If there’s one fairly consistent problem with smartwatches, unless you’re buying from the likes of Garmin or Coros, it’s that the battery, more often than not, requires a daily top-up or every few days at best. For the folks who are sick of having to constantly charge their smartwatch in the same fashion as their smartphone, the Xiaomi Watch 5 is the perfect antidote to those battery woes.
When used like a typical smartwatch, Xiaomi’s wearable can go for up to six or seven days at a time, which triumphs over the previous Wear OS king in this category, the OnePlus Watch 3, which would tap out after five days. What’s great is that, if you’re going for a week away and you forget to pack your charger, you can toggle the power saving mode, which disables Wi-Fi and Google Gemini, and can stretch the battery life even further to an 18-day stint.
That kind of longevity is so far from the norm in this space that if battery is your key concern, then the Xiaomi Watch 5 really is your best option. What makes the deal even sweeter is its affordable price tag, which undercuts all of the major competitors from Samsung and Google. If you go any cheaper than that, you’ll find yourself in the price range typically occupied by fitness trackers, which don’t offer the same set of smart features.
Speaking of which, you’re getting the latest version of Wear OS here and everything runs brilliantly thanks to the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 chipset. It’s a shame then that the user experience is muddied somewhat by Xiaomi’s Wear OS overlay, which feels a lot clunkier than it needs to be. The watch itself isn’t much of a looker either, so if you are more fashion-conscious, then you’ll get on better with the Galaxy Watch 8 or the Pixel Watch 4.
Who should buy the Xiaomi Watch 5?
Battery-conscious users who don’t want to be trapped by daily charge cycles.
Xiaomi Watch 5: Further considerations
Xiaomi’s software overlay doesn’t show Wear OS in its best light, unlike the Pixel Watch 4.
