Apple Watch Series 2 Review
The Apple Watch Series 2 (starting at $369) is the closest we’ve come to a genuine smartwatch/fitness tracker hybrid yet. In addition to a faster processor and a brighter screen than the original model, the Series 2 has a waterproof design for swimmers, and built-in GPS so runners can leave their iPhones at home. It’s a lot more expensive than a Pebble, and fitness features aren’t quite as advanced as you’ll get with some dedicated trackers we’ve tested, but it’s a solid choice for iOS users looking for the best of both worlds. Even so, like most smarwatches, it still isn’t a must-have device.
Mục Lục
Pricing and Models
The Series 2 ($180.52 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) comes in the same sizes as the original Apple Watch ($300.00 at eBay)(Opens in a new window) . The 38mm model (starting at $369) measures 1.5 by 1.3 by 0.4 inches (HWD), while the 42mm version (starting at $399) is 1.7 by 1.4 by 0.4 inches.
It looks the same as the original too, though Apple has added a ceramic case option (starting at $1,249) in addition to aluminum or stainless steel; Apple says the ceramic is four times tougher than the steel. The ceramic watch is slightly different in size, at 1.5 by 1.3 by 0.5 inches and 1.6 by 1.4 by 0.4 inches for the 38mm and 42mm models, respectively.
There’s also the Apple Watch Nike+, which starts at $369 for the 38mm model and $399 for the 42mm version. Both are made of aluminum (no stainless steel or ceramic options here), with sporty color combinations including Black/Volt (screaming neon yellow), Black/Cool Gray, Flat Silver/White, and Flat Silver/Volt. Its strap is made of the same strong elastomer silicone as Apple’s band, but it’s perforated for better ventilation as you sweat. The Nike model also includes exclusive watch faces and Siri commands, and the Nike Run Club app is built-in and accessible right from the home screen.
There’s one more new model, sort the Apple Watch Series 1. It replaces the original Apple Watch, and is basically the same hardware as the Series 2, but without the brighter screen, built-in GPS, and waterproofing. It starts at $269.
We tested a $399 42mm Series 2 model with a black aluminum case and band for this review.
Design
As you can see (above), Apple once again opts for a square look with the Series 2, whereas a lot of the competition, like the Samsung Gear S3 ($419.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) and the Asus ZenWatch 3 ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , go the more traditional circular route. I find Apple’s design attractive, and like it stands out a bit. It’s also very comfortable, to the point that I could sleep with it on without it being a bother.
You’ll find the rotating Digital Crown on the right; pushing it in twice opens up the main app while rotating it zooms in or out, scrolls, and inputs data depending on the screen you’re looking at. Next to the Digital Crown is the simply named Side Button. It wakes the watch up, powers it on and off when held down, pulls up the Dock (more on that in a bit), and sends an SOS alert. On the left side you’ll find two tiny slots for the speakers, and two pinholes for the microphone. Underneath, you’ll see metallic charging contacts and tiny buttons on either side that you push to slide off the swappable band.
Inside the box, you get the watch itself, a metallic charging cradle, a power adapter, and large and small bands.
Display
The Series 2 has an OLED Retina touch display, just like the original, but it’s twice as bright, at 1,000 compared with the original’s 450. That’s bright enough to light your way in a dark room, and it’s easily viewable in direct sunlight. The 38mm and 42mm models have a resolution of 272-by-340 and 312-by-390 pixels, respectively, just like the original. That works out to just over 300 pixels per inch () for the 42mm model. Images, text, and video all look nice and sharp. It’s even better than the the 400-by-400-pixel, 286ppi display on the Huawei Watch ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) .
Force Touch is back, which means you can push hard on the display to activate different functions depending on the app or screen that’s open. If you’re on the watch face, for example, you can press down and then cycle through the other faces available. In Twitter, Force Touching brings up the screen to compose a new Tweet.
The display isn’t always on, which means it blinks off when you put your wrist down or when you’re not doing anything on the watch for around 10 seconds. By contrast, the Pebble Time ($78.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) and the forthcoming Samsung Gear S3 are always on, which is convenient when you’re glancing at your wrist for the time.
Waterproofing and Battery Life
You can take the Series 2 down to 164 feet underwater. Apple cautions that it shouldn’t be used for scuba diving or waterskiing. You can swim with it, though, and use it to track swimming stats including calories burned, distance traveled, pace, and strokes. That puts it on par with waterproof fitness trackers like our Editors’ Choice, the Garmin Forerunner 735XT ($129.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) .
