realme launched the realme Watch 5, the company’s latest budget smartwatch, and the successor to Watch 3 in India last week. It has a bigger 1.97-inch AMOLED full-touch display, has built-in microphone and speaker for voice calling capabilities, adds an independent GPS module works with five GNSS systems, and promises up to 16 days battery life.
With upgraded features, the price has also increased a bit. I have been using the latest smartwatch from realme for a week now. Let us dive into the review to find out if it’s worth the upgrade.
Box Contents
- realme Watch 5 in Titanium Silver colour
- Charging dock
- User manual
Design and Build
The realme Watch 5 has the square design that is similar to most watches. It measures 271×42.5×11.7mm and weighs 50 grams with the strap. The smartwatch has IP68 water resistance. There is Accelerometer, Geomagnetic sensor, 24h Heart Rate Monitor, SpO2 Sensor. It uses Bluetooth 5.3 to connect to Android and iOS devices.
Coming to the strap, it has a lightweight 22mm interchangeable strap with a 3D-Wave design that is made of skin-friendly silicon material, and the quality of the strap is good. The design and strap resembles Apple Watch.
There is a single function aluminium-alloy functional crown on the right side that lets you wake up the watch, go back, open the menu and also pause workouts. You can also see the large honeycomb speaker grill below it. On the other side, there is a speaker grill. The watch has a matte metallic unibody finish, but it is actually made of plastic, but looks like metal.
On the back, you can see the heart rate and SpO2 sensors that have glowing green and red LED lights when you are using it to measure heart rate and blood oxygen. There is a charging connector port above it. Even though the sides have a metallic frame, the back of the watch has a plastic finish.
realme said that the smartwatch is Made in India, developed in collaboration with Optiemus Electronics Limited (OEL).
In addition to the Titanium Silver colour, it also comes in Titanium Black, Mint Blue and Vibrant Orange colour options with a matching strap.
Display and features
Coming to the display, the realme Watch 5 has a large 1.97-inch (390 x 450 pixels) 302 PPI AMOLED colour touch screen with Panda Glass protection. You can set it to turn on when you lift your hand, and the screen turns off in a few seconds to save power. Touch screen is smooth to use.
Outdoor visibility is good since it has up to 600 nits brightness. You can adjust the brightness by swiping to the left or from Settings→Adjust Brightness. You can adjust it from level 20% till 100%, and increase the screen time out till 15 seconds, but there is no auto brightness adjustment since it lacks an ambient light sensor. For indoors, level 2 is good, and level 4 or 5 is need for bright outdoors. It has 79% screen-to-body ratio, which is 17% better than the previous generation.
When you swipe from the top, you can see quick settings. This has DND, Brightness adjustment, raise to wake toggle, flashlight option that brightens up the screen, water ejection, Settings, Silent, Power saver and Find my phone.
There is also an easy notification shade when you swipe from the bottom. You can read them and dismiss, and there is also quick reply, but you can’t type any custom messages.
Pressing the function button, shows activity data, phone, Bluetooth walkie-talkie that lets you use the watch as a walkie-talkie to connect to other similar realme watches that support the feature, NFC, exercise, running courses, workout records, heart rate, SpO2, stress, sleep, breathing courses, body energy, cycle tracking, ambient volume, event reminder, alarm, stopwatch, timer, world clock, weather, music, camera control, compass, calendar, calculator, find phone and settings.
Settings shows syncing watch face, AOD, sound and vibration, display and brightness, app view, DND, auto-detect workouts, battery, double press button to configure, system and about watch. AOD options are good.
Swiping to the right shows activity data, sleep, heart rate, stress, body energy, ambient volume, and SpO2 data. Swiping to the left there is a tray with weather, music, even reminder and more that is customizable.
There is NFC support, but the company says that you need to use a M1 card reader to activate it, so without the hardware the feature is useless.
Bluetooth Calling
Since the phone has built-in Bluetooth calling feature with microphone and a speaker, you can directly make and take calls when connected to the phone over Bluetooth. It shows call log, and there is even a dial pad, in addition to contacts option which you can add from the app.
Calling experience is good indoors, and the microphone is able to pick up the voice well, and the speaker output is loud enough. There is AI ENC for calls, which cuts out noise in most condition. However, it is not that clear, if you are in noisy outdoors.
