Apple Watch Series 8 review

The Apple Watch has been the perfect smartwatch sequence because it started in 2015. It nonetheless is, even now we now have the Google Pixel Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 to think about. The Apple Watch Collection 8 has essentially the most superior show design, good health metrics accuracy and the perfect app ecosystem of the lot.

Specs

5ATM water resistance

32GB storage

396 X 484 pixel decision (45mm), 352 x 430 (41mm)

Apple S8 processor

Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi

As much as 18 hour battery life

45mm x 38mm 10.7mm (45mm)

41mm x 35mm x 10.7mm (41mm)

39.1g (45mm), 32.2g (41mm)

New options for this 12 months are gentle at greatest, although. A temperature sensor is used for ovulation monitoring and a extra superior gyroscope can inform while you fall off your bike (cheery). Our favourite new elements will not be within the {hardware}, however the software program. The Apple Watch Collection 8 allows you to see masses extra pages of stats when you run. And because the major display is identical as ever, you possibly can ignore them when you don’t need the litter.

This isn’t essentially a cause to improve, as older watches get these new train chops too. Nonetheless, it does make the Apple Watch Collection 8 extra interesting than earlier generations had been in opposition to watches from health firms like Garmin, Coros, Polar and Suunto.

There are causes to stay with these exercise fan favorites, thoughts. The Apple Watch’s battery life remains to be very quick, and also you want an iPhone to even set the Apple Watch Collection 8 up. Learn on for our full overview. And when you resolve the Apple Watch Collection 8 isn’t for you, you will discover extra tried and examined merchandise in our greatest health trackers information.

Value and launch date

The Apple Watch Collection 8 launched in September 2022. And whereas this watch might not instantly appear an enormous departure from the Collection 7, 2022 was a giant 12 months for the Apple Watch.

This mannequin is now the mid-price Apple Watch. The Apple Watch Collection 8 sits above the Apple Watch SE and under the brand new Apple Watch Extremely.

It begins at $399/£419 for the 41mm mannequin with aluminum case, and $429/£449 for the 45mm model. Stainless-steel Apple Watches begin at $699/£729, and in all instances you possibly can find yourself spending considerably extra if you’d like one of many costlier straps. And you’ll pay an additional $100/£100 “mobile”/4G connectivity.

The model reviewed right here is the 45mm aluminum Apple Watch Collection 8 with LTE/4G, so would value $529/£549.

Apple Watch Series 8

(Picture credit score: Andrew Williams)

Design and show

The Apple Watch Collection 8 appears nearly precisely the identical because the Apple Watch Collection 7. There’s a fraction of a gram’s distinction of their weight in accordance with Apple’s personal specs, however it’s too refined to be picked up by our personal scales.

In case you are an Apple Watch Collection 7 proprietor questioning when you ought to improve, the reply is ‘most likely not’. And never just because the 2 watches feel and appear just about similar — extra on that later.

Nonetheless, we come to the Watch Collection 8 not contemporary from sporting the Collection 7, however after utilizing the Fitbit Versa 4, Garmin Venu 2 Sq and Google Pixel Watch. There are some extra attention-grabbing observations to be made right here.

Apple Watch Series 8

(Picture credit score: Andrew Williams)

Apple has essentially the most superior wanting display of the lot, by an enormous margin. Within the Collection 7 era it bumped up its show space to 1143 sq. millimeters, and consequently the Apple Watch Collection 8 has a lot smaller display borders than every other rival. Apple doesn’t publish display dimension in inches, however it’s round 1.73in throughout in accordance with our tape measure.

It makes the 45mm Apple Watch Collection 8 really feel like an actual wrist pc, which is definitely a great argument for the 41mm mannequin when this sequence is supposed to be one of many much less dorky wearables. From a sheer tech perspective, the dominating display is spectacular even when it isn’t new.

Ruggedisation stays the identical too. The Apple Watch Collection 8 has 50M water resistance, which you’ll be able to belief for floor stage swimming however not far more than that — the entire ‘50M’ factor turns into a bit misleading when grafted onto actual world use. And it’s IP6X mud resistant, that means it’s fully dust-tight.

The watch is kind of snug for close to 24/7 put on, and the fluoroelastomer Sport Band seen right here is way nicer than the typical silicone wearable strap. For peak consolation we’d advocate one among Apple’s Sport Loop straps, though the Sport Band is prone to look new for longer. It’s made from hardy stuff.

Apple Watch Series 8

(Picture credit score: Andrew Williams)

Options

The Apple Watch Collection 8 has simply a few new {hardware} options. A temperature sensor is the massive one. That is used for ovulation cycle monitoring. Put on the look ahead to a month and those that have a menstrual cycle will begin seeing ‘retrospective’ ovulation instances. This may very well be helpful for these seeking to get pregnant.

Put on the watch in a single day day-after-day for a stretch and also you’ll begin seeing temperature tendencies within the Well being app in your cellphone too. However we all know of no plans to make use of this knowledge to recommend you may be coming down with an sickness, or for every other use.

The opposite contemporary Apple Watch Collection 8 {hardware} function is an improved gyroscope, utilized by the incident detection mode to inform, for instance, while you’ve been in a automotive accident. Incident detection is just not new, however its skill to find out excessive g-force movement is.

For many of us these options aren’t going to be too helpful. However there are main software program adjustments on the health aspect.

Apple Watch Series 8

(Picture credit score: Andrew Williams)

Begin a run with the Apple Watch Collection 7 utilizing pre-Collection 8 software program and you may take a look at a single web page of stats whereas monitoring. It gives all the things most folk want (time, HR, distance, rolling km tempo, common km tempo) however is nothing just like the Garmin expertise.

