Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro vs Garmin Forerunner 955: Which is the Best Smartwatch? (2023)

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  Those:best buy

  Watch Samsung Galaxy 5 Pro

  Professional laptop from Samsung

  A battery giant

  400 $450 $Save $50

  The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro improves on the regular versions of the wearable with a larger screen, longer battery life, and adventure features. As a result, it's Samsung's most expensive wearable to date.

  Advantages

  • three days battery
  • Premium looks and design
  • Runs Wear OS which means lots of apps

  In contrast

  • No ANT+ connection
  • Questionable GPS tracking
  • For larger wrists only.

  Starting at $210 at Samsung $400 at Amazon $400 and best buy

• 

  Fonts: Garmin

  Garmin Forerunner 955

  choice of agent

  An athlete's best friend.

  The Forerunner 955 is Garmin's top-of-the-line sports watch. What the smartwatch lacks in flexibility, it makes up for with fitness features that athletes will love.

  Advantages

  • battery life for weeks
  • Brilliant guide to health and fitness
  • Excellent exercise tracking, expandable via ANT+

  In contrast

  • utility design
  • Garmin OS is not very flexible
  • Restricted apps via Garmin IQ

  $491 at Amazon $500 and Best Buy

With the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, Samsung has gone to great lengths to make one of theThe best Android smartwatchesfor types of outdoor activities. And while it's certainly a tough sell for those with small wrists, others will appreciate the chunky design and longer battery life.

These improvements appear to put the Galaxy Watch in competition with Garmin's rugged and sporty offerings. And starting at $499, the Garmin Forerunner 955 is the most obvious competitor to theWatch Samsung Galaxy 5 Pro, which starts at $449. So which one is right for you? See how the two compare in several key areas.

price and availability

The Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is the priciest wearable in Samsung's collection, costing $449 if you're happy with Bluetooth connectivity, or $499 if you want LTE -- handy if you're working without your phone would like. The Garmin Forerunner 955 starts at $499 and doesn't have an LTE option at the time of writing.

But it has its own high-end version: the Forerunner 955 Solar. As its name suggests, it has the ability to charge its internal battery using the sun's rays (although it's not intended to replace a regular charger). It costs an additional $100 to $599.

Project

Fonts: Garmin

While the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro and Garmin Forerunner 955 look very different, they do have one thing in common: their weight. It's also not a watch for slim wrists, measuring 45.4mm or 46.5mm wide and weighing 46g or 52g respectively.

But that's where the similarities end, and in terms of sheer style it's a clear win for Samsung. As for smartwatches, it draws everyone's attention with a clean circular design punctuated by two buttons on the right side. The 1.4-inch AMOLED screen is bright and vibrant with a 450 x 450 resolution that ensures everything looks incredibly sharp considering the relatively small screen size. The only real downside is that Samsung has decided to remove the rotating bezel from theGalaxy Watch 4 Classic. Too bad, because it was very satisfying to use and a good alternative to the clumsy press-down on a fiddly touchscreen.

The Garmin Forerunner 955, on the other hand, has a more purposeful design. Although it has a touchscreen, navigation is primarily done using the five buttons that surround the screen. This screen is a 1.3-inch, 260 x 260 pixel transflective MIP LCD, perfectly usable but not quite as eye-catching as Samsung's offering.

It's also worth noting that Samsung designed the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro for Android only, while the Forerunner 255 works with either iOS or Android. Additionally, some features like ECG and blood pressure measurement require a Samsung smartphone, which seems needlessly cumbersome.

Software

This is where the biggest difference between the two watches lies. Roughly speaking, the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is a sports watch, while the Forerunner 955 is a sports watch that is all about intelligence. It's a little more complicated, but it's a good way to prioritize what's important to you.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro runs Google's Wear OS, which means you have a wide range of apps and customization options. It also means a host of built-in Google services, including Maps, Gmail and Google Assistant. You can also use it to use Google Pay or Samsung Pay for contactless payments on your wrist. The Forerunner 955 can also make contactless payments, but only through Garmin Pay, which is supported by fewer banks, especially outside the US.