An impressive new mechanism in the watch’s speaker any water that finds its way inside. You’ll know it’s time to remove liquid when you see a water drop icon at the top of the display. When that happens, simply rotate the side dial, wait, and watch liquid sputter out of the speaker port, accompanied by a mechanical whirring sound. I wore the Series 2 in the pool, shower, and submerged it under the faucet every chance I got, and only had to eject water twice. To dry it, all you have to do is give it a shake and wipe the excess water off.
You can’t use the touch screen underwater, and it can be difficult to swipe through app screens with wet fingers. The Garmin Forerunner 735XT, by comparison, has buttons you can easily press to cycle through exercise data.
Battery life is the same as the original Apple Watch, at about 18 hours. That basically means you’ll be recharging the watch every night; I managed to get through most days with just under 20 percent of battery life left. You need to use the included magnetic charging cable to juice up the Series 2’s rechargeable lithium-ion battery. That can be frustrating if you want to want to track your sleep at night and you only have a sliver of battery life left. By comparison, Fitbit devices like the Blaze ($330.86 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) last about five days on a full charge.
With GPS enabled, your battery life estimate drops to five hours, which is enough for a short marathon. The Fitbit Surge ($249.95 at Fitbit)(Opens in a new window) also lasts about five hours with GPS on, while the Garmin Forerunner 735XT lasts up to 14 hours.
WatchOS 3 and Features
You need an iPhone 5 ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) or later to pair with the Apple Watch Series 2. (Sorry, Android users.) To pair, download or open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, open it, and follow the simple instructions. I paired the Series 2 with an Apple iPhone 6 Plus ($299.00 at Verizon)(Opens in a new window) for this review. It takes a few minutes for the pairing process to complete. Once connected, the watch automatically syncs with your mobile device whenever it’s in range.
The Series 2 ships with watchOS 3, which includes several new features like a Dock screen for quick access to your favorite apps, the ability to handwrite messages on the screen, additional watch faces, and SOS functionality to alert emergency contacts to your location or dial 911. Original Apple Watch users can download and install the new software for free.
The Dock is accessed by pressing the Side Button. It’s basically a screen where you can flip through apps you’ve already opened, which appear as little cards in a horizontal line. You can swipe through and open apps from there rather than using the tiny bubble interface on the home screen, which is convenient.
Apps can now run in the background. I kept BBC News, Twitter, and the heart rate open at the same time, which means you don’t need to wait for them to load each time you switch from one to the other.
As far as handwriting messages , the actual process takes a while—you can only scribble one letter or symbol at a time—but it’s a nice addition to have. Otherwise, you can speak into the microphone to compose your text, and access the usual array of emojis.
Watch faces are pretty standard. There are 14 to choose from, which you can customize with battery life, fitness, and weather widgets. For example, you can add a heart icon to tap whenever you want to take your pulse. But there are only so many variations you can make before feeling like there should be a more interesting selection of faces available. Pebble’s store has numerous watch faces you can download, including some fun ones based on BB-8 ($237.13 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) and Metal Gear Solid V . You can’t download additional faces for the Apple Watch.
Siri is always listening, so you only need to say “Hey Siri” to trigger voice control. For instance, you can say, “Hey Siri, set an alarm for 7:30,” and the watch will open the alarm app with the set time. Siri also works with some HomeKit-enabled smart home devices, including Philips Hue ($28.19 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) lights, which you can turn on and off with your voice, or open the app to select lighting scenes.
Of course, the Series 2 can also display caller ID information, calendar reminders, social media notifications, and text messages, provided your phone is nearby.
Apple’s third-party app selection is still the one to beat. You can read headlines with BBC News, CNN, and New York Times apps, order cabs with Uber, send, reply, like, and compose Tweets with Twitter, contact colleagues with Slack, and navigate with Google Maps. And don’t forget Pokemon Go ($0.00 at Apple.com)(Opens in a new window) , which will soon be available in Apple Watch form. As we’ve seen with the iPhone, many smartwatch apps tend to come to the Apple Watch first—and better—than they do for other platforms.
Fitness Tracking and Performance
The Series 2 uses a new dual-core S2 processor that Apple says is twice the speed of the original’s S1 chip, with a GPU that can deliver 50 percent faster performance. It’s difficult to benchmark a smartwatch, but as far as I can tell, performance is snappy. Apps open in less time that the original, and motions feel fast and fluid.
