While the Pebble Steel is one of our favorite smartwatches for Android smartphones(and works to a limited extent with iOS devices, too), the Apple Watch offers dramatically better integration with the iPhone and Apple’s services, as well as an already-huge and quickly growing selection of apps. Put simply, the Apple Watch does more, and does it better, than any other iOS-compatible smartwatch out there.
For most people (on most budgets) eager to give the Apple Watch a try, we believe the Apple Watch Sport—the least expensive version—is the model to get. It gives you the same features, and the same internal components, as its more-expensive siblings at a much lower price ($350 to $400, depending on the body size). Its aluminum body is also noticeably lighter than the steel and gold bodies of the Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition models1, respectively—a bonus if you normally don’t wear a watch and you’re concerned about the bulk of a smartwatch on your wrist. And the Sport even has a couple of advantages over the more-expensive models: Its aluminum body makes haptic taps easier to feel, and its screen is a bit easier to read in sunlight.
That’s not to say that the Apple Watch is perfect. It’s a typical 1.0 Apple product: It combines an overall enjoyable experience with some frustrating limitations (which we’ll get into below). Some aspects are way better than what you get with other products, and bring innovation to the category, while other things feel not quite done. That means that for many iPhone users, especially those new to smartwatches, the question isn’t “Which Apple Watch should I get?” but instead “Should I get a smartwatch right now?” Our impressions of the Apple Watch should help you answer
Why you should trust us
Dan Frakes is The Wirecutter’s gear and Apple editor and a former senior editor at Macworld; he’s been reviewing tech gadgets for almost two decades. Kevin Purdy is a Wirecutter staff writer and former Lifehacker editor; he’s also the author of our Android-smartwatch guide.
Other contributors to this guide include Jacqui Cheng, Wirecutter editor in chief and former senior editor at Ars Technica; Brian Lam, Wirecutter founder and former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo; Nick Guy, Wirecutter accessories writer and former accessories editor at iLounge; and Jim McDannald, Wirecutter fitness writer, residency-trained podiatrist, distance-running coach, and the author of our fitness-tracker guide.
Most of us have been wearing an Apple Watch since its debut; the others have each spent significant time with an Apple Watch for the purposes of testing it and comparing it head-to-head with other smartwatches and with dedicated fitness trackers.
Should you buy a smartwatch?
Smartwatches are still in their early days, and their usefulness will vary greatly depending on which of their features you take advantage of. This means that, unlike a mobile phone, most average buyers will not “need” one.
A smartwatch is a watch, of course, but beyond that it’s an extension of your smartphone. You pair a smartwatch (via Bluetooth) with your phone so that the watch can show some or all of your phone’s notifications. Many smartwatches also track your fitness, let you control music playback, and help you perform other basic connected tasks. Some models, including the Apple Watch, Android Wear watches, Pebble models, and Tizen-based models, even let you install apps on the watch to extend the device’s features.
When a smartwatch does its job well, it reduces how frequently you must pull your smartphone out of your pocket to check things or to respond to notifications. It can show you calendar reminders, text messages, phone-call alerts, important emails, and social-media updates when you glance at your wrist. You can dismiss these notifications, send quick replies, or decide that you need to grab your smartphone and deal with a particular task in a more focused way. A good smartwatch will allow you to know what’s going on while keeping you from getting drawn away from whatever you’re doing in the non-virtual world. (The Apple Watch does all of this and more, and is optimized for use with an iPhone. In fact, it requires an iPhone—specifically, an iPhone 5 or later.)
If all you want is fitness tracking, you can find (much) less expensive devices for tracking your running, biking, steps, and heart rate. Similarly, if you regularly need more than quick glances at emails, messages, and the like, you’ll likely still end up taking your phone out of your pocket whenever a notification appears. A smartwatch may not be for you.
If, however, you like the idea of wearing a watch that also helps you reduce the amount of time you spend looking at your phone, provides quick access to useful information, and lets you handle some discrete tasks you’d otherwise need to pull out your phone to do—paying for goods at some stores, showing your boarding pass at the airport, or getting directions while walking, for example—you might find a smartwatch appealing.
(There’s a case to be made that some people will simply end up looking at their wrist all the time instead of their phone, but you can avoid that with some careful configuration, as discussed below. And smartwatch-research company Wristly’songoing Apple Watch usage survey has found that 32 percent of respondents spend much less time on their iPhone, with 58 percent using their iPhone somewhat less.)
The most important thing to remember about a smartwatch, however, is that it’s a watch, not a miniature smartphone. It won’t do everything your phone can do—nor should you expect it to. But it is a watch for 2015. Whereas 30 years ago the only real “data” we had regular access to on our person was the time, in 2015 our smartphones provide access to myriad types of data on the go, and a good smartwatch will give you quicker access to the most important tidbits at a glance—just like a watch does, but more.
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