The Fossil Gen 5E is an affordable take on a flagship smartwatch

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Fossil has stripped back its top-end Gen 5 smartwatch to create an altogether more affordable piece of wristwear in the new Gen 5E. As the name implies, the Gen 5E ($249) shares plenty in common with its flagship sibling, and packs the same Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor, 24 hour multi-day battery, accelerometer, gyroscope, PPG heart rate sensor, and 1GB of RAM as its more expensive forebear. Naturally, Fossil has been forced to yank some features to keep that price down, which means the Gen 5E comes with less storage than the Gen 5 (4GB compared to 8GB) and does away with built-in GPS support. The configurable push buttons featured on the Gen 5 have also been axed from the Gen 5E, but unless you’re intent on packing your smartwatch with tonnes of apps and leaving your phone at home while you exercise, those seem like reasonable trade-offs.

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I’m a freelance games and technology journalist currently mashing my keyboard in the name of fine institutions like Stuff, where you'll usually find me waxing lyrical about the latest mobile morsels. I've also been known to cook up some decidedly delicious reviews from time to time, and was once dubbed 'the games industry's answer to Nigella Lawson' by someone probably somewhere.