always-on display option off, however we find that you should still easily get through a day with battery remaining on moderate usage levels. In the future, Apple will most likely issue a software fix to help these battery problems though.

4: Case materials

While the Series 4 and 5 remain nearly identical in design, the Series 5 brings back the much-loved ceramic casing option, and introduces a new titanium option as well. Ceramic looks very clean on the wrist.

The titanium option looks really cool, but is less dark than other models. You can of course still get the aluminium and stainless steel variants of the watch. Know that you’ll have to shell out a couple extra hundred bucks if you choose to go with the ceramic or titanium options though.

You can get the Apple Watch Series 4 in aluminium or stainless steel, which still both look nice.

Conclusion

If you already own a Series 4, you should probably hold off of upgrading and instead wait until the Series 6,w which will come with some cool features, like Sleep Tracking, better water resistance and possible in-display Touch ID.

Otherwise, if you’ve got an older generation, we think it would definitely be worth it to upgrade to the Series 5. With Black Friday deals already here, there’ll never be a better time to buy the best smartwatch available!

What Apple Watch model do you have?