The Apple Watch Series 6 has landed right on time.
It packs some new sensors, some new software tricks and some new colours; all of which begs the question: should you buy one?
The new Apple Watch Series 6 comes with some new lifestyle and fitness features, and now sleep tracking, along with the ability to measure the oxygen in your blood. All of that newness is wrapped up in the familiar old Apple Watch case.
Yes, the design remains unchanged from Series 4 and 5 models, however, comes in a few new flavours such as blue aluminum, graphite stainless steel, product red, and a fetching new gold colour.
Watch the full review instead:
From a design perspective, we have no problems with the watch generally looking the same. It is still plenty big enough a screen for you to prod away at, and the two 40-millimeter and 44-millimeter cases won’t bog down your wrist. In fact, as per usual it’s super comfy.
Under the hood you get Apple’s sixth generation S6 chip, which Apple obviously touts as its best watch chip ever. It’s 20 per cent faster than the previous watch, and the always on display has been given two times boost of brightness.
The Series 6 has also been given a brand new sensor – a blood oxygen sensor – that will do exactly what it says on the tin. For most people, this will be a trivial sensor to play with a few times and forget. But for some people, it will be a literal lifesaver. There’s also an always on altimeter, for when you are running or hiking.
You get all of that for the same 18-hour battery life of the original.
Apple’s class-leading Watch Operating System is still as good as ever, with some new tricks up its sleeve that will also benefit Series four and five owners. Sleep tracking is a big feature that everyone can benefit from, as the watch will now sync sleep data to your phone’s Health App.
That goes hand-in-hand with Apple’s new wind-down mode, which lets you setup reminders and turn off certain features – such as notifications for example – 30 minutes before bed. Then, while you are sleeping, it will dim all your screens accordingly.
The Apple Watch was already an excellent training partner, and this one is no different. The built in workouts app can now recognize a few more types of training, but as per usual it’s pretty solid.
At the launch of the Series 6, Apple unveiled a cool new service called Fitness+. Basically, it will use your Apple Watch and a connected iPad or iPhone to serve you up video fitness classes – effectively, it will turn any old exercise machine into a super smart one. But unfortunately, we don’t know when that will arrive here in the middle east.
Performance-wise everything works well. Swiping through menus and zooming in and out of apps is super responsive, and you’ll be hard pressed to make it stutter.
The Apple Watch Series 6 is a very capable smartwatch then, and with that added sensor faster processor and brighter screen is certainly still the best smartwatch on the market. But let’s get back to the question at hand: should you buy one?
For current owners of Apple’s Series five, probably not. It’s just not enough of an upgrade. But if you have a series four or below on your wrist, absolutely. That always on display is a real gamechanger, and you’ll certainly notice the performance upgrade.
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