Speaker 1: The apple watch series seven is a much more robust watch than many people initially thought, but how does it stack up long term? Let's find out I've been wearing this series seven since it was released. So going on and months now, and I genuinely feel that it is more than the sum of its parts, like a larger screen or faster charging. You can jump straight ahead to any particular section [00:00:30] you like using the chapters linked in the description, but we are gonna get straight into it.
Speaker 1: The immediate thing that I'm drawn to talk about first is of course, that display and the largest green size compared to older generation apple watches for reference the model that I'm wearing is the 41 millimeter, aluminum or aluminum casing. Now I think it's really easy for tech reviewers. People like myself to get really caught up in comparing year on year. And of course it does look like an iterative [00:01:00] update. If you are the looking at something like this series six, but the reality is most people are definitely not looking at upgrading their watch every year. So if you are coming from something like the series three, the series four, or even as some people have told me, they've come from the series two to this series seven, the largest screen size is a significant up grade that said the biggest screen on the series. Seven is much more of a bigger deal than I was expecting.
Speaker 1: Upgrading from the series six 40 millimeters versus 41 [00:01:30] millimeters. That's the smaller casing size and how apples move to increasing it by a millimeter. You might think a millimeter doesn't make any difference. Lexi, what are you talking about in practice? It really does. I've become a car complications gal. Now I used to use complications on the app watch, but not as frequently as I do on this series seven specifically, because now I can make use of all of those four slots around the edge of the watch face. If I'm using a watch face that puts them around the edges and I can actually see the detail on each of them [00:02:00] without needing to tap in specifically to see, you know, I'm looking at my watch face right now. I don't need to tap in to see that I've got a lot of unread messages. I need to deal with those.
Speaker 1: The additional text sizes supported by the series seven also really help. And I greatly appreciate that. Especially after testing a myriad of other wearables that really have tiny screens and do not have selectable text sizes. So for accessibility, I love this. The full size keyboard is also more helpful than I was expecting, [00:02:30] even though I'm not writing the next great American novel on this thing. I definitely find it is good enough for sending quick messages. Although I have found that say making corrections or, you know, going back and never getting to try and change a word that I might have typed accidentally is not as easy as I would like. So hopefully the next update of watch OS nine will help address a couple of these things. Some third party apps still don't have full support for this quote keyboard. And they instead [00:03:00] push you to say, enter text on your phone.
Speaker 1: So I hope in future updates, we'll see a systemwide support for the keyboard rather than pushing you to use another form of input. The series seven has a tougher and more durable design with a crack re front and of course, dust resistance. Fortunately, I haven't had any kind of made to incidents while wearing the watch to test this out with, but I haven't exactly been gentle with it. I am, you know, a clots let's put it nicely. Um, and this watch still looks, [00:03:30] you know, brand new even six, seven months later. Now, of course your mileage will vary. This is of course just the standard finish. It's not the Sapphire glass it's found on the stainless steel models, but I'm still impressed.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into the health and fitness features on the series seven. Now there's really not too many surprises here, as you probably already know, you know, things like ECG or the electrocardiogram app that we've had ever since the series four, we've also got blood oxygen. We first saw that on the series six, but more than that is [00:04:00] of course the actual fitness tracking features. And a lot of those are actually supported through watch OS eight now, yes, the series seven is not the only watch that supports a lot of these things that I'm talking about. But again, there are a couple of reasons why the actual hardware configuration makes this a lot nicer to use. Of course, with the update to watch O S eight, we saw a couple of different ways to track bike ag cycling activities, which honestly is the one feature that I have really decided that I'm wearing this watch [00:04:30] for most of the time, if I'm getting on my bike, I'm putting on the series seven compared to any other wearable that I have.
