Josh Hendrickson
Fossil is no stranger to the smartwatch game, and it’s latest entry hopes to entice you with new size options and a reduced price. The Fossil Gen 5E keeps the best features of the last year’s Gen 5 while adding a new 42 mm size option and pulling the price from $295 down to $249.
Surprisingly, the stripped-back price doesn’t mean you’ll lose many features from the original Fossel Gen 5. Instead of 8 GBs of storage, you get 4 GBs of storage. The crown on the right side doesn’t rotate, and you don’t get GPS (you’ll need a phone for that). And you also don’t get the ambient light sensor, altimeter, no compass.
But beyond those omissions, you still get a 1.19-inch OLED display, sleep tracking, battery saving, and fitness features, and the latest version of Wear OS. Some of those features only hit the original Gen 5 recently.
And unlike the Gen 5, the Gen 5E comes in both 42 mm and 44 mm sizes. They both have the same size screen, but you get smaller bezels with the 42 mm size.
Unfortunately, the two watch generations share one other characteristic—the processor. The Fossil Gen 5E retains the same Wear 3100 processor of the previous generation, rather than stepping up to the more recent Wear 4100 processor. The Gen 5E will also come with 1 GB of ram, and a 3,000 mAh battery.
You can preorder the watch today, and it will ship “close to” November 3, 2020.
