Hi, you all fitness freaks! The latest fitness tracker in town comes the Fitbit Charge 5 smartwatch. From the number of steps you take to the number of calories you burn during the day, it monitors everything right from your wrist. What’s more with the Charge 5 is that you even get to wear it to sleep comfortably to know your sleep duration, quality and sleep score. Feeling stressed? Try taking an EDA scan through your smart sidekick to track your stress levels and keep them at bay.
From automatic screen waking and an Always-On display to detailed tracking of workouts like swimming sessions and whatnot, the Charge 5 is your all-rounder fitness buddy. Here is a complete review of the Fitbit Charge 5 smartwatch, covering its design, display, performance and applications. Why not weigh its pros and cons yourself and make an informed buying decision?
Table of Contents
Fitbit Charge 5 Review: Design And Display
The Fitbit Charge 5 comes in a cleverly designed package with navigations displayed within for quick and efficient unboxing. It will make you realise how important the little things are. It is offered in 3 dual-tone colour themes, namely Black with Graphite Stainless Steel, Lunar White with Soft Gold Stainless Steel and Steel Blue with Platinum Stainless Steel. We were able to get our hands on its Steel Blue version.
The package consists of the Fitbit Charge 5 smartwatch, an extra strap, a charging cable with a magnetic pin, a quick start guide and a product information guide. Opening the box, the first thing that your eyes will set on is the shiny black display of the smartwatch. Moreover, its innovative sloping-inwards resting case, which looks quite fascinating, increases your temptation even further to pick the device up. Once in your hand, you’ll feel the Fitbit Charge 5 to be quite light weighted. Moreover, the syncing proportions of the smartwatch, with its main body being perfectly in line with the width of its band is hard to miss.
The black touchscreen display is mounted on its platinum stainless steel body. On both the left and right sides of the display, you will observe separate longitudinal button-like sections. These actually are its EDA (Electrodermal Activity) sensors, which detect tiny electrical responses on your skin to track your stress levels. Flip it over and you will notice more sensors fixated beneath the display in order to track health metrics such as your heart rate, ECG and relative SpO2 through your wrist. The smartwatch is also equipped with a 3-axis accelerometer, GPS and a vibration motor.
The Fitbit Charge 5 comes with a 1.04-inch AMOLED display with a 326ppi pixel density. It has a black display theme and the colours on the screen appear quite bright, full of vibrance and high contrast which appeals to the eye. When taken in sunlight, the screen is fairly legible. The smartwatch straps are made up of silicone and have a smooth texture. The thickness of the Charge 5 band is slimmer than that of the Charge 4 model and is hence more wearable. However, wearing the watch for a prolonged period may get a bit uncomfortable. Hence, it is advised to remove the smartwatch from time to time, to give your wrist a little break.
Overall, the Fitbit Charge 5 design looks quite sporty while its display is a visual treat for the eyes.
Read also: Xiaomi Redmi Watch 2 Lite Review: Elegant Design With A Thorough Health Check System
Fitbit Charge 5 Review: Performance And Applications
Before coming to its performance and applications, let us elaborate a little further upon the Fitbit Charge 5 specs. Its main body of the smartwatch excluding its wrist band comes with dimensions of 36.7mm x 22.7mm x 11.2mm. It weighs about 28g in total and is equipped with Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and GPS. It is 5 ATM water-resistant and is sweat, rain and splash-proof. Its battery life can vary based on the extent and type of usage. It can last for about 7 days or more upon mild usage and for about 5 days upon mediocre to extensive usage.
On its home screen is visible the date and time along with five metrics displayed one at a time. These include the no. of steps taken, distance covered, active zone time, calories burnt and heart rate. Tapping on the respective metric displayed on the screen changes it to show the next in line out of the five. There is also a meter colour coded like a heat map which represents your daily metric data visually.
From the home screen, you can swipe left and right to access applications like ECG, EDA Scan, Timers, Alarms, Exercises and Notifications. Swiping up takes you to the dashboard along with a pictorial representation of the fitness goals you achieved, including hourly activity, heart rate, sleep score, SpO2, exercises and more. Swiping down from the home screen displays the Payments section, DND mode, Sleep mode, Screen Auto Wake, Water Lock and the Settings app. Swiping left to right on any screen other than the home screen acts as a back command whereas a double-tap takes you back to the home screen.
The Fitbit Charge 5 offers many features but works best when used with the Fitbit mobile application. To start with, it monitors the number of steps that you take with great accuracy. It displays both your current heart rate as well as your resting heart rate. Moreover, high or low heart rate notifications can be set, when outside the workout mode, so that you are warned in time, like during a walk, etc. Its ECG application, however, doesn’t seem to be functional yet.
The various exercises that the Fitbit Charge 5 allows you to monitor include Run, Bike, Swim, Treadmill, Weights and Interval workouts. You make changes to this list via the Fitbit app on your smartphone. Detailed reports are shown on the Fitbit app for each exercise or workout you undergo or for each health application that you use. You can set exercise goals for each exercise and time them as well. The smartwatch gives automatic reminders to you for making hourly movements, completing your exercise goals and more. Moreover, you can also track your menstrual cycle through the device as well as its mobile app.
For monitoring your stress levels, the smartwatch is equipped with on-wrist EDA sensors on both sides. It requires you to touch the sensors with the fingertips of your thumb and forefinger on either side. However, you have to keep extremely still for 3 minutes for the EDA sensors to record observations. Otherwise, it won’t work. The Charge 5 also provides a sleep monitoring application.
It requires you to switch on the Sleep mode and wear your smartwatch to bed. In the morning, you can sync your smartwatch with the Fitbit app. You will be given a sleep score based on the total time you spent sleeping and the quality of your sleep. Through the Fitbit app, you can get access to your detailed sleep records. You even get to monitor your time spent in sleep bifurcated into the different sleep stages, namely Deep, Light and REM sleep.
One of the highlights of the Fitbit Charge 5 smartwatch is the provision of its 24-hour always-on display setting. What’s even more fascinating is its Screen Auto Wake mode, which you can set to switch ‘On’ or keep it on ‘Manual’ mode. If you switch it on, its display will turn on automatically without touching as soon as you bring the watch towards yourself. Whereas if you move your wrist away from you, the smartwatch detects that it’s no longer in use and the display turns off automatically.
However, if you don’t want the screen to go on and off automatically, you can opt for the Manual mode. To take it to the next level, the Charge 5 allows you to set the display to Always On mode specifically during workouts, after which it will return back to its normal setting.
Read also: OnePlus Nord CE 2 Review: Super Stylish Design With Excellent Performance
Verdict
After reviewing the Fitbit Charge 5, along with its sporty design and well-lit display, the range of fitness tracking and display features that the smartwatch comes with is great. It even sends you email updates providing your weekly/monthly fitness reports, battery logs, and more. However, its price seems to be a bit on the higher end, although it comes with the best set of features in the Fitbit range. The Fitbit Charge 5 price in India starts from Rs 13,999. So if the cost is not a problem, we would recommend you to go for it.
Fitbit Charge 5 Pros
- Sporty Design
- Always On Display And Screen Auto Wake
- Stress Levels And Sleep Monitoring
Fitbit Charge 5 Cons
- ECG doesn’t seem to be functional yet
- Battery life could be improved
- For EDA tracking, one has to remain completely still for 3 minutes, otherwise, it won’t work.
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