The Apple Watch Series 7 offers the same suite of sensors as the Series 6. These include an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a heart rate sensor, a barometer, an always-on altimeter, a compass, an SpO2 sensor, and a VO2 max sensor. These sensors have a host of health and fitness tracking features, including blood oxygen monitoring, heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, fall detection, workout tracking, and more. The Apple Watch Series 7 (starting at $399) is Cupertino's latest flagship smartwatch.
The Series 7 is Apple's most attractive and durable wearable yet, and an Editors' Choice award winner. The largest, most advanced Always-on Retina display yet makes everything you do with your Apple Watch Series 7 bigger and better. Series 7 is the most durable Apple Watch ever built, with an even more crack-resistant front crystal. Advanced features let you measure your blood oxygen level,¹ take an ECG anytime,2²and access mindfulness and sleep tracking apps. You can also track dozens of workouts, including new tai chi and pilates.
I'm only scratching the surface here, as I haven't mentioned sleep tracking, dozens of workout plans, Apple's Fitness+ service, noise alerts, and the mindfulness app yet. The Series 7 charges 33% faster than its predecessor, thanks to the new magnetic fast-charging USB-C cable. (A charging brick is not included.) It'll get you from 0-80% in about 45 minutes. Also, if your battery is dead and you'd like to use the watch for sleep tracking, Apple says just eight minutes on the charger gets you enough battery life for eight hours of sleep.
Although I'm sure if you asked Apple Watch users, they'd ask for a larger, longer-lasting battery rather than a faster-charging battery. I also like that the new Apple Watch can charge to 80% in 45 minutes. It's helpful if you just want to top up for a few minutes before bed to have enough battery life for sleep tracking. Apple says an 8-minute charge gives you 8 hours of sleep tracking. I found the fast charging useful one day when, just before a run, I realized I only had about 15% battery left.
I charged it while I got dressed and was able to head out with more than a 50% charge. You have to use the new included Apple Watch cable for faster charging. You get the new Apple S7 SiP powering the Apple Watch Series 7, but there is no performance improvement here.
Apple says this new processor is on par with the previous-gen S6 SiP in the Series 6. The Series 7 supports dual-band Wi-Fi, Apple's U1 chip, and ultra wideband antennas. It has health sensors for blood oxygen and heart rate tracking as well as the hardware to record an ECG. Just like the Series 6, the new Series 7 also has an always-on altimeter that can track elevation changes constantly. The fall detection feature now also works while tracking workouts. Right out of the box, the new Apple Watch Series 7 impresses as it comes in five colours, Green, Blue, Product Red, Starlight and Midnight.
The colours are designed to suit your look and style, just like the strap options that we've seen in the past for all the models. The device is crack resistant, and Apple claims it is using its strongest front crystal ever. It's supposedly 50 per cent thicker than the Watch Series 6. It may appear rounded and curved on the surface but it's flat against the actual OLED display. The device is IP6X-complaint so it can withstand dust and grime.
It's also water-resistant thanks to its WR50 rating, which lets you submerge it up to 50 metres under water. It should be fine for casual swims, but maybe not for scuba diving and deep-sea dives. A rainy day or a sweaty workout is absolutely no issue though. It's available in three different materials, titanium, stainless steel, and recyclable aluminium.
The new designs are nearly 20% bigger than the 6, which makes everything easier. They're tough, dust and water resistant, and come with a big choice of bands and colours. A big battery life and new health apps such as blood oxygen sensor give you more info than ever.
Apple says that with the introduction of sleep tracking on Apple Watch, it has noticed a shift in the way users use, and charge, their devices. To this end, you can charge your Series 7 for just eight minutes to enable a full 8-hours of sleep tracking, and zero to 80% takes just 45 minutes. The key to this is the improved battery connector on the back of the watch and corresponding changes in the new charge cable's puck. This means that you'll only get the full fast-charging experience if you use the charger that came in the box with your new Watch.
If you use a third-party stand or any other charger from Apple, you'll get the regular charging speed from last year. This means that just eight minutes of charging time can provide up to eight hours of sleep tracking. The Magnetic Fast Charger USB-C Cable ships with the Apple Watch Series 7, but users will need to supply a 20W or higher power adapter to get fast charging. Apple claims 18 hours of battery life on the Apple Watch Series 7, and I was able to get about a day and a half worth of use on a single charge. It was set to monitor my heart rate throughout the day, with the always-on display mode enabled, and SpO2 tracking on by default. During this time, the watch was connected to my iPhone at all times.
I did also manage to get just about two days' worth of battery life with the always-on display switched off. Using the Series 7's cellular capability resulted in a drop in battery life as I expected. You can save money and get the Apple Watch SE, starting at $279, but you miss out on the larger screen, blood oxygen and ECG apps, the new crack-resistant crystal and dust resistance.
You can save even more money and get the $199 Series 3, but you miss out on emergency calls, fall detection, a cellular option, the always-on display and more. Apple's new watch supports fast charging via a new USB-C charging cable, which Apple claims will charge 33 percent faster than the Series 6. When you need to charge it, Apple says it only needs to be connected to its charger for eight minutes to be able to cover eight hours of sleep tracking. However, in our testing, we didn't find it was all that much faster than the Series 6, which needed about 10 minutes.
