Apple Watch 3 Reviews on Battery life, Cellular Connectivity, and More
Apple's LTE cellular Watch Series 3 is now available. But is it as good as they describe it to be?
In terms of design, the Series 3 is not that different from the units before it, the Series 2 and Series 1. Its form is the same rounded-corner rectangle that Steve Jobs loved. It is almost identical to its preceding unit, except for the Digital Crown dial on the device's side.
On the other hand, Apple is now offering more color choices, adding gold aluminum and dark grey ceramic touches, as well as strap options.
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Apple's latest wearable comes with a variety of strap designs to choose from, one of which is the Sport Loop. It features an ultra-light and breathable design but is quite pricey.
As for the smartwatch's new features, it boasts a longer battery life, waterproofing, GPS, and cellular connectivity. With built-in LTE and UMTS radio, users should be able to get data connectivity even though they do not have their iPhones on hand.
The system automatically switches to cellular when one is away from their iPhone. Consequently, calls should be directed towards the smartwatch. The downside of this, however, has to do with contracts and having to deal with payoffs. Hence, users should know the right time to use such a feature.
When Macworld tested the battery life of the latest wearable, they learned that the cellular usage drags down the device's battery performance. In a 30-minute run, using the Workout app, it drains from the mid-40s to high 20s ultimately depending on the cellular connection.
While they tried separating the Series 3 from the iPhone for an entire morning, within five hours the battery dropped to 32 percent.
This is not always the case. Other tests prove that the Series 3's battery retained 29 percent after 47 hours and minimal LTE activity while the Series 2 while on Wi-Fi and no activity dropped to 15 percent.
Equipped with the new S3 processor chip, which is supposedly 70 percent faster than the S2 chip, critics have observed that apps open faster in the latest Apple smartwatch.
The Apple Series 3 starts at $329 for GPS-only models and $399 for cellular-capable units.
