apple watch The Apple Watch, is it a useful product? Review

ChaseB · April 7, 2016

My name is Chase B on The Linus Tech Tips Forum and today I am reviewing the Apple Watch. I have been using the Apple Watch 38mm Sport Edition (A1553) for four months and this is my long term review.

So let’s start with a what an Apple Watch is? An Apple Watch is a pricey premium timepiece with “smart” abilities. Apple focus on 4 core concepts to make the ultimate timepiece, Personalization, Health, Fitness, and Notifications. I will be looking at each one of these catagories piece by piece. Before we start with any of that let's talk about comfort, the Operating System, and the build of the Apple Watch.

Let’s first talk about comfort. I have the Apple Watch Sport Edition with a sports band. According to Apple, this is a “Custom high-performance fluoroelastomer with pin-and-tuck closure”. The comfort of the fluoroelastomer is pretty nice. This band retails for $50 by itself and I find it pretty comfortable. Over the months, I have never noticed any wear on the band. I have noticed however my oils and my sweat kinda stained my black band, however a good wash with 99% isopropyl alcohol and dish soap get's all of that off. The other issue I have with this band is the “pin-and-tuck closure”. It is horrible. I have to set my watch on its face and like do this weird thing just to get the watch on. Over time my watch has received scratches on its face because of this. Due to just that reason, I find it really hard to tell people to buy this band by itself. In a couple weeks I will be getting Apple's New Nylon Band. If ya’ll want me to review that, please let me know.

The OS or Operating System is fan freaking tastic. It’s the coolest environment of any smart watch I have used. I have played with Android Wear and I have used for years the Pebble Original and out of both of those, the Apple Watch kicks ass. The OS is just snappy and quick to navigate. It is really easy to use and just like an iPhone, anyone can learn the OS in minutes. Siri is also in the OS and it kicks ass on the watch too. I do wish siri would talk through the built in speaker but that can be fixed in a software update. I do however have some complaints. The first and probably biggest one is no third party watch faces. While I see why Apple did this, I wish they did not. I currently use the modular watch face and I have all the information I want but I wish I can reposition things. The other problem I have with it is that it can be laggy at some point. When I am doing a high intensity things like working out or listing to music, it can lag of which, while bad, only happened a couple times and I got used to it.

Next I am going to talk about the build quality. These are my thoughts based on the Sport Edition version of the Apple Watch. The Sport Edition has 7000 series aluminum and an i-onix display. The aluminum is strong and does not easy scratch. The display however is horrible. It scratches so easily and just like my iPhone, in the sun it justs looks like a rainbow on my screen. The actual display is awesome. It is a AMOLED display and it is Apple’s first attempt at OLED displays. It is freaking beautiful compared to anything I have tried. The Apple Watch is also supporting an Apple S1 Processor of which is A5 equivalent. It is freaking fast and my watch has never overheated. It is really a nice device. It also supports a Taptic Engine and let me say, holy crap it is nice. It is hard to say but when I get a notification it feels like someone is taping me. Nobody hears when I get a notification and I feel it every time. It is the best vibrate motor I have ever used. Hey Apple put this in all of your products.

On Apple’s website, there are four core selling points, Notifications, Personalization, Health, and Fitness. Let's talk about notifications. When you get a notification, a full color message pops on to the screen. You can see what app it is and what it says. It is so personal to you. You can click on the title and it takes you to the app and you can read more. The Apple Watch also lets you reply of which in my opinion is a huge feature. It is so nice. The only problem with it is the quick reply. I never use these as none of them apply to me. They just don’t make sense to send to people my age. Thankfully the Apple Watch has a built in microphone and you send text replies via siri.

The big reason why I bought an Apple Watch is because of fashion and all of the options. There are two sizes, four editions, seven bands, fifty-five colors, and a nice price tag to go along. They range in prices of $299 to $17000. Unlike the completion, there truly is an option for everyone. I also like most of Apple’s bands. While on the pricey side in my opinion, the quality is on par compared to the 3rd party bands and other smartwatch bands.

The Health and Fitness, in my opinion, goto together and don’t deserve to be separate. There is not much to say about the Health side of things. The Apple Watch keeps me up to date on my meds and lets me know when I need to take them. It also alerts me if my heart rate gets too high, I have a medical condition and need to stay chill, and much more. The big thing about the apple watch is the fitness tracker. I do workouts every night and I go running/walking often. So why did I buy this over something like a Fitbit? That is a very difficult question to answer. While most people prefer a Fitbit over Apple and some even call Apple out on how horrible the Apple Watch is for fitness, the Apple Watch did everything I needed it to do. Plus I can hook up my Jaybird Headphones to my watch and forget my iPhone at the house, unlike the Fitbit and I can hook up other equipment to my Apple Watch to better watch over my fitness. In my opinion it serves as a decent fitness tracker for the average person. If you run twenty six miles and are a football athlete, than this is not for you but if you occasionally run like I do and only need to know your heart rate sometimes, than this is a great fitness tracker. The other cool thing about the fitness in the Apple Watch is it reminds you to stand and exercise by making you hit goals. The only problem I have with it is when I am in class and it starts screaming at me to get up and move.

The Apple Watch is a really expensive toy. Yes it gets your notification and yes it is a fitness tracker but at the end of the day, it is Apple’s new toy. I had a Pebble Original for many years before my Apple Watch and it served me well. It got my notifications and with runkeeper on it, I was able to exercise with it. So who is the Apple Watch for? It is for that special someone who needs a fancy device to look at for hours upon the day. It is also for those men who want to show how big their package is and have people look at them as the say I just bought a $1500 watch that hooks up to my phone, Yepi. So why do I still wear it? Well mainly because I bought it and I do like it. I like what it does for me however I don’t need it, I just wanted it. If you are an Apple Fanboy who has to have the new thing on the block, than you won’t be disappointed. However if you are looking for a watch and don’t care about your phone, than go buy a Rolex or something.