The new Apple Watch Series 10 has been on sale but doesn’t start shipping to customers until this Friday, September 20. But on Tuesday, the embargo for early reviews was lifted and posted to the web. The initial impression from these reviews is that the Series 10 is yet another solid offering from Apple.
Victoria Song at The Verge usually wears an Apple Watch Ultra 2 because of its large display but found that with the Series 10, she doesn’t miss the Ultra 2. “The bottom line is the Series 10 is a sleeker, more wearable Ultra,” according to Song. Song also appreciates the thinner profile: “It fits easily under jacket cuffs, doesn’t catch on the straps at my Pilates class, and doesn’t slide up and down my arm when I run.” Song points out that the new Sleep Apnea detection feature requires a longer time period to test, but she said, “I prefer this to Samsung’s implementation–which only evaluates two night’s worth of sleep data at a time.”
Cnet’s Lexy Savvides points out that the “wide-angle OLED makes the display brighter when you look at it from an angle, like when it’s inactive.” Savvides also tested the new voice isolation feature in the noisiest place she could find, and the feature worked great. “It’s reassuring to know that even if you do find yourself using the watch to call from a really loud place, like at a concert or a festival, that the caller on the other end will be able to hear you no problem.”
Liz Plosser at Women’s Health is an Apple Watch “super-user” and echos the sentiment that it has the Ultra 2’s “bells and whistles” without the bulk. And thanks to the battery improvements (30 minutes of charging to get to 80 percent; 8 hours of normal use with a 15-minute charge), Plosser now wears the Series 10 overnight. She recommends the silicone bands as the “comfiest ones to sleep in.”
Brain Heater at TechCrunch points out that the Series 10 design is “refined, not reinvented. In fact, you might not notice at first glance.” If you want to wear the Series 10 while sleeping, Heater said that, “Apple Watch will never best Oura and other smart rings, but slimming the product down is a step in the right direction.” As far as the health features are concerned, “Apple takes one step forward and one step back,” effectively exchanging the blood oxygen monitor for the sleep apena detection.
YouTuber Marques Brownlee thinks the Series 10 is “defintely another incremental upgrade–now you know that’s not necessarily a bad thing.” He recommends the Series 10 for owners of the Series 7 and older. “This feels like Apple’s big statement of, ‘This is the Apple Watch,’” said Brownlee, in response to the anticipation of a redesign.
Another YouTuber, iJustine, got her hands on both the new watches and tested Series 10 while paddleboarding. She then used the Ultra 2 on a hike and a scuba dive. She concludes her experience by saying, “I’m so impressed with Apple, how they keep pushing the boundaries further and further the let us as consumers and normal everyday people take our health back into our own hands.”
Macworld will have its own review of the Apple Watch Series 10 coming soon. In the meantime, check out out Apple Watch superguide and our guide to all you need to know about watchOS 11.