In its tenth The Apple Watch is facing some serious challenges following its birthday. While it remains one of the most popular smartwatches and fitness trackers in the world, the wearables market has been flooded with imitators and copycats. Plus, there are few good reasons to upgrade to a new Apple Watch, especially since a used Series 6 supports the latest watchOS updates and looks basically the same as a new model. An older Series 6 also has blood oxygen sensing, a now-standard health feature that newer Apple Watches don’t have due to a patent dispute with health tech company Masimo Corp. Lastly, and most devastatingly, the Apple Watch is also facing some serious competition from the Google Pixel Watch 3.
After a decade spent defining a new market, the Apple Watch is no longer the only compelling smartwatch (or the only smartwatch worth owning).
Tasked with making this year’s Apple Watch irresistible, the company made a number of improvements. The Series 10 now comes in a polished jet black finish that’s actually pretty shiny. The watch case is also much thinner and lighter, with a new S10 chip that’s been de-angled on one side to be flatter, and a brighter, larger display with a wide viewing angle. The Series 10 now tracks your breathing disorders while you sleep and can tell you if you might have sleep apnea. It charges faster, has a new speaker, a new depth gauge, and a new water temperature sensor. And watchOS 11 is still the best watch OS around. It just is.
The Watch Series 10 may not deserve all that adulation, and I’m pretty sure it… Beyoncé is not going to release Pap smear photos of her wearing it (unless she does, in which case, my fault), but it’s still the best smartwatch for iPhone users. The lack of blood oxygen detection is a major turnoff, but at the end of the day, it’s still the watch I have the hardest time taking off.
Great views
The most incredible thing about the Series 10 is that the display on the 46-millimeter model is actually… bigger The 49mm Watch Ultra 2’s display is much larger than the 49mm Watch Ultra 2’s. This trick is achieved through the miracle of geometry. The watch case has curved edges and the display extends over the sides, while the Watch Ultra 2 has a flat display and a titanium case that protects the corners from bumps and jolts.
Photography: Adrienne So
It’s also much thinner and lighter than previous watches, and this is especially noticeable when compared to the 45mm Google Pixel Watch 3—Google’s watch is 14.3mm deep, while the Series 10 is just 9.7mm deep. Personally, I have no problem wearing big, chunky sports watches (the bigger the better, I always say), but I know people, including my own husband, who can’t sleep in one because it’s too big.
The back is also now metal, both to accommodate some hardware changes and to improve the feel in the hand, though I don’t really see or feel much of a difference when I compare it to the ceramic back of the previous Apple Watch. I love the jet-black, brushed aluminum finish, though my fingertips do look greasy.
The curved edges do reflect the design of the Pixel Watch 3, but the displays work differently. I compared the two watch displays and the Series 10’s has a wider viewing angle; the Pixel Watch 3’s display becomes unreadable much faster than the Series 10’s when you turn the watch away from you. I’m having a hard time finding this change. that Helpful: I’m a very active working mom with two kids and two dogs, but somehow even I don’t find it that difficult to move my wrist towards my face.
Photography: Adrienne So