The Best Apple Watch for Most People Is $50 Off During the October Prime Day Sale.
Last month, Apple released two new smartwatch models: the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Apple Watch Ultra 4. These wearables offer completely new features, such as a heart rate monitor that measures your heart rate every five seconds; Audio Intelligence, which can display a transcript of the last 15 seconds of an in-person conversation; and the new Apple S11 chip, the fastest processor in a wearable device to date.
Despite all these advantages, neither the Series 12 nor the Ultra 4 are the best Apple Watch for most people. That title belongs to the Apple Watch SE 3 , which is currently on sale for just $199 as part of the October Prime Day sale .
The Apple Watch SE 3 doesn’t have the latest and greatest Apple features, nor does it have the biggest and best display. But it doesn’t need to: the SE 3 is equipped with all the features and options most people expect from an Apple Watch. It’s available in two sizes, 44mm and 40mm, both with an always-on OLED display and brightness up to 1000 nits. The SE 3 has a heart rate monitor and can track both workouts and sleep. It supports the Vitals app, which can report on your heart rate, breathing rate, wrist temperature, and sleep duration. It can track menstrual cycles and both predict periods and estimate ovulation.
While the watch doesn’t support Audio Intelligence technology, it does support Apple Intelligence, including the new Siri voice assistant. If AI-powered Siri is important to you, you can use it with the SE 3 and your AI-enabled iPhone. This watch also supports Emergency SOS, as well as fall and collision detection. This means your watch can call emergency services on your behalf if you become unconscious after a fall or collision. If you’re swimming with the SE 3, you can dive to depths of up to 50 meters before you need to worry about water resistance.
This watch doesn’t have Apple’s latest S11 chip, but it does have last year’s S10 chip, which should be more than sufficient for running watchOS for the foreseeable future. The screen lasts up to 18 hours, and in battery-saving mode, it lasts up to 32 hours. With the appropriate charger, the watch can be quickly charged to 80% in 45 minutes, or get eight hours of battery life with just 15 minutes of charging.
In fact, some of the more significant shortcomings won’t matter to most people. The SE 3 doesn’t have an ECG monitor, can’t measure blood oxygen levels, or send hypertension alerts. Its screen isn’t as bright as the Series 12 (2000 nits) or Ultra 4 (3000 nits), and it lacks satellite SOS. It doesn’t support iPhone search, and its battery life isn’t as long as other Apple watches (24 hours for the Series 12 and 50 hours for the Ultra 4). But battery life aside, most users probably won’t be overwhelmed, especially considering the price difference.
Incidentally, the SE 3 40mm version currently starts at $199. If you want the 44mm version , you’ll pay an extra $30, or $229. This watch is also available in a cellular version, which will connect to 5G networks when they become available. The 40mm cellular version is currently $279 on Amazon , while the 44mm model is $279 .