I know many of you live on the apple side of the fence and can hopefully offer advice. My husband (all in apple) has decided he’d like to rely on his phone less and is finally ready for an apple watch. Primary uses would be time oviously, text notifications with the option to respond, potentially taking phone calls, and streaming music directly to airpods. He’s currently wearing my 40mm Samsung watch 4 just to see if he’s okay with wearing a watch at all as he hasn’t since probably high school.
He’s leaning towards a series 7, especially after seeing how ridiculous the ultra is in person. Are there any compelling reasons you guys see for choosing a 7 vs the SE? Primary use would be at home within BT range of the phone, but would cellular be worth it? (I’m about to trade away my last LTE tablet, so we could replace my data line of service with a watch line.)
The always-on display. With the SE you have to turn your wrist deliberately to have the display turn on. An AOD makes a world of difference to me. Some people say they don’t care about this though, and the SE is a lot cheaper!
Aside from the AOD that Joe described, there is no particular reason unless he interested in the extra health measurements. Or if he wants something other than aluminum. Keep in mind I have only owned the Apple Watch SE and the Samsung Watch 4.
You definitely want to go cellular if he seeks to rely on this iPhone less. I am doing the same and I was surprised at how good the reception is on the tiny watch. I expected it to have difficulty picking up a signal in some of the places I go. It’s also surprisingly good at taking dictated text responses, better than the iPhone. I suspect that’s because it doesn’t query Apple’s main server for a “better“ interpretation, which is where the iPhone mostly screws up. Earbuds or headsets are best for phone calls of course.
I hope that helps a little. This particular area has a lot of subjectivity to it.
Oh, and it’s a delight to wave my watch at a pay terminal when shopping. So futuristic!
SE vs 7 - I have the 7 and enjoy the AOD and larger screen. As for cellular, I only had one prior Watch (think it was 4) and never enabled it - I just don’t like going out without a real phone I guess (a lot to do with prior health problems) and connectivity to earlier Airpods was dicey on the Watch. If primarily at home on BT around the iPhone that cellular would be of limited use, and even now the Apple Watch still needs tethering to your iPhone for a lot of program data updates. We aren’t quite to Dick Tracy yet…
Absolutely agreed, when near the iPhone you still get to pick up calls on your watch etc. Personally, once you’re over the purchase price bump, it doesn’t take much use for me to feel like the $5/mo data plan was worth it. Being able to respond to a call or text while outdoors when you don’t have your phone with you is pretty great.
Example, I left my iPhone in the car after being dropped off at the airport. Was pretty nice to be able to call and say “Hey, mind doing another lap around the airport?”.
BTW when I say “respond” I mean it: you can’t initiate a new Signal or WhatsApp message on the watch, but responding works.
Thanks guys, this is all very helpful. He wore my samsung watch and came to the conclusion that he hardly noticed it and didn’t mind wearing one at all, so I think we’ll be adding an apple watch to the tech line up soon here. At his pace of decision making, that means in probably 6 months or so.
I didn’t know that about third party messaging apps. But to be clear for others, with iMessages you can initiate a text no problem. Same with phone calls.
Edit: oh, and about the Dick Tracy watch, we won’t get that until Apple puts FaceTime capability on the watch (and a camera).
I know it’s a niche thing but I just love heading out for a morning walk without the need for the little Brick In My Pocket. I’ve stopped and responded to text from my sister or a phone call from my doctor’s office while on walks without a hitch. I used to always carry a phone with me so cellular didn’t really make any sense, as others have mentioned, but once you’ve gone free of the little brick you might not want to go back. YMMV of course.
Cellular streaming is going to be limited on a tiny watch. If Series 7 had a longer battery life than the SE I would say go for it just for that, but everything I’ve read says that they both are rated for 18 hours of normal use.
Anyway, I took a walk for an hour and a half this morning with my watch streaming to my Aftershokz Aeropex headset the entire time, first with Pocket Casts and then a playlist on Amazon music. At the end I had 45% battery left. I started at ~90%. So you can figure three hours max. I could have downloaded the podcast ahead of time to save battery.
Edit: that was while the Outdoor Walk workout was running, GPS sucking power, too.
