Expert’s Rating
Pros
Cons
Our Verdict
If you ’ve got a Series 6 or 7 , there are n’t enough changes here to justify an rise . But for anyone with an former Apple Watch , and especially for those who are Considering their first raid into the world of wearables , this is but an objectively splendid smartwatch .
Best Prices Today: Apple Watch Series 8
For its fall 2022 release , Apple made a witting decision to focalize on its elite product crease : theiPhone 14 Pro , AirPods Pro and Apple Watch Ultra . In each case , more effort was made than ever before to persuade customers to spend extra for the premium experience . This is a risky strategy , however . Some customers will be upsold , but throw the option between a defame standard model and a dearly-won agio one , others may be dissuaded from buy anything .
Which bring us to the Apple Watch Series 8 . In a reality where cheap replacement exist ( including Apple ’s own new SE ) , the most interesting new feature article and design determination have been confined to the Apple Watch Ultra , and there are very few change from last class ’s Series 7 . So the interrogative sentence continue : Why would anyone choose the Series 8 ?
Apple Watch History
This Apple Watch has since been replaced with a newer exemplar , and you could find links to all our Apple Watch reviews below . Do mention that we ’re ask to seeApple Watch Series 10 , Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Apple Watch SE tertiary generation , runningwatchOS 11 , found in September 2024 at the company’sGlowtime event(seehow to determine the September event ) . If you ’re in the grocery store for a new Apple Watch , see ourApple Watch purchasing guide , round - up of thebest Apple Watch pile , and advice on whether you shouldbuy Apple Watch now or wait . You might also be interested in what othernew Apple productsare come this twelvemonth , and when is thenext Apple event .
Design: Why mess with a classic?
Aside from some newfangled colouring material and band option ( which you could buy for the Series 7 too ) , there are no external differences between the Series 8 and Series 7 , which may be disappointing newsworthiness for likely upgraders . But this remain a classic design .
Foundry
It ’s a squircle ( or rather , a rectircle , since the length is slightly greater than the width ) , that pleasing and quintessentially Apple shape , with smooth rounded corner that feel comfortable on the wrist . There ’s an appealing contrast between the lusterlessness polish off around the showcase and the gloss of the silver screen and underside , while the ohmic resistance of the Digital Crown dial is calibrated just right . It ’s simply a squeamish object to look at and wear .
Spot the difference: The Series 8 (left) looks exactly the same as the Series 7.
Other than the Digital Crown , you get a 2nd button on the same side which is flush with the chassis of the ticker . In theory it should therefore be hard to incur without looking , but it really is n’t ; the telephone dial and the shape of the watch assist you to find it instantly with no problems at all .
Physically the Series 8 should be utterly capable of standing up to the habiliment and tear of day-by-day life . I sustain only modest scratches on the screen of a Series 6 two years ago as a upshot of literallyscraping it against jagged rockwhile raise the book binding on a well , and Apple has toughen up the front Ion - go showing since then , as introduced on the Series 7 .
Screen: Always on and always excellent
Aside from being difficult to crack , that display is burnished , colorful and reactive . It ’s no longer the gravid Apple Watch concealment – that honor now belongs to the 49 mm Apple Watch Ultra – but there ’s plenty of room for a all-encompassing range of entropy . I ’ve been using the Modular spotter face , for example , which features an amazing six complications along with the time . These are all comfortably large and clear enough to read , in the dim blind just as on the brilliant one .
And that always - on screen , while again not new for this example ( it was introduced way back on the Series 5 , in fact ) , remains a valuable and thoughtfully carry through feature . Gone are the days when you had to twist your wrist in just the right way to arouse up the screen and break the time , while the dim and simplified Sleep Focus faces beggarly battery biography remains solid .
Crash detection: Hard to test but invaluable
While the Series 8 stay the same as the Series 7 in most respects , it has two flagship newfangled feature .
The most intriguing – and potentially lifesaving - is called clang detection , and follows a similar conception to the fall spotting feature which debuted in the Series 4 . Instead of monitor your movements to find when you ’ve had a potentially serious declination , it try out to agnise the sound and variety in acceleration characteristic of a machine clank . This is supported by an telling array of computer hardware sensor , including the microphone , GPS and barometer , plus an upgraded accelerometer and gyroscope .
Like fall detection , crash sleuthing follows a dead man ’s switch rule : it will assume the worst if you do n’t manually distinguish it otherwise . If the algorithm decides , on the footing of the sensor data , that you ’ve been in a severe crash , it will pop up a screen asking if you ’re okay , then call emergency service if you do n’t answer within ten seconds . The watch will also send its location to responder and the drug user ’s hand brake contacts .
Spot the difference: The Series 8 (left) looks exactly the same as the Series 7.
It ’s worth notice that this feature is n’t an Apple Watch exclusive , despite Apple ’s expressed reference to the Series 8 ’s more powerful accelerometer : the same feature is also available on the new iPhones , which presumably have likewise muscular sensor regalia . But this also seem to mean that the feature film does n’t use the health readings – heart rate and body temperature , for example – that the watch is uniquely rank to measure . I ’m no paramedic , but it collide with me that crash dupe are probable to experience change in heart charge per unit that might facilitate the algorithm to work out what ’s happening . No doubt Apple has considered all this .
Still , there have been anecdotal reports of false positive on rollercoasters , as is elaborated inthis Reddit post . ( Note that the user who set about that yarn experienced the false positives using an iPhone , not the Series 8 . ) One would imagine that the pump - rate graph of someone on a rollercoaster would be different to the sudden panic experienced by someone in a clash – but again , this is outside my area of expertise .
I ’ve not experienced any simulated positives when doing sudden pinch Chicago in the car , starting and intercept on the train and so on , but I will allow in that I have n’t got myself in any literal crashes to screen the feature in good order . One YouTuber has doneprecisely that , however , and over the course of three deliberate and slightly alarming collision it seemed that the feature – again , on an iPhone rather than the watch – is effective both at raising the alarm in a echt clang , and recognising and disregard milder prang .
Spot the difference: The Series 8 (left) looks exactly the same as the Series 7.
at long last it ’s a difficult feature to measure , since it will ( hopefully ) be call upon so rarely . It may keep your life , or it may have absolutely no impression on you whatsoever . Most users , we ’d hope , will never see the warning screen at all – but it ’s assure to sleep with that it ’s there .
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Taking the temperature
The second significant new feature is a new temperature sensing element – or rather , a duet of temperature sensor , one on the undersurface next to your peel , and another beneath the sentry ’s screen . Apple says this binary apparatus turn on the vigil to better answer for for changes in external temperature , but it ’s still very cautious about offering any insight : the Health app will insist that it Needs More Data until it ’s recorded your wrist temperature for five nights . And even then you ’ll be given info in the form of variations from the service line , rather than an on - requirement temperature . It ’s not a thermometer .
Wrist temperature might come across the reader as an left matter to be measuring anyway . If a doctor said your wrist temperature , or indeed your temperature as a whole , was high-pitched or grim , would you acknowledge what that signified ? It ’s not good , presumably , but do you ask to be upset ? How much of a difference from the service line is cause for alarm system ?
As it fall out , Apple is cracking not to take the place of your friendly neighborhood medic , and emphasises that the Apple Watch ’s temperature sensing element “ is not a aesculapian equipment and is not intended for use in aesculapian diagnosing , treatment , or for any other aesculapian purpose . ” So what is it for ?
The Series 8’s display is bright and colorful.
Just supplementary guidance , I suppose . you may just treat the picket ’s temperature brainwave as a scientifically non - stringent warning about impending health issues , and get yourself match out just to be on the secure side . Even a twist that is n’t medically attest can still be useful as an spare data point to help you cognise when to search medical assistance . And for non - serious diagnoses such as spirt lag or extravagant alcohol consumption , you do n’t ask to get a doctor involved to pull ahead from the information .
I suspect , however , that for many users the master significance of the temperature sensing element will be their power to course into a secondary software : cycle tracking . By monitor changes in nighttime temperature the Series 8 can figure when ovulation has drive place , which has obvious welfare for kin planning , and make more accurate period of time prediction . US lecturer in peculiar might deliberate the Wisdom of Solomon of entrusting such data to an app , but Apple is more often than not one of the better technical school companies for privacy ; the fellowship insists that all wellness data collected by the Apple Watch is encrypted and can not be accessed by Apple or any third company without your denotative consent .
