Apple

I also have a S5 I’m looking to upgrade. I’ve been waiting for a processor bump so this is good to see

I’ve not noticed my watch get much slower, although the battery has degraded. One thing that I did notice was that when I upgraded my iPhone my watch felt a lot faster, especially when using Siri or anything that used a lot of data transfer from the iPhone.

Most of us really don’t get a new one every year. However releasing a new model every year, even with fewer changes, means people who update less frequently always get a huge improvement.

I replaced my series 3 only when it started having memory problems and would no longer update. My series 6 is fantastic and I have no plans to replace it yet, but …… I’m hanging on the edge of my seat every year for the new model, wondering whether they’ll add a health sensor or other feature that I “must have”

Anyone that has done software/hardware development knows that more new features usually means more bugs/broken stuff. I'm always glad to see stability/minor updates

If you have an iPhone, it's a good move.

There are a few small things Garmin watches are better at, but there's a massive list of things Apple Watches do better than Garmin ones. It's not even close.

I'm pretty sure the Series 9 is mostly unchanged because there's basically nothing left Apple can do to improve the hardware... it's just a waiting game for batteries that hold more power - which will allow more features.

On battery life... Garmin advertises "8 days" for the Vivoactive 4 but that's only if you don't use certain features. It's exactly the same with an Apple Watch... real world battery life depends what is active, how many notifications you receive, how often you check the time, how often you are out of bluetooth range of your phone or a wifi network, etc etc.

Generally because Apple watches can do more than Garmin watches, you're likely to get less real world battery life. But it's easy enough to charge them once a day (20 minutes or so on the charger is enough. Doesn't have to be overnight).

The lowest power mode an Apple Watch can run in (it will only tell you the time) will last a full month on a charge.

I have the s4 and miss a little of the extra features like temperature

Have you had the battery replaced yet, how old is it?

If you don’t need the new features, they have made massive improvements to battery life—they’re just hidden behind the new features a s5 owner might not care about or need.

When I got my S6, I disabled:

• Pulse OX
• Always on display
• wake on lift
• noise monitoring

I also set the vibration to the lightest/most subtle mode.

When new, I was getting 56 hours.

I’m down to about 48 hours after just over two years.

Caveat: I use a Bluetooth HRM when working out. When I workout with the watch as the always-on HRM battery life is shortened accordingly.