The flagship Apple Watch comes with several upgrades, including six more hours of battery life for all-day use.
Apple Watch Series 11
Apple’s baseline smartwatch offers upgraded health features and additional battery life.
The smartwatch’s only weakness is that it’s trumped by the value of its younger sibling, the SE 3.
The Series 11 is available to preorder now and ships on Sept 19.
People wear Apple Watches for all sorts of reasons. There are the health and sleep tracking functions, which Apple has heavily invested in over the past few years. There’s the second-screen aspect – some jobs prohibit workers from using their phones on the clock. And then there are the phone-free perks of disconnecting, albeit with some safeguards for contacting friends, listening to music, or getting directions.
Apple rolled out three new Apple Watches at its September iPhone event this year (the Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and the Apple Watch SE 3), and I have been testing all three for the past week. Now I’m ready to share pros, cons, use cases, and buying advice for each one.
In this review, I’m going to focus on the Apple Watch Series 11, which I used to track workouts at my Brooklyn gym, monitor my sleep, and receive Apple’s brand-new Sleep Scores, and do a whole lot more. So, is this a smartwatch to buy or upgrade to? Let’s get into it. Apple Watch Series 11
Preorders for the Series 11 are available now, and the smartwatch officially ships on Sept. 19.
Some features stay the same from Series 10 to Series 11. The biggest is Apple’s chipset. Normally, it updates its chips every year, but the Series 11 keeps the S10 processor, the same chip as 2024’s Series 10. Apple says that in adding more battery life through an internal design change that replaced its jelly roll cells with a metal can design, it was able to keep the form factor of the watch the same and use 2024’s chip to process the new device. This means that the build of the watch is identical to the Series 10.
The screen brightness also remains the same at 2,000 nits, despite its competition, the Pixel Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 8, amping theirs up to 3,000 nits. You have to upgrade to the Apple Watch Ultra 3 to get a 3,000 nit screen in the Apple ecosystem.
The new watches come in four colorways: Jet Black, Rose Gold, Silver, and a new Space Gray. My band of choice is the Sport Loop, which I tested in a striking Neon Yellow. I wasn’t expecting to love as much as I did: It’s lightweight on the wrist, easy to sleep with, and water-wicking (especially if you shower with your watch, which I do). Apple also improved the Sport Loop band for added reflectivity around the edges for those nighttime runners and outdoor exercisers.
Sleeping, working, and exercising with the watch is a lightweight and comfortable experience. The display is vivid, notifications pop up quickly, and the watch outlasts a day of regular use. If you haven’t slept with a watch before, it might take a few nights to get used to it.