Finally , while we ’re talking about wellness features , it ’s deserving remark that the Apple Watch ’s sleep tracking lineament has got a lot well this year . In the yesteryear I ’ve complain that it ’s far less sophisticated than the trailing offered by rival wearables , but now you get broken - down meter for Awake , REM , Core and Deep eternal sleep phases , along with approximation of the actual sleep you ’ve had as oppose to the time spend in seam . Note that this is a change in watchOS rather than something that ’s specific to the Series 8 , but it ’s still a handy upgrade .
Specs and battery life: Largely the same
Aside from the upgraded accelerometer and gyro , the most obvious variety to the Apple Watch ’s specs tilt from last year is the newfangled S8 chip . But the word “ newfangled ” is doing quite a destiny of large lifting there , since the S8 appears fromidentifier codesto be based around exactly the same CPU as the S7 and S6 chips in the previous two generations .
Other component of the chip may have been pull off since last class ’s hardware , but the inclusion of the same C.P.U. mean you should n’t look any improvements in processing power or speed compared to the Series 7 . Then again , would you remark if the Series 8wasfaster ? I feel it guileful and instantly antiphonal in all the apps I tested , but the same was dead on target of every Apple Watch I can commend using . This is n’t a use case where Apple needs to be labor the performance gasbag .
Apple estimate assault and battery life as 18 hours , exactly as it did for the Series 7 and Series 6 before it . But ( while your milage may vary depend on employment ) you’re able to probably expect rather more .
Throughout examination , the Series 8 systematically lasted until the afternoon of the second day after a charge . ( In the official battery test , it go from 7.30am on Clarence Shepard Day Jr. 1 to 4:00pm on day 2 , a sum of 32 and a half hours . ) That ’s impressive by Apple Watch standard , but we ’re not at the item where you may overlook a night of charging and power through to the next night ; you ’ll need to view up at some detail .
Check out our roundup of thebest Apple Watch chargers and charging stands .
Mind you , now that Apple appears to have improved its sleep tracking to the same criterion as Fitbit , it ’s debatable how many users will stick to the previous paradigm of file overnight . It may make more sense to wear off the watch overnight for sleep and temperature tracking , then do your best to find a few minute to top up the bombardment here and there . And that ’s where charging focal ratio becomes important .
Fortunately the Series 8 ( like the Series 7 ) is equipped with fast charging , and Apple says you should be able-bodied to commit up to around 80 % world power in an hour . I did n’t quite manage that , but it was n’t far off : the Series 8 was on 43 % after 30 minutes and 73 % after the full hour . This is adequate enough , but as we pronounce in ourSeries 7 review , it is n’t really fast enough to make a fabric difference . Charging up for the day in 15 second , say , would be transformative ; charge for the day in an minute is functionally the manner it ’s always been .
Should you buy an Apple Watch Series 8?
As always , there are two unlike types of Apple Watch buyers , though the Apple Watch Series 8 is somewhat more definitive . Either you are :
If you ’re in encampment 1 , the Series 8 is unlikely to be especially appealing . There are a few fresh features , most notably the temperature detector and clang spying , but most drug user wo n’t take them . If you ’ve bring forth a Series 7 , there simply are n’t enough change here to justify an upgrade . Even Series 6 owners should think doubly , although at least they ’d be getting a slimly big screenland .
But for anyone with an older Apple Watch , and specially for those who are considering their first foray into the world of smartwatches , the Series 8 is an splendid leverage . It ca n’t rival the Ultra , but it ’s better than every other Apple Watch the fellowship has released , and for most people the fact that very little ( and I meanverylittle ) has changed since the last genesis does n’t matter – it ’s just an objectively excellent smartwatch .
The design looks and feels great , there are pile of fitness and wellness features ( with a growing emphasis on aid you in an emergency ) , and it ’s all backed by Apple ’s mighty ecosystem . If you use the troupe ’s other products , it would make very little signified to expect elsewhere .
It ’s not the Apple Watch Ultra , and like the respite of Apple ’s non - premium intersection lines the Series 8 feels like it was rather neglected this year . But for quiet , mid - priced excellency this remains the watch to work over .
