Apple Watch SE Review: Is It ACTUALLY Worth It? By Dan's Gadgets

Hey guys how's it going hope. You are good in today's video we're going to be doing a review of the Apple Watch, SE, which is my first ever Apple Watch. This is the first Apple Watch. I've ever had and to be honest, I really really really like it, but that wasn't really the point of getting the watch and reviewing it, because we all know that the apple watches are probably the best around. But the point I'm trying to make- or the thing I'm trying to find out is whether they actually worth the money that you have to pay. So this is the cheapest Apple Watch, I believe, ever or at least the cheapest new release.

It's 269 pounds, and I'm assuming it's around about the same in dollars and euros, maybe around about 300 euros and dollars and yeah. Is it actually worth that? I mean it's amazing, it's amazing piece of technology, and it works basically perfectly. But do you actually need to spend that much money? I mean most of the reviews that I make for smartwatches are for much cheaper smartwatches around. I guess 200 pounds 100 to 200 pounds mostly, so this is uh. You know at least a third more expensive than most of the ones I already review.

So let's go. Let's take a look at what you can do with this watch and whether it's actually worth spending that extra money. Let's go so just a quick rundown of what the Apple Watch SE can do. In case you didn't know the Apple Watch. Se is the budget version of the new range of smartwatches apple released earlier this year.

I believe the more modern one or the more powerful one is the Apple Watch Series six. So the SE is a cheaper version of that. Much like how the iPhone SE is a cheaper version of their flagship phone. It features similar internal technology, similar specs, but with some things taken away that maybe aren't really that necessary. So let's have a look at those hardware specs and see what we've got.

The Apple Watch. Sc features a retina OLED display that is 1.78 inches in size. It's got a resolution of 448 by 368 pixels with a pixel density of 326 PPI. It's 44 millimeters by 38 millimeters by 10.4, millimeters thick, and it weighs 36.4 grams. Furthermore, it's waterproof to 50 meters.

Furthermore, it features 32 gigabytes of internal memory and one gigabyte of ram. Furthermore, it's powered by the apple s5 chipset for tracking. Furthermore, it features an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a second generation heart rate sensor, a barometer and an always-on altimeter. Furthermore, it features a speaker and a microphone as well as internal GPS and NFC. The lithium-ion battery can be charged wirelessly and last for up to 18 hours, depending on how much you use it.

So the Apple Watch, SE, despite being the cheaper version of apple's smartwatch range, is really packed full of features. I mean it's got that NFC GPS. It's got loads of tracking features loads of sensors. It has internal memory, one gigabyte of ram. Furthermore, it has an amazingly clear, bright, colorful screen.

Furthermore, it's got one of the brightest screens. I've ever seen on a smartwatch, certainly brighter than anything that I've bought before any of the amaze fit or the Huawei um smartwatches I've had the watch is so responsive. It's just like an iPhone. I mean I find it so amazing just to be able to scroll through um the menus. Are it's literally so easy to use? It's basically like an iPhone on your wrist.

It has that same premium quality. The build of the watch is a very premium. It's made out of metal, as opposed to a lot of other smartwatches that I've used that are made out of plastic. The strap you have so many options for what strap you use. I chose this kind of fabric strap, which is much more preferable compared to the silicon straps that you get with most other smartwatches.

You also have the option for that with the Apple Watch, but yeah there are literally like 20 or 30 different straps. You can choose from but, like I say, does all of this add up to a good value watch because, let's face it, it is super expensive. I mean for a watch really I mean a lot of people are happy to spend that much on apple watches and other kind of high-end, smartwatches, but for me, I've kind of got used to spending around 100 to 200 pounds on my smartwatches, and that seems reasonable. To me, I mean, even this, being the cheapest Apple Watch seems pretty expensive. However, I will say that I have become accustomed to it being on my wrist.

I don't really want to switch it out for any of the other smartwatches that I have, because it's just so easy to use. It has an app store. You can expand the functionality of the watch much more than any other smartwatch that I've had. There are many useful apps available. For example, I've got a city map city mapper, which has actually been used for it.

It allows you to find routes, find bus times train times all that kind of stuff straight from your watch, there's an app for Uber Spotify, there's podcast apps, and it all just works so effortlessly. It all just happens, and you don't have to worry about syncing anything as long as you have an iPhone now. This is where we come to my first issue. With the Apple Watch. You do actually have to have an iPhone.