The Forerunner 955's software is significantly less flexible and, as you'd expect, focuses on health and fitness. You can change the watch face and add additional apps through the Garmin IQ Store, but there aren't a huge number available and it doesn't look like that's changing any time soon. You receive notifications but cannot respond to them on the watch.

However, the Garmin Connect app is one of the best, with ridiculous amounts of training data to analyze. In comparison, Samsung Health is a lot simpler and still doesn't have a web version, meaning you have to do all the scans on your phone.

health and beauty

Fonts: Garmin

What the Garmin Forerunner 955 lacks in style and flexible software, it more than makes up for in sports tracking that is second to none. Not only can GPS track everything from pickleball to bouldering, it connects quickly and is incredibly reliable. Not for sale on GPS? The watch also supports GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDuo and QZSS so you can lock anywhere.

But that's only a small part of the Forerunner 955's commitment to health and fitness, with all manner of features including reports that tell you exercise intensity based on sleep and energy levels. There's also Stamina (which tells you how much energy you have left during a given workout), PacePro (which adjusts your pace based on your altitude), and a Run widget that counts down to a scheduled run using your predicted effort, based on your training and body measurements. It even tells you the expected weather on the big day.

Finally, and most importantly for serious athletes, the Garmin Forerunner 955 supports ANT+, a wireless protocol used in many fitness accessories such as pedometers and chest straps. In other words, the Forerunner 955 makes it easy for anyone who wants to get even more data.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, on the other hand (or on the wrist), is not ANT+ compatible and is aimed more at adventurers than at athletes. While it records over 90 types of exercise, it feels more like an afterthought and the GPS readings are questionable at times.

However, Samsung's 3-in-1 BioActive sensor, which combines heart rate, SpO2, body composition and temperature, has its appeal for more general wellbeing insights. You can even use the watch to take an EKG or take your blood pressure, although the latter needs to be calibrated via a special bracelet and both require a Samsung phone.

Samsung has introduced GPX mapping for the Pro model, but this only works for cycling and hiking so far.

Battery life

Ever since the switch from Tizen OS to Wear OS, battery life has been something of an Achilles' heel for Samsung smartwatches. But the company corrected that with the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, outfitting it with a whopping 590mAh cell. This gives you up to 80 hours of use, or 20 if you have the GPS on all the time.

It's decent time for a Wear OS smartwatch, but the Forerunner 955 easily tops it with battery life that's measured in days rather than hours. You can expect up to 15 days in smartwatch mode or 42 hours of GPS activity.

Those numbers increase to an average of 20 and 49 hours if you opt for solar mode (assuming reasonable exposure to 50,000 lux of light).

Which one is right for you?

While the Garmin Forerunner 955 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro appear to be fairly similar products in terms of price and bold branding, they actually target different markets. One is a smartwatch that works like a sports watch while the other is a sports watch with some smart features. Committed athletes will love how seriously the Garmin Forerunner 955 takes fitness tracking, both on the watch and in the Garmin Connect app. But it looks plain and isn't very flexible when it comes to portable devices. It offers basic notifications and a limited app store beyond its sporty core.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, on the other hand, is a wonderful smartwatch, but a little underwhelming as a fitness tracker in terms of both accuracy and analytics. But it looks stylish whether you're on the go or in the office, and it offers plenty of customization options for those who want to immerse themselves in Wear OS.

Both are expensive, of course, and you may decide that the cheaper products from either company are better for you. The basicWatch Samsung Galaxy 5starts at $280 while theGarmin Forerunner 255it costs $349. Both are fairly well-rounded wearables, and you might decide to save a few bucks and go for one of them.

Those:best buy

Watch Samsung Galaxy 5 Pro

400 $450 $Save $50

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro improves on the regular versions of the wearable with a larger screen, longer battery life, and adventure features. As a result, it's Samsung's most expensive wearable to date.

Starting at $210 at Samsung $400 at Amazon $400 and best buy

Fonts: Garmin

Garmin Forerunner 955

The Forerunner 955 is Garmin's top-of-the-line sports watch. What the smartwatch lacks in flexibility, it makes up for with fitness features that athletes will love.

$491 at Amazon $500 and Best Buy