Speaker 1: And that's because of a couple of different features, not only is there auto and for cycling, there is also pause and resume automatically as well as things like having your workout stats spoken to you. I've got a full deep dive on how all of these features work and long story short, I wrote up a couple of very, very steep Hills to test this all out. So if you'd like to go watch that video and hopefully make my time worth [00:05:00] it, please go like that link. It's in the description for you below. I do also have a little bit of extra piece of mind with all the safety features on board, specifically, things like full detection during workouts. Now, fortunately again, I haven't had to use this fingers crossed. I never will, but I do feel reassured that it's there, the ring based system, even though that is no different from earlier, apple watches is still a really a good way to keep you motivated. Although I do have some extra thoughts on how to make it even more helpful specifically around what some other wearables that are [00:05:30] doing that apple might wanna take on board. We'll get into that soon
Speaker 1: As you're probably aware, nothing in life is truly free. And the same can be said about battery life on this serious seven, as robust as this watch is. And as much as it's considered the gold standard amongst other smart watches in lots of different ways, battery life is not one of those things. Now, the maximum you're gonna get out of the series seven is one and a half days. That's with the always on display active. I leave it on the [00:06:00] counter overnight, or even turn it off. And then I can get to maybe at 12:00 PM the next day, if I don't charge it overnight, the series seven of course supports faster charging than earlier apple watches. And this is greatly appreciated, especially if you want to just top up throughout the day or specifically just before you jump into bed, if you do wanna to use sleep tracking with it, you can just pop it on its charger for a couple of minutes, and you'll be able to get a full eight hours with it.
Speaker 1: The faster charging puck is provided in the box, which is great. But a lot of people have told me that this guy that you'll also need to [00:06:30] take advantage of those faster charging speeds on the series seven alongside the us B C puck is not included and has come as a little bit of a shock to some people, especially if they don't have say like an 18 wat or faster charger for their iPhone, going out to have to get a supported charger, to get those faster speeds. You know, there's a trade off. I like the environmental side of not including a charger in the box to not duplicate it. But then if it's your first apple watch, you might not know that you're gonna need an [00:07:00] extra charger to support those faster speeds. So there's two sides to every story.
Speaker 1: So that's a look at everything the series seven can do now, but with a new update to watch O S nine, which we are assuming we are gonna get hints of at WWDC with presum a release later, sometime in fall 2022, there are a few things that I think will really boost the experience on the series seven and of course, older, upper watches because apple has [00:07:30] traditionally been really good at providing software support for older models. The first is an improved handoff between phone and watch a couple of samples include when I get a message coming through on iMessage or even an SMS, I'll see it on my phone, I'll respond and then say like 10, 20 minutes later, I'll get that same message pop up again on my watch. I also really hope that we see a way to flag, either say having a sick day or a rest day.
Speaker 1: So we are no longer are prompted to close [00:08:00] our rings on days where we just don't feel like it on that note. I'd also really love to see some sleep tracking improvements beyond those offerings about like getting you into a good habit that the I watch currently kind of gives you. Of course you have the option of third party apps that give you much more granular and detailed information. But to see that at a first party option, I think would really help me want to wear this overnight. But the main reason I don't wear this for sleep tracking is really battery life. And I've spoken a little bit about this already, but if we could somehow move beyond that [00:08:30] one, one and a half days of battery life, I think that's really gonna encourage a lot of people to wear their app, watch as much as possible 24 7. Because if you think about all the data, that's need to get added, to get more insights into your health and wellbeing, it's really coming from wearing this, watch all the time and wearing the watch all the time is only able to be done. If you have good battery life, you see where I'm going with this
Speaker 1: Overall. I really think the series seven is gonna hold its own for the next couple of years, especially with continued [00:09:00] software updates coming down the line. And for now the hardware on the series seven, even though it looks iterative, it's a refinement and it's really making the bar set really high for lots of other wear balls, except when it comes to battery life. But I'll get off my high horse, maybe one day about the battery life thing. I've really enjoyed using the series seven for all the reasons that I've mentioned, but of course would love to hear your thoughts about the series seven, maybe your other [00:09:30] apple watches and other software updates. You'd love to hear thanks for watching and I'll catch you next time.