As far as sensors go, the watch has an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a heart rate monitor, just like the original. The addition of built-in GPS makes the Series 2 a good choice for athletes (particularly runners), and for the most part, it works very well.
The GPS locked onto a satellite instantly in testing, which is impressive considering most fitness trackers like the Fitbit Surge and TomTom Spark Cardio + Music can take a minute or two to dial in. Using GPS, you can leave your iPhone at home when you go for a run and still get accurate distance and pace stats, as well as maps of your route.
I wore the Garmin Forerunner 735XT at the same time that I wore the Series 2 for several jogs, and they both returned similar results, complete with the exact same map of my route. Distance, steps, and heart rate measurements were also comparable. The same goes for when I compared it with the Fitbit Charge 2. All three devices were ever only five to 10 BPMs or steps higher or lower, which is an acceptable level of deviation.
The Apple Activity app is pretty useful. It gives you a nice breakdown of active minutes, calories burned, distance traveled, and progress made, depending on the activity, all on the same screen. But it’s not as detailed as Garmin’s app, which gives you more info like average speed, cadence, maximum speed, and maximum heart rate. You won’t see in Apple’s app either, which you can see in apps from Garmin and Fitbit.
The Apple Watch doesn’t continuously monitor your heart , like the Fitbit Charge 2 and some other dedicated fitness trackers. As mentioned, you can choose a watch face with a shortcut widget to the heart rate screen, but then you have to stand or sit still and wait for it to take a measurement. The only way to continuously measure BPMs on the Series 2 is by starting a workout.
There’s also no built-in sleep tracking. For you need a third-party app, and as mentioned, the meager battery life means you’ll probably be recharging it every night anyway.
As for a fitness community, Apple doesn’t really have one. Fitbit has the largest number of users when it comes to fitness devices, so if it’s camaraderie and challenges you’re looking for, you’ll probably want to consider a tracker like the Blaze or Charge 2.
Comparisons and Conclusions
The Apple Watch Series 2 is the best smartwatch-fitness tracker hybrid we’ve seen, and better than the original watch thanks to a brighter screen, faster performance, and a waterproof design.
If you’re already sold on the Series 2 but want something even more runner-specific, check out the Apple Watch Nike+, with its exclusive watch faces, Siri commands, and built-in Nike app. If you aren’t interested in the fitness features, the Apple Watch Series 1 will save you $100 while still giving you access to Apple’s excellent third-party app selection. And if you already own the original Apple Watch, I wouldn’t recommend upgrading to the Series 2 unless you need to take it swimming.
From left to right: Garmin Forerunner 735XT, original Apple Watch, Apple Watch Series 2, Fitbit Charge 2
Triathletes who need more than five hours of GPS-enabled tracking should look at the Garmin Forerunner 735XT. If tracking calories, heart rate, and steps all you care about, the much less expensive Fitbit Charge 2 is the way to go, and it can also push phone notifications like caller ID and texts.
And if you want a smartwatch you can use with an Android phone, the Samsung Gear S2 Classic ($199.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) and Pebble Time are PCMag favorites. The Gear S2 doesn’t have nearly the app selection the Apple Watch does, but its unique rotating bezel and Tizen OS make it easier to navigate than any other smartwatch. The Pebble Time is less expensive, has a robust app selection, a week of battery life, and it’s compatible with both Android and iOS devices.
Also worth considering, the Pebble 2 + Heart Rate ($129.99) adds a lot of fitness functionality, such as sleep and step tracking. The $199.99 Pebble Time 2, due in January, does the same, along with a brighter, sharper display. Both watches feature built-in heart rate monitors, but not GPS. For the price, they’re definitely worth a look.
And you can’t ignore price. For $369 (or more), the Apple Watch Series 2 still doesn’t offer any must-have features or functionality. Sure, it’s a fun gadget for iPhone users with big budgets, but if you forget to put it on in the morning, your day probably won’t be much different. That’s an issue with smartwatches in general, but for nearly $400, it isn’t unreasonable to expect more. So while the Apple Watch Series 2 is definitely an improvement over the original, you don’t need to rush out and buy one quite yet.
Apple Watch Series 2
4.0
(Opens in a new window)
Check Stock
$180.52
at Amazon
(Opens in a new window)
MSRP $369.00
Pros
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Cons
The Bottom Line
The Apple Watch Series 2 brings advanced fitness-tracking features that make it more useful than many of the other smartwatches we’ve reviewed. But it’s still a considerable investment for a device you don’t really need.
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