This new Apple Watch also shares the same sensor as last year's, so you'll have to wait for the hotly anticipated blood pressure and glucometers features. However, you can still track your blood oxygen levels, ECG and heart rate, so it's still a solid smartwatch for fitness buffs. There's also a new mindfulness app, cycling fall detection and calorie burning calculator, which overall makes this the best Apple Watch to date. On a more positive note, thanks to its new charging architecture, the Series 7 juices up quickly.
With its new USB-C compatibility, the watch charges 33% faster than the Series 6. Just 45 minutes on its fast-charging puck takes it from dead to 80% battery life. If you're running low on battery life at the end of the day, popping it on the charger for just eight minutes gives you enough juice for eight hours of sleep tracking. If like me you don't wear your Watch whilst sleeping, you should find yourself charging your Watch every 1.5 days, as opposed to every day on older models. If you're a Series 6 owner, you'll be upgrading for faster charging, but not longer life. Make no mistake though, the upgrade to charging is a big one and makes the Apple Watch a much more reliable companion if sleep tracking is important to you.
And like I said, given the improvements to the Watch's display, the fact the battery life hasn't diminished I think is an accomplishment in and of itself. In the past, Apple's watchOS looked similar across all its smartwatches, minus select apps exclusive to the new hardware inside a given model. Apple Watch 7 doesn't have new sensors, though, so instead the company altered watchOS 8 for a bigger screen. Apple's latest smartwatch is mostly an incremental upgrade from the Apple Watch 6, maintaining an 18-hour battery life, the same CPU and adding no new health features. But the enlarged display is game-changer, and makes it difficult to return to previous-generation models.
The Series 7's big screen adapts wearable computing for more everyday applications, making it practical to be productive from your wrist. The Apple Watch Series 7, announced in September 2021, is the current iteration of the Apple Watch that originally launched in 2015 and replaced the Series 6. The Apple Watch Series 7 builds on the design of previous Apple Watch models with a more rounded design and offers some notable new features including larger displays, improved durability, and faster charging. The Apple Watch Series 7 has a 1.9-inch LTPO OLED display with a resolution of 396x484 pixels for the 45mm model. It has a peak brightness of 1000 nits when it's active and upto 500 nits when it's in the always-on state. This watch has an IP6X rating for dust resistance and is also water resistant upto 50m.
If you are planning to go for a short swim, you can take this new Series 7 along to track it as well. The Apple Watch Series 7 builds upon its class-leading predecessor with a larger screen, faster charging, and improved durability. Between the hardware updates, ample health and safety features, and unrivaled third-party app selection, it offers the best smartwatch experience you can get today, earning it our Editors' Choice award. Whether the charging update represents an important improvement really depends on how you use your Apple Watch. If you take it off when you go to bed and slap it on the charger, you'll hardly notice the change. Apple has also made some significant improvements to battery life and charging on the Apple Watch Series 7.
The company claims that the new smartwatches offer 18-hour all-day battery life, along with 33% faster charging than the previous model. Note that the altimeter can be inaccurate in some weather conditions. The Apple Watch Series 7 can only be paired with an iPhone, but the process is seamless. The watch installs compatible apps that are already on your phone so you can access them on your wrist directly. For cellular models, the process of setting up LTE is simple and quick. Once done, you can stay connected using just LTE and leave your iPhone out of reach, for example while working out.
Apple had also advertised faster charging speeds on the Series 7 at the time of its unveiling, but this feature is currently not available in India. The Watch Series 7 has a new charger, complete with fast charging, and is easily recognizable compared to the older versions due to the silver case. It provides an 80% charge in 45 minutes according to Apple, but when plugged into the Apple fast charger, it exceeds this, getting to about 88% in that time. There is also has a handy feature where an eight-minute charge will return eight hours of sleep tracking. In addition to the new exterior features, the Apple Watch Series 7 has a 70% brighter screen than the older models. The battery will still last 18 hours, but the Apple Watch charges 33% faster than its predecessors.
The Series 7 doesn't come with a USB-A charging cable, but with a USB-C. The Series 7 Apple Watch is more durable than any previous version. Apple says the screen is more crack-resistant (both on the glass version and on the more expensive sapphire models.) The watch is also dust resistant for the first time. That's a feature I'm excited about since I've always worn the Apple Watch to the beach but have worried about getting sand in the area around the crown, or in the speakers. The Series 7 is still rated for up to 50 meters of water resistance anywhere, including in the ocean or pools, so you can swim pretty much wherever you want with it.
The Watch Series 7 offers an 18-hour battery life, like the Series 6, though it ships with a USB Type-C cable for faster charging. The only other main feature is that the larger and brighter display allows the Watch Series 7 to offer a Full Keyboard with QuickPath, making replying to messages easier. The catch is that the screen isn't as sharp and impressive as the Apple Watch's, and you don't get the full Apple ecosystem experience with iPhones and other Apple devices. The Apple Watch Series 7 offers the same health monitoring features available with the Series 6. A built-in accelerometer and gyroscope enable other important health-related features such as fall detection.
The aluminum Apple Watch models feature Ion-X glass to protect the display, while the stainless steel and titanium models use sapphire crystal glass. Sapphire crystal glass offers better scratch resistance than Ion-X glass because it is a harder material, which means the models with sapphire crystal models are more resistant to scratching and everyday wear. Apple Watch Series 7 models are also able to charge 33 percent faster, with just eight minutes of charging providing up to eight hours of sleep tracