The rotating bezel is Samsung’s iconic design for the galaxy watch. In fact, Samsung designed the whole Tizen smartwatch operating system around it.
But last year Samsung moved away from Tizen OS and joined Google’s Wear OS. Currently, my Galaxy Watch 4 runs Wear OS 3.2 with Samsung’s One UI version 4 skin over it. And Samsung is already testing the beta version of One UI 4.1 which seems to reveal even more clues that the Galaxy Watch 5 will not have a Rotating Bezel.
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How useful is the rotating bezel?
After using the Galaxy Watch 4 for about 6 months now, I quickly realized that the Rotating bezel only had about three main uses for me.
- When I’m switching between the different home screen apps.
- When changing watch faces.
- And when I want to quickly increase or decrease my music volume.
Apart from those, I find wear OS very easy to use without the rotating bezel. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why Samsung wants to discontinue this feature. But, there are other more important reasons why the Galaxy Watch 5 may not have a rotating bezel.
Battery life
The Galaxy watch 4 is packed with a ton of features that fitness enthusiasts like me want to use throughout the day. But the moment you start fiddling a little too much with it, then off goes its battery life!
I regularly use my smartwatch for sleep tracking. Then I go to the gym for workouts with it while listening to music. The average day for me is usually around 10000 steps.
On most days I wouldn’t even dare fidget with the Blood Pressure, ECG, and Electro Cardiogram apps just to economize the battery. With such an active lifestyle, there’s no way the Galaxy Watch 4’s tiny 361 mAh battery would take me through a full day without having to top it up at some point.
That’s so may so many users (including me) feeling unimpressed by the Galaxy Watch 4’s average to poor battery life. And seems Samsung has caught up to this.
Because rumors suggest that Samsung is planning to fix this issue in their upcoming flagship Smartwatch by including a 572mAh battery in the Pro model. Meanwhile, the other rumored versions of the Galaxy Watch 5 are also expected to come with larger batteries.
The best way to fit in that larger battery without dramatically making the watch thicker is by removing the rotating bezel. Because clearly, the mechanism required to drive the rotating bezel occupies a significant amount of space within the watch chassis.
Display Size
By getting rid of the rotating bezel, Samsung could technically shoot two birds with one stone. Because the real estate previously occupied around the display by the rotating bezel can be easily replaced by increasing the screen size.
I would love to see a slightly larger display on the Galaxy Watch 5 at the expense of the rotating bezel. It just makes more sense to have a bigger screen so that watch faces and apps have more space to display data. Especially since the Galaxy Watch 5 will have a larger battery juice up that display.
But so far, there are no rumors pointing to an increase in the display size. The only thing we’ve learned from the leaks is that Samsung might use sapphire glass on the Galaxy watch 5 Pro model, with a titanium case. That will make the 5 Pro overall lighter, tougher, and more durable than its predecessors.
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