You have to be an iPhone user to really get the most out of it. I only really have this iPhone as a backup and, as there are some apps that are only available on the Apple Store which I need to use. So that's the only reason I have an iPhone. Otherwise, my normal phone is an android when this runs out a battery. The Apple Watch kind of becomes much less useful because you don't get the notifications, you don't get the call alerts, you don't get the same.

The same experience, basically um you can use the Apple Watch independently of an iPhone, but it's not the full experience. You do really need to be in that Apple ecosystem. One of the absolute highlights of the Apple Watch, SE is the design I mean it is just so good, looking it's so flawlessly effortlessly modern. So the main reason I started using smartwatches was to track health fitness. You know going for running cycling, the gym.

That is basically why I thought smartwatches were a great idea, and I've been using the Apple Watch to do exactly the same thing. It features all of those sensors. It features a second generation heart rate, monitor an um, a barometer, an accelerometer gyroscope. So you know it can do all of those things, and it does it pretty. Well, the difference between the Apple Watch, SE and the Apple Watch Series.

Six one of them is that the Siri six features a sp02 tracker. Now the Apple Watch SE does not, which really is a bit of a. I mean it's not a big deal because, like I say in many of my videos, spo2 trackers at the moment are not the most useful things because they are mostly used manually, and you really need to have it on all the time to be able to see your general blood oxygen level, health and fitness. So that's when it's useful, but I will say that I have very many much cheaper smartwatches that are literally a half the price of the Apple Watch, SC that does feature sp02, trackers, so kind of feels like a little of a misstep there. You can get that feature in much cheaper, smartwatches than this.

But for me, it's not really a dealbreaker. Otherwise, I will say the tracking features on the Apple Watch are so reliable. I mean, I think it is the most reliable smartwatch I've had when it comes to measuring fitness and workouts. In fact, it doesn't even need to be told when you're doing a workout, so I could be at the gym on the rowing machine without even telling the watch. What I'm doing it will know that that is what I'm doing.

It will start tracking a workout, and it will know that I'm on a rowing machine or if I'm going for a run, it will know when I start running or if I go cycling. It'll know when I'm cycling, so it just doesn't know how this works, but it just knows, and it will start tracking immediately. So even if you forget, then that will it will work it out. It will know what you're doing most of the time. It also just captures a lot of data, it has a lot of sensors, and they seem to be pretty accurate, so you can view them all, and you can, and you can view all of that information on the watch itself.

The screen is large enough bright enough, clear enough to be able to see quite intricate data, so it is very useful in terms of sports and fitness tracking and obviously because it has that app store. There are so many apps available that are specifically meant for this. I will say that some of them are quite expensive. I mean for a watch app. There are a lot of paid apps that don't really seem to do that much, but even the free ones there are some workout apps.

I think there's a Nike running app, which is very, very popular, so there's a lot of different workout modes and workout tracking features that are pre-built into the watch, but also you can expand that by downloading plenty of apps that are available. But, unlike my other smartwatches that I tend to use, the Apple Watch. Sc is far, far more than just a health and fitness tracker. It is a full smartwatch experience and one of the first full smartwatch experiences I've ever had. It really does show.

What can you do with a full smartwatch? For example, you can download podcasts, you can download music straight onto the phone. You can take, calls receive messages. The watch features a speaker and a microphone. So if you receive a call from your phone, you can answer that call on the watch. You can reply to messages straight away.

The way the notifications are dealt with is really, really good. You can have quick replies which are common messages that um you can just quickly tap a button and reply straight to any WhatsApp Facebook, Instagram message you get straight from the watch, so it makes dealing with the notifications way more easy than I've ever had on any other, cheaper, smartwatch. The Apple Watch SE also comes with apple's voice, control Siri, which is fully functional on the watch. In fact, it's been thinking that I'm talking to it all the time now, but I'm not so. You can basically control the watch with your voice.

You can activate any of the apps. Furthermore, you can even do translations. If that's what you want to do, you can set alarms, you can dictate text messages. You can access your calendar, anything you can think of doing from your voice. You can do that on the Apple Watch SE, and I think it is actually something that I've got comfortable using, whereas with other smartwatches, it's never really works that well, so I don't bother, but it seems to work pretty much every single time with the Apple Watch.

Also, one thing that I found really impressive about the Apple Watch I mentioned. The screen is so colorful so bright that uh retina display looking amazing. The sheer number of watch faces available for the Apple Watch. Se is also quite astounding, and they all have kind of different features. They all show different things.

Some of them even show um stargazing conditions. Some of them show the weather. Some of them are very basic, simple, but just very well-designed, and they work perfectly with the design of the Apple Watch and there's a whole gallery of them available to download straight away so yeah. They really have worked to combine the watch face with the watch and just make the most of it. So, as you can tell, I am really singing the praises of the Apple Watch SE.

It is really something that I wasn't sure if I was going to be into, I wasn't sure. If I'm, I was going to regret getting it, because I have so many other smartwatches which do quite a lot of stuff, but it is just uh, it's just so much better like it really is. However, there are some downsides um there really are for a start. One thing that is pretty much almost a dealbreaker for me is how poor the battery life is. It lasts less than a day.

I have to charge every day, and sometimes I forget, and then sometimes I'm just walking around with a dead piece of expensive technology attached to my wrist, and I just really hate that I really really really hate it. It gets on my nerves. I want to be able to use something for a couple of days before I charge it and that's just not possible with any Apple Watch, including this one despite it having less hardware or less tracking features than the more expensive ones. It still doesn't last that long now that, coupled with the fact that I really need to use the iPhone all the time to go with, it makes me kind of wonder whether I actually want to use this as my main smartwatch. If it's going to run out half the time.

What is the point? It's not going to be able to track my heart rate and workouts. When I want it to it's not going to be able to you know, I won't be able to use the GPS very much, because the GPS will really drain the battery very quickly. Even NFC can drain the battery. I mean you can use it as a payment device, but if you do that quite a lot, it's going to again drain the battery you're going to have even less time with it actually on. So, despite though you know, the charging time doesn't take that much it's a wireless charge.

You could carry the cable around with you, but it's just something else to remember. That is the biggest downside for me for this smartwatch, and it is something that plagues Apple technology and the smartwatches in general. Just the battery life is not the one for me and, to be honest, I've kept mentioning that I've got all these other smartwatches. For the most part, they do much of the same thing, especially when it comes to health and fitness tracking. I have watches, like the amaze fit watches the amaze fit GTS.

I've got the Huawei a gt2e. Furthermore, I've even got like much cheaper ones like the honor band BS I mean that is literally like 110, and it has a spo2 tracker, whereas this does not they. All of those watches I just mentioned have decent heart rate monitors. They have accelerometers gyroscopes. Some of them have internal GPS, so they can do the same fitness tracking, um sports tracking modes.

Some of them have workout uh workout modes built into the watch. Some of them have animations to show you what to do so. A lot of the stuff that you get in the apps here is built into these much cheaper, smartwatches, and if I'm completely honest with myself, do I use all the apps that I've downloaded to this watch every day. No, I just downloaded them for fun to see what they could do. I think it's amazing what it can do and all of those things could be useful for some people.

But for me, I don't really use it that much I like to wear the Apple Watch. So much is because it looks beautiful. It really is the best. Looking piece of tech I've bought in a long time, despite it having a not always on display. So whenever it's on my wrist most of the time it is off um, it does react very quickly to movement, so um.

When, when I raise my wrist up, it will turn on. So I don't really notice the problem there so yeah. For me, the main reason to wear this watch is that it looks so good, not necessarily because of all the extra stuff it has. So it will be down to you to decide whether that is useful for you. If you just want a watch to track health and fitness, then you really don't need the Apple Watch, because it does so much more if you're not interested in the apps.

If you're not interested in you know the dictating the uh at the text, messages and receiving calls receiving messages. Even this cheaper Apple Watch. Se is probably not going to be worth it for you, but if you were thinking of maybe upgrading, maybe you do want that full smartwatch experience, and you like what you see here, you like all these apps I've shown you then the Apple Watch, I think, is just it's the best you can get and at 269 pounds or whatever isn't dollars. I think it's a pretty good deal. I do think it's a pretty good deal, and I'm glad I got it, and this probably will be my main watch for a long time.

Unless something amazing comes out from one of these other companies so yeah, that's it guys. I hope that has been useful um if you are on the fence about whether to get this cheaper Apple Watch then um. Hopefully that has helped you out. I will be doing some comparisons between the Apple Watch, SE and some of the smartwatches that I mentioned just now in my next few videos. So if we are really curious about the exact comparisons or the exact differences, then stay tuned, because I will definitely be using the Apple Watch, SE as the kind of standard now um for comparing other smartwatches.

So, if you're interested to see, if there's anything that could kind of beat it in terms of value or in terms of what you get for your money, then stay tuned, because I will be bringing you that so yeah guys. I hope that was useful. Uh subscribe. If you want some more videos um, I will see you next time. Bye.

Source : Dan's Gadgets