Fitbit Charge 5 Review | 5 Months Later: It’s Essentially Sense Lite

Fitbit has been carrying their A Game in the world of fitness for a while now, and while they are known to be the premium wearable, it is indeed one of the handful few to do the job right with better fitness focus and anything and everything that has to do with it. It’s been 5 months since I started using the Fitbit Charge 5 for the sake of review purposes, and coming from the Fitbit Sense, which is my personal daily driver, it’s safe to say that they share a lot of common traits than its predecessor, which is what we are going to talk about in this Fitbit Charge 5 Review.

Fitbit Charge 5 Review

Band-type: Smaller Form, Less Clunkier Feeling

With the revamped design language, where the geometrical band design is completely gone, now comes with a pastel-like design and color which looks – in my opinion – rather beautiful indeed. The Band and the body of the device has this seamless design as if its one piece. We got the Fitbit Charge 5 in this blue-grey color those which looks muted and just like any other Fitbit, the bands are easily replaceable without any issue. In the box, it does come with a M and L strap, and I went for the L which suits my wrist better.

1/2

While the Charge 4 had a much more boxier design, the curvier design of this Charge 5 makes it look a lot less clunkier and easy to wear on a day-to-day basis without any discomfort. The metal body is a nice touch and if you want to get a different color band, you can match with it very well.

The Color Display is Quite the Treat

This is the first Fitbit Charge or a-band-like-Fitbit to get a color display for the very first display. So far, we have seen the big boys in the line up like Versa, Sense, Blaze and Ionic to sport the beautiful color display which works and looks great. The Fitbit Charge 5 getting a color display is definitely a huge upgrade as it does add colors and looks pleasant from that black and white display of yesteryears. It houses a 1.07”-inch AMOLED display, so the blacks are true blacks, and the colors stand out.

Does Get the Essentials Right, as always

The Fitbit Charge is people’s favorite wearable as it’s one of the most sold wearables in Fitbit’s portfolio. For us it doesn’t end there, it’s also one of the accurate wearables in terms of tracking that does a fantastic job in getting the readings right down to every second. Not much has changed from its Charge 4 brethren as the Optical Heart Rate sensor captures the right beats per minute with 2-3 bpm variability, and that’s in the well acceptable range.

The built in GPS and GLONASS helps you keep your whole running track and location recorded, so, your pace and other details are as accurate as possible.

Interestingly, it shares some of its bigger brother, Fitbit Sense’s features like the EDA Scanning and compatibility with ECG app to get an echo. The SpO2 monitoring feature works with the help of the Red and infrared sensors. Now, to be very honest, all these sensors crammed into such a tiny body is amazing and it does a wonderful job in keeping things smooth and easy. So, the Charge 5 performs better and nails the consistency very well.

All that tracking and what not, you might wonder if the battery life is any good and to our surprise, it lasted longer than our Fitbit Sense which usually gasps for air within 4 days. The Charge 5 managed to put on a good show and everything was well optimized for it to detect when it’s on a wrist and when it isn’t. Without the use of GPS, we got about close to 8 days of battery life. Now if you do throw it into the workout equation, the battery life does take a hit and reduces it by 6-7 days which is still in a well acceptable range.

Fitbit Premium is a Worthy Experience (but with a Catch)

It’s been quite a while since Fitbit announced the Premium feature which gives users access to more statistics and unlocking their full capability with the wearable. The experience brings you some of the best classes by world renowned centers – one being Les Mills, where they do a similar concept of Apple Fitness+, in which you can choose a choice of your class and track it as you work out with your Fitbit. Now, that feature is available for the Charge 5 and if you are a first timer, you get the first six months for free.

After that, it’s protected behind a paywall, which is a bit of a bummer but in my case, I immediately switched to another app that I use daily – which is Nike Club, which also gives me access to similar kinds of content. But what users will deeply miss is the ability to access more granular information about their fitness progress.

The good thing is that the free-6-months gives you enough taste for you to see if you need it or don’t. After talking to my other Fitbit friends, we were fine with not subbing to it as the Friends mode was enough to get on the nerves to stay ahead but I have to say it’s nice to have the Premium though.

Improving Smart aspect of the Wearable but no More Support for Spotify

If there’s one area Fitbit lacks is bringing the smartwatch feature over to their fitness wearable, which is why if you noticed I call it the Fitness wearable and not a smartwatch which it isn’t one. But that thing has been slowly changing since Versa 2 where Fitbit is slowly incorporating essential features like being able to see your notifications, reply and keep things at the bare minimum.

The Charge 5 does a wonderful job in keeping things connected – and during my time, I got to see notifications like messages and even email on my wrist which is great.

You can change the settings and modify it according to your liking but hey, not bad Fitbit. The thing that really got under my nerve is the lack of support for Spotify, which is ironic as the Charge 4 had support for Spotify with its Black-and-white display even.

Music is crucial to work out, and it sucks to see that the Spotify controls are gone. I do want to see it come back through an update but for now, all we can do is hope.

Marginal Difference over the Charge 4

Here’s the thing though – while the Fitbit Charge 5 sports a new AMOLED display, better design, EDA Scanning sensors and all that, the upgrade is very marginal from the Charge 4. Most of the other features, amounting to about 90-95% was present in the Charge 4 and some of those features are what people purchase the Charge for – such as: Built-in GPS+GLONASS, 3-axis accelerometer, SpO2 monitoring and even Fitbit Pay (which unfortunately isn’t available in Malaysia). So, when most of the crucial features are already on the 4, and for users on the Charge 4, there’s really no need to upgrade to the 5.

Conclusion

Here’s the thing, the Fitbit Charge 5 – despite its marginal upgrade, got a huge spike in price which is now close to a Fitbit Versa price and that made me wonder, if the Charge 5 is even a good buy. To me, it still is and with all the Fitbit centric features and tracking that keeps things in order, makes it an amazing purchase as compared to any other wearable in this price range from brands that make unreliable wearable.

But there’s also the option of getting the Charge 4 which is a lot cheaper than the 5. If you can afford to get the latest and greatest smart wearable that exist in a band form or you want the Sense, but its high price is an issue, get the Charge 5. The Fitbit Charge 5 is essentially the lite version of Sense and for those who are on the Charge 4, you are good with it. There’s no reason to upgrade unless you really want to.

Special thanks to Fitbit Malaysia for sending us the Charge 5 for making this content happen.