The Apple Watch Collection 8 goals to get a lot nearer to the texture of a devoted runner’s watch. That fundamental web page stays, however there’s extra when you flick up. You’ll be able to see a devoted coronary heart price web page and visible illustration of the zone you’re in, the time in that zone and common coronary heart price. There’s a web page displaying elevation and one other with Apple’s well-known Exercise Rings.

Apple calls these exercise views, and you may select which go into the precise exercise roster for every mode. The one not included as customary is, for many who wish to dig deep into new options, essentially the most attention-grabbing. That is Operating Energy, which measures your exertion in watts (a metric used extra generally in biking). In observe, it’s a bit like attempting to run to a particular coronary heart price, as each point out a sure exertion stage, whatever the terrain.

Apple Watch Series 8

(Picture credit score: Andrew Williams)

The brand new software program additionally allows you to make customized exercises for any mode you want. For instance, this may be a sample of 5 excessive depth minutes, adopted by a minute of relaxation, repeated 5 instances. You may make your Apple Watch a digital coach with out subscribing to the admittedly fairly nice Health+ service.

These new exercise views make the Apple Watch Collection 8 really feel far more like a wrist-worn train pc, and the on-screen graphics are even richer than what you’d see in a high-end Garmin. We will all thank the Apple Watch Extremely for this, because it’s the one particularly aimed toward adventuring sorts. Options that really feel made for that top-end watch have bled down into the usual Collection 8.

In fact, we are able to’t ignore that each Apple Watch from the Collection 4 and newer goes to get these new options. It’s not only a increase for this era.

Apple Watch Series 8

(Picture credit score: Andrew Williams)

These extras apart, the Apple Watch Collection 8 feels very like earlier Apple Watches. It’s quick and responsive, maybe a bit intimidating for these model new to this household of watches. Its apps menu is a huge map of icon dots with no titles hooked up, so it could take some time for newcomers to comprehend what every app truly does.

It might probably take blood oxygen readings, which shouldn’t be taken as gospel, actually not off a single studying, however the watch will mechanically seize ends in the background, seen by way of the Apple Well being app. And the ECG returns. You place a finger on the crown, which completes a circuit that lets the watch cross a weak electrical sign by way of your physique in an effort to assess your coronary heart rhythm.

Apple throws up a bunch of warnings earlier than it would take an ECG, suggesting it is best to search medical recommendation when you don’t really feel properly relatively than relying in your watch, which is accountable. However it may possibly reliably be used to determine indicators of atrial fibrillation, as urged in a Cardiology Journal article that collated data from a number of research.

Efficiency

The identical battery life challenge of earlier generations stays within the Collection 8. Apple charges the battery for 18 hours of use, and warns you’ll want 30% cost earlier than bedtime to soundly observe your sleep with out danger of the watch working out of energy. We discovered you will get a minimum of a few hours greater than a day’s use, together with 45 minutes of GPS tracked working and sleep monitoring, between costs. And that’s within the ‘All the time-on’ show mode, which retains the time on-screen all day. Nonetheless, this was with out utilizing the watch to obtain notifications from an e mail shopper or WhatsApp, which goes to eat away at that battery buffer.

Nonetheless, Apple has launched a low energy mode that turns off Wi-FI/4G, turns off the ‘All the time-on’ show mode and limits how typically the watch checks in for notifications together with your iPhone. This will double battery life, for every-other-day charging, however you’re buying and selling away quite a lot of what makes a smartwatch interesting.

Apple Watch Series 8

(Picture credit score: Andrew Williams)

Battery life is barely higher than a Pixel Watch, however shorter than the Fitbit Versa 4, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Professional or that of any Garmin watch.

Different areas of its efficiency are nice although. The Apple Watch Collection 8 has high-quality GPS that’s pretty fast to attach and gives long way readings. Within the common Apple style maps of runs will are likely to ‘snap’ to recognized trails and roads in methods a Garmin received’t, however readings and distance accuracy are nonetheless robust.

The Apple Watch Collection 8’s coronary heart price reader is among the many most dependable too. There are not any adjustments this 12 months. The watch nonetheless makes use of the identical third era coronary heart price utilized in Apple watches since 2020’s Watch Collection 6. And the principle change that 12 months was to allow blood oxygen readings.

Verdict

There’s little or no cause for Watch Collection 7 homeowners to improve to the Apple Watch Collection 8. Even the Watch Collection 6 isn’t actually too far behind this 12 months’s mannequin in substantive phrases.

Nonetheless, this doesn’t imply Apple has not made progress. It’s simply that outdated fashions additionally get the brand new stuff. Contemporary software program options see Apple take a extra hardcore method to health monitoring, elevating this sequence up a league.

The Apple Watch already had nice GPS and coronary heart price {hardware}, and now it has extra nerdy mid-exercise stat shows and a fast and straightforward solution to create customized exercises with out utilizing third-party apps. It is a nice well being and health watch, however some individuals will discover it laborious to adore it due to the identical outdated challenge; that it’s a must to must cost the watch day-after-day.

If this isn’t for you

Apple Watch SE

The Apple Watch SE is an efficient guess if you wish to spend much less cash. It will get the software program advantages seen within the Apple Watch Collection 8, like customized exercises, and has the identical core processor, so will really feel simply as responsive. It does, nonetheless, lack ECG {hardware} and might’t take blood oxygen readings, which can be found in cheaper non-Apple watches. The display is a bit smaller too, leaving extra border across the aspect.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 5

The extra inexpensive Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 might enchantment if you wish to spend much less. It’s a full smartwatch that runs Google wearOS, brings the fee all the way down to Watch SE stage and has each ECG {hardware} and a physique composition function.

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