[tie_index]Design & build quality[/tie_index]
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Apple Watch review: Design
For a more opinionated version of the video review above, here’s the male half of the Macworld team arguing (after four months with the device) whether the Apple Watch is a great or bad product:
The Apple Watch is beautifully designed and engineered, with a great look and feel. Its large, rounded body is a bit reminiscent of the original iPhone, but at the same time it’s modern-looking and very satisfying to hold. The Apple Watch is also pleasantly comfortable on the wrist.
We’ve seen a lot of fitness trackers over the years, and they’ve all seemed like nothing more than plastic bracelets that don’t fit the bill. One activity tracker company tried to convince us that their activity tracker was designed to appeal to the fashion-conscious woman; they even envisioned women wearing it around their necks like a necklace. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t jewelry.
There aren’t any fitness trackers on the market. It’s a similar story with smartwatches. Sure, they’ve become more and more popular over the past year among men looking for the latest tech gadgets, but they don’t appeal to everyone. One major problem is that most smartwatches are designed for men. They don’t fit comfortably on smaller wrists.
[tie_index]Dimensions[/tie_index]
Apple Watch review: Dimensions
There are two sizes of the watch: the 38mm model (which actually measures 38.6 x 33.3mm) and the 42mm model (which actually measures 42 x 35.9mm). Both are 10.5mm thick.
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- 38mm model: 38.6 x 33.3 x 10.5mm
- 42mm model: 42.0 x 35.9 x 10.5mm
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Here’s how a 38mm Apple Watch looks on Karen’s wrist:
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[tie_index]Build quality[/tie_index]
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Apple Watch review: Build quality
When it comes to materials, there are three options: aluminum for the Watch Sport, stainless steel for the Watch, and 18k gold for the Watch Edition. The Watch and Watch Edition come with sapphire crystal displays, while the Sport comes with Ion-X glass.
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We love the look and feel of the Apple Watch. As we mentioned above, it’s a bit like a miniature version of the original iPhone, and it’s reassuringly robust—after nearly a year with the Watch, there are no scratches on the body or screen, though our brightest Sport Band is starting to look a little dirty.
Apple Watch Ultimate Battery Test!
Apple doesn’t recommend submerging the first-generation Apple Watch in water. While the watch is rated IPX7 water-resistant, meaning it will survive being submerged in up to 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes, Apple describes it as “splash and water-resistant but not waterproof.” So it’s fine to use in the shower — as Apple CEO Tim Cook apparently does — but you shouldn’t take it swimming.
[padding top=”0″ bottom=”0″ right=”5%” left=”5%”]However, many reckless reviewers have done just that, and we have yet to hear a single complaint about their watch being damaged as a result of this experiment. We wouldn’t recommend taking the risk, and you obviously won’t be able to defend yourself against Apple if something goes wrong, as the company has been careful to only claim that it’s water resistant. But it seems that the Apple Watch is indeed water resistant.[/padding]
[tie_index]Straps[/tie_index]
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Apple Watch review: Straps
And since we’re talking about straps, which band should you choose to match your beautiful Apple Watch?
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[padding top=”0″ bottom=”0″ right=”5%” left=”5%”]There is a wide range of straps to choose from, including: link bracelet, sport strap, leather loop, classic buckle, modern buckle, Milanese loop, and more recently, nylon strap and Hermes straps.
The Leather Loop, Classic Buckle, Leather Loop, Modern Buckle
The Leather Loop, Classic Buckle, Leather Loop, Modern Buckle, Woven Nylon and Sport Band options are available in multiple colors while the Milanese Loop and Link Bracelet are available in just two. The Sport Band comes in 22 different colors including black, white, pink, yellow, blue, gray, lime green, lavender, antique white, stone and navy blue, for example.
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[tie_index]Screen[/tie_index]
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Apple Watch review: Screen
While we were trying our best to extend the watch’s battery life, we wanted to force close some apps and found the method of doing so to be quite unintuitive.
Coming back to the display, the resolution depends on the watch you choose. The 38mm Apple Watch (which measures 1.32 inches diagonally) has a resolution of 272 x 340 while the 42mm model offers 312 x 390 on a 1.5-inch display. This gives both models a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch.
Apple Watch Series 10 one week later! Worth upgrading?
Either way, the Apple Watch display is officially (or perhaps we should say branded) as Retina quality, and our personal experience with it has been great. It’s sharp, full of vivid colors, and we haven’t noticed any pixel distortion so far.