Software
The realme Watch 5 still uses realme Link companion app to connect to Android and iPhone. It shows all the important details on the health tab. Inside the Watch 3 settings you can select call reminders, notifications from the preferred apps, health reminders such as 24-hour HR monitoring, stand up reminders, Water reminders and goal-reached reminder.
The face gallery shows different types of watch faces. There are over 300 customizable watch faces to choose from, but only a few options show a lot of data such as steps, heart rate, calories burnt, weather and other details.
It has an option to sync your data to Google Fit, but this needs to be enabled directly from the app inside Me→Settings→Sync data to a third-party service, and select the watch 5. Even though there are 108 workout modes, you can only choose up to 15 workout modes to show in the watch.
Fitness and Sleep tracking
The realme Watch 5 has 108 workout modes with the main workouts being, Outdoor Walking, Indoor Walking, Outdoor Running, Indoor Running, Dynamic Cycling, Hiking, Cricket, Yoga, Rowing, Strength Training, Basketball, Elliptical Machine, Free training etc.
For outdoor activities, you get all the details such as distance, calories burnt, average heart rate, average speed, average pace, cadence and duration. You can also see VO2 Max, recovery period and heart rate zones for outdoor activities such as running.
It has independent GPS module works with five GNSS systems such as GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/QZSS/Beidou to enable route tracking without the need for a paired smartphone which was the case with the Watch 5. The lock is quick, and it did not get cut off during my run. You can press the side button to pause a workout in the middle. There is no running plans per se, but the new running courses option has options such as easy run and keep fit run options.
Compared to tracking apps like Strava running on mobile, or other GPS watches like Amazfit Active 2 that also has GPS, it is almost accurate in GPS tracking. You can share the workout data as an image, and there is also Google Fit integration. It still doesn’t have an option to sync to Strava, Runkeeper or any other popular apps.
Sleep tracking shows light and deep sleep, awake time, as well as REM sleep. Tracking is good and accurate compared to realme Watch 3. It also shows the breathing quality, and can also track daytime naps.
Heart rate, SpO2, stress monitoring, Body battery
The smartwatch uses LED lights and photo-diodes to illuminate the blood vessel for a while and monitors the heart rate via the change of green light absorbed, and it uses red light for SpO2 or blood oxygen monitoring. You can’t say this is 100% accurate. Heart rate recordings — both resting and active, and SpO2 readings are decent compared to oximeter. It also shows stress data, and there is a new body energy feature that shows body battery.
Battery life
The Watch has a 460mAh battery, and the company promises up to 16 days of battery life with normal use, and up to 20 days in Light Mode depending on settings. During my use for 4 days, I have 67% charge left. I used it for daily run tracking for about 40 minutes, set brightness to 4 during day and 2 during night, and take one or two calls over Bluetooth, and have enabled 24×7 heart rate, SpO2 and stress tracking. Battery life might vary depending on frequent use of the display with increased brightness, use of heart rate monitor during workouts, calling and all the notifications turned on.
It still uses a proprietary magnetic charging dock that you can even plug it in a USB port of a PC or a laptop or use power bank in low-power mode. It takes about 2 and half hours to charge the watch fully from 0%.
Conclusion
Overall, the realme Watch 5 is a significant upgrade over the Watch 3, particularly regarding the display and fitness tracking capabilities. The switch to a crisp 1.97-inch AMOLED screen and the inclusion of built-in GPS make it a much more capable companion for outdoor runners and fitness enthusiasts who prefer to leave their phone behind.
While the lack of auto-brightness and the plastic finish are minor compromises, the excellent battery life, reliable Bluetooth calling, and smooth UI performance make up for it. If you are looking for a feature-packed smartwatch with standalone GPS under Rs. 5,000, the realme Watch 5 is a solid recommendation, especially at the introductory price.
The realme Watch 5 is priced at Rs. 4,499, but it will be available at an introductory price of Rs. 3,999, when it goes on sale for the first time on 10th December at 12 Noon across realme.com, Flipkart and mainline retail channels.
Pros
- Large 1.97″ AMOLED display
- GPS support for accurate outdoor activity tracking
- Accurate Sleep tracking
- Bluetooth calling
- Long battery life
Cons
- No ambient light sensor for auto brightness adjustment
- Plastic body and back