Google Pixel Watch 5 Review: A Decent Smartwatch with Room for Improvement
The Google Pixel Watch 5 is a decent smartwatch that delivers smooth performance and good battery life, but it's lacking in some key areas. One of its main drawbacks is that it doesn't support the new Snapdragon Wear Elite chip, which is positioned as a premium smartwatch chip for on-device AI and more. However, after testing the Pixel Watch 5 alongside the Galaxy Watch 9, Derrek Lee found that Google may have made the right choice by skipping the Wear Elite.
The Pixel Watch 5 has a sleek design with a gorgeous domed glass screen, but its shape slightly warps content towards the center. The watch runs on Wear OS 7, which looks fantastic and is incredibly fluid thanks to Material 3 Expressive. However, some users may find the gestures in Wear OS 7 to be too prevalent, making it feel like the watch doesn't want you to touch its screen.
The Pixel Watch 5 also has a feature called Gemini that allows for voice commands even when offline, which is handy if you don't have an LTE-enabled watch. However, some health and fitness features such as live-guided training sessions, insulin resilience, and blood pressure trends are still unavailable at the time of writing.
Despite its limitations, Derrek Lee finds that the Pixel Watch 5 has better battery life than the Galaxy Watch 9, making it a good choice for those who want a smartwatch with long-lasting power. However, he notes that the watches are too similar to justify an upgrade from the Pixel Watch 4.