The touchscreen sides work great, too: They’re responsive, and we found ourselves falling back into old habits, swiping across screens whenever possible using the touchscreen even if the option to swipe is available via the Digital Crown. Closing apps and quick glances should be as easy as on the iPhone — but they’re not. To quit an app, you have to press and hold the side button, then do the same thing again. No one will stumble upon that by accident.
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[tie_index]User interface[/tie_index]
Apple Watch review: User interface
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Apple’s design expertise is only a small part of what makes the Apple Watch special. Another factor in its favor is the user interface. The problem with many current smartwatches is that the user interface is embedded in a small screen and you have to manipulate these small visual elements with your fingers, which are larger than the elements you’re trying to touch.
Below we examine Apple’s method for controlling the user interface, and the software you can expect to see on the Apple Watch.
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[tie_index]Using screen[/tie_index]
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Apple Watch review: Using the Apple Watch screen
One way to use the watch is through the screen. You can swipe across the screen, tap items to select them, or press harder to get more options — like using a right-click. Various gestures also let you bring up other elements of the operating system. For example, Glances can be accessed by swiping up on the watch face.
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There’s also Apple’s Force Touch technology, which detects how hard you’re pressing the watch and acts accordingly. There’s a difference between a hard press and a light tap. (We’ll discuss Force Touch in more detail below.)
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[tie_index]Performance[/tie_index]
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Apple Watch review: Speed/performance
One potential weakness of the Apple Watch—depending on how stringent your standards are when it comes to wearable technology—may be its overall speed. Several reviewers found the interface to be slow to use and noticed a delay before certain actions.[/padding]
Update 8 September 2024: It should be noted that the below section is based on the original watch and not the Series 1 or 2 which feature a 50 percent faster processor.
As with many aspects of this product, experiences varied between team members, and day-to-day performance was likely affected by factors such as the apps and glances currently running. It’s rare to find an app that responds almost instantly, opening quickly but often crashing, leaving us staring at a black loading screen; and syncing processes to the iPhone, via Bluetooth, can be slow.
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We also found, as many users have, that third-party apps can sometimes be slow to launch. The goal of watchOS 2 was to speed up third-party apps by allowing them to run natively on the Apple Watch, but as we mentioned in the watchOS 2 section of our review below, we still found the apps to be very slow and often gave up and ended up using iPhone apps instead.
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[tie_index]Digital Crown[/tie_index]
Apple Watch review: Using the Digital Crown
Apple’s solution to the navigation problem is to use something that has always been a feature of watches in a new way.
The dial on the side of the watch—properly called the crown—has been brought into the 21st century and transformed into what Apple calls the Digital Crown. This Digital Crown solves the problem of scrolling through icons on a small screen.
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There’s another button below the Digital Crown. This button takes you to the Home screen and the Friends app, where you can connect with your friends (more on that below). This button is also used when paying for things with Apple Pay (more on that below, too).
[tie_index]Battery life[/tie_index]
Apple Watch review: Battery life
Apple claims that on a typical day, with normal use, you should get 18 hours of battery life from the Apple Watch. In other words, you should be able to last a full day, but that’s about it: expect to charge it every night. (Which, by the way, rules out the possibility of sleeping with the watch on—which could be disappointing for sleep app developers.)
In reality, your usage may vary. Apple’s “typical day” includes a half-hour workout, but if you exercise more than that, the battery may drain faster — in Apple’s tests, the battery lasted 6.5 hours during a workout (so you should at least be able to run a marathon without running out of battery). If you use your Apple Watch to play music, you’ll also find that this drains the battery a bit. Apple got 6.5 hours of audio playback from our test device before it ran out of juice.
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[tie_index]Pricing and availability[/tie_index]
Apple Watch review: Apple Watch UK price
Prices vary depending on the watch and band you choose. For more information on watch prices, read our tips for buying an Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch starts at £259 in the UK, for the 38mm Apple Watch Sport with a plastic band, and £299 for the 42mm version. The stainless steel Apple Watch starts at £479, the newer Apple Watch Hermes starts at £1,000, and the 18-carat gold Apple Watch Edition starts at £8,000.
OUR VERDICT
The Apple Watch isn’t the first smartwatch ever, and it doesn’t do anything that its competitors don’t. But what it does do, it does as well as any other smartwatch, thanks to Apple’s expertise with the user interface. It’s a sleek device to use, though be aware that it’s not entirely intuitive, especially at first. Over time, it will become familiar and easy to use.