Apple Watch Series 6 Review (battery life, braided solo loop, blood oxygen, and more) By A Better Computer

Hey everyone welcome back to a better computer. My name is Matt. This is the Apple Watch Series six, and this is my review. So before we get into talking about the specific features of the series six, I wanted to actually give my buying advice right up front uh, because that's what we're all here for this is what a review is supposed to do. So I want to make sure you get that right away, and then we can look at the features the changes from last year's model. So I think that if we look at Apple Watch users on a spectrum from what they're coming from you've got new Apple Watch owners- and in that case I don't have great advice.

I think the series 6 is a great watch and I think the SE is a perfect option as well, but I think the always on display is really valuable and really changes the usefulness of the watch. So I think that getting that at all, if at all possible, is something you should do, but if your budget is lower, and you need to do the SC- that's fine too, but if you're coming from an Apple Watch Series 5. I think that unless you absolutely need to have the latest and greatest there's no reason to buy this watch, the new features that we'll talk about later, don't warrant it. I don't think if you're just doing a year-to-year upgrade. Furthermore, I think you can safely sit this one out and feel totally okay.

It gets a little fuzzier when we go to the series. Four. The series four um, I think, is still a perfect watch and I think that if you do upgrade, it's going to be for the always on display um and then the other additional kind of health centers, the pulse, oximeter and stuff that is in here. I think that you can definitely justify it, but it's not an essential upgrade. However, if you're using an Apple Watch Series 3 or older, then I think this is a no-brainer update.

I think that if you update you're going to get so much more value from the watch than you did previously um all the new watch faces that have come out in the last couple of years have been only for the series four and newer, so you're going to get a bunch of new watch faces. You're going to get performance improvements, you're gonna, get a larger display. You're going to get the always on screen like there's a ton of improvements. So if you're on kind of the three-year cycle, then you're gonna love this update, it's going to be fantastic for you. Now the Apple Watch is an accessory.

It's not an essential part of your life right, so unless it saves your life, I guess for with one of the health things, but it's more of an accessory, it's more of an extra thing that you don't necessarily have to buy, but it's nice to have, and so these uh suggestions are more me being as objective as I can be. But it's a very subjective thing. I buy a new one every year and for me, it's worth it because I love the Apple Watch and I love to be able to do stuff like this and kind of explain. What's going on with the platform, maybe you are, on the total other end of the spectrum, and you're, using a series 2 or something, and you're still happy with it. It isn't the latest and greatest you haven't gotten new watch faces in a while.

It's been kind of stagnant in terms of like how many new features come to it, but you're fine with it. Furthermore, it gives you notifications, it tells you the weather and stuff, and you're okay with it, and then you don't really care about all this other stuff you'd, rather just save the money and keep getting the value that you have now and that's fine too, but I think that in general, if you're, looking, if you're itching to buy a new Apple Watch, I think that if you have a series 3 or older, it's a slam dunk. I think if you have a series 4, you can kind of you're going to like the upgrade you're. Definitely going to enjoy it, but it's not essential, and if you have a series 5, I don't think you should upgrade unless you absolutely have 400 burning a hole in your pocket. The first thing I want to talk about is battery life, and I'm talking about that first, because it was the biggest complaint people had with the series 5.

Now from the series 0 all the way through the four battery life increased each generation. Now with the series 5, it definitely went down for basically everyone for some people. Like me, it went down a little, but for others it was more substantial, and it really hurt their usage of the watch. So, to tell you, in my experience on the series 4, I was getting maybe 30 to 36 hours per charge, which was great. It easily made it through a day and then, if I was going on like somewhere overnight, I didn't necessarily bring my charger with me because I could easily make it from the morning like Saturday morning to Sunday night without charging up, and I would be okay with the series 5 that dropped to like 24 to 30 hours.

So it still was fine for getting through a day, but it certainly wasn't as good as it was, and if I did a day with a lot of workouts like we're talking over an hour of workout time, I could get closer to zero. I never really had issues with a dying before the end of the day, but I definitely got closer to zero than I ever did with the series 4. With the series 6, I'm actually seeing a pretty dramatic increase in battery life, not only over the series 5 but over the series 4 as well, I'm not just getting a day and a half I'm on pace to get two full days most of the time. This is huge, and the state is only after about a week of using the watch. So, in theory, a software update could change.

This may not be as amazing forever, but as of right now, this is by far the best battery life I've ever gotten on an Apple Watch. Now what about that two and a half times brighter, always on screen now apple specified in their event, that it is two and a half times brighter in direct sunlight, not all the time and that plays out with the actual watch indoors. They are exactly the same. There's no difference in the brightness of the always on display, but when you go outside, you can see a difference now I initially didn't see a difference at all, and that was because I had the general brightness of the watch I think set to medium. When I turned them both up too high the series 5 and the series 6, then I saw a noticeable difference outside.

So I don't know if that's a thing you actually have to do, you have to set the brightness of the watch all the way to 100 in the settings of the watch itself or if it'll just do it, and it was a particularly sunny day that triggered it for me, but there is a noticeable difference. It's not an enormous difference, but it is definitely noticeable and something that you'll notice. When you see them side by side, you might even notice it if you're just looking at it uh on its own, but it does make it more visible and that is really nice. Then let's talk design changes so, as I said in the intro, this is an accessory. Design is part of it.

So, even if the specs are exactly the same, changing the design is a feature. So if you look at kind of the casings there's some slight changes to the silver and black and gray kind of like watches, but the real, exciting ones this year are the two new colors for the aluminum line, the blue and red. Now these look great I've seen them in video. Obviously you can see the one that I have is the stainless steel model and I really like the look of this one. I've never had a steel model before, and I'm really a big fan of it, and I guess it's really up to you.

If you want the more bold, more opinionated look of the blue and red or if you want something, that's kind of more general will look good with more bands will look good with more clothes. You can go with one of the more traditional colors, but it's really great that there are options out there. Then there are the new bands. There's a couple new bands this year, uh, the big ones that stick out to me are the new leather one, which I don't love the look of. I really liked the old leather band that they're replacing it with but uh.

You know that's just again a style thing you, your mileage may vary and then there's the new solo loops. So there's the solo loop, which is basically the traditional sport band. Without the buckle, it's just a continuous piece of uh floor elastomer, that's plastic, fluoroelastomer and then there's the braided solar loop and that's what I have, so I got the watch with the blue braided solar loop and I haven't used the regular soil loop, but I can tell you that the braided one is really comfortable. It feels perfect. I think that getting the right sizing is hugely important and is kind of tricky to do.

You can already see some people who have done some kind of like life, life hacks to figure out how to get the right sizing, but I got a size 7. If you can tell anything from how big my wrist is from this video compared to yours but yeah, I got size 7, and I was lucky: that's exactly the right size for me. I guess I would say it's really comfortable. It feels really durable. So it's a fabric, but it's really kind of put together.

It feels really well-made and then in terms of comfort, it's perfect, but the one thing that I kind of wish that I could do that. I do with the sport loop is that I kind of like sometimes to loosen it a little. Tighten it a little with this. Obviously it's always the same uh same distance around same circumference, so it's going to feel the same at all times, so that can be good. It can be bad um.

But from for my money, I really like this one, I'm glad I got one of the new ones. Uh makes the watch feel fresh, and I'm happy with it and then there's the Oregon altimeter and the blood oxygen sensing, and so the altimeter is very quick. Basically, the Apple Watch has had an altimeter for years, and now it will work all the time, so it used to be. You had to be in a workout for that to kick on now, it'll be functioning at all times, so you can see your altitude whenever you want, which is, I guess, useful for some people, that's useful for me, but that's there, and then the blood oxygen sensor is its kind of surprising. I left it for the end, I guess, but I'm really mixed on this feature right now.

So the ECG, when it came out two years ago in the series four, I think that the response from that was skepticism when it was announced and then when people saw it and used it, they were surprised how good it was. I think, with this, the blood oxygen sensor, there's really more mixed reactions to it. Some people are getting pretty consistent results. Other people are having trouble getting results at all. Other people are having inconsistent results, they're, comparing it to kind of the on your finger, sensors that are out there, and they're seeing different results.

So the reliability is a little in question. Apple. Is advertising this as a wellness thing and not a medical device. So I guess what I'm saying is take all the data that this gives you with a grain of salt. It's certainly useful information to have, and I think some big value of it is that if it's giving you consistent results, whether those are precisely accurate, being able to have it on your wrist at all times taking measurements in the background on occasion to kind of see trends over time.

That's going to be useful for people and be able to give you alerts if things are going off the rails if things are dropping too low but yeah, I I I'm not super huge on this. I don't know if I'm going to be using it all the time, but it is certainly a cool to use feature, and hopefully they can improve it with software updates to make it more reliable. I'm not sure if it's a software hardware issue, that's leading some issues people are having, but it's a cool feature. It's a timely feature given as 2020 and covet as a thing, but I don't think it's the slam dunk that the ECG was when it launched. So do I recommend the Apple Watch? Well, if you watched the start of this video, you already know I kind of led with my recommendations, uh, but basically I think that if you're coming from the series, four or older, it's a good buy, it's a good update.

That always on screen is great. If you're coming from a series, three or older, the ECG is wonderful. The improved battery life is great. It's an improvement over the series 5, which was kind of a dip. So that's great to see that bounce back and yeah I mean, I think it's its a very good version of the Apple Watch, they're, all pretty darn good.

I think the 5 was probably the one that had the most kind of asterisks for people with battery life, but the series 6 bounces back, gets much better in that regard and I think, is a very good version of the Apple Watch. I do think there's a good chance. This is the last year with this design, so they did the original Apple Watch. They did the next year with the series one and two where they released both those in the same year and then the series three those all had the same design, and then they updated with the series four. So now, they've done the four five and six there's a good chance that the seven is going to be different.

I don't know if it'll be thinner, I don't know if it's going to uh have even more screen the screen's gonna cover even more of the face uh. Maybe the screen technology will be like a micro led or whatever uh technology we'll see what goes on there um. But I think that if you're looking for an Apple Watch now- and you want the latest and greatest- I think this is a perfect buy, but yeah don't feel like. If you have a five that you must update to this, I think that you're not gonna notice, much of a difference at all and if you're coming from a four or older, I think that it's probably a good thing to look at, but you don't absolutely need to again it's an accessory. It's a fashion item, so I'll leave it up to you from there.

So thank you so much for watching this review. If you liked it hit the like button, if you loved it hit to subscribe, and then I will see you here next time bye, you.

Source : A Better Computer