The biggest feature of the new Apple Watch is the support for wireless connectivity. The support for wireless makes it more independent from your iPhone. One of the greatest uses is its ability to stream music, answer a call, reply to messages, and get directions all without your iPhone. Inside is a new dual-core processor that Apple says can deliver 70% more performance. Now Siri can reply to commands. All WiFi goes through the new Apple-designed W2 chip delivers 85% faster WiFi and 50% more power-efficient. The Barometric antimatter can now count flights of stairs. For wireless instead of adding antennas, they made the screen multifrequency antenna for LTE and UMTS. They did not add in a SIM card slot because it would make the watch too big so instead they added in an electronic sim that’s is a fraction of the size. Making all of these compromises makes the watch the same size as the watch series 2. This new watch comes in gold, silver, space gray, and black and white ceramic and works with all of the Apple Watch bands.
Top Features:
- Cellular
- GPS
- Swimproof
- 70% faster dual-core processor
- W2 wireless chip
- Barometric Altimeter
- All-day battery
- WatchOS 4
Pricing
- Series 1: $249
- Series 3 with cellular: $399
- Series 3 without cellular: $329
Wireless Support Carriers
United States
- AT&T
- Sprint
- T-Mobile
- Verizon
Canada
- Bell
Australia
- Optus
- Telstra
- Vodafone (coming by the end of 2017)
China
- China Unicorn
- China Mobile (coming by the end of 2017)
- China Telecom (coming by the end of 2017)
Japan
- au
- DOCOMO
- SoftBank
United Kingdom
- EE
Germany
- Telekom
France
- Orange
Switzerland
- Sunrise (coming by the end of 2017)
- Swisscom (coming by the end of 2017)
Pre-order starts September 15 and will be available on September 22.
Should you upgrade?
The only real new feature with the Apple Watch Series 3 is the cellular connection option making your new Apple Watch more independent from your iPhone. Also if you get a cellular-enabled Apple Watch you will also need to contact your carrier about data plans. Apple also made an Apple Watch Series 3 that does not have cellular but instead only has GPS and it’s $70 dollars cheaper than the cellular option. But if these features and prices aren’t for you then it’s not worth upgrading. Instead, look at getting Series 2 or Series 1.
In the news, it was reported that the new LTE enabled Apple Watch Series 3 has a bug. According to the Verge, the series 3 watch tries to connect to unknown WiFi networks instead of LTE when an iPhone isn’t close by. Apple has acknowledged this problem and has stated that they will try to fix this bug in a “future software release.”
Hands-on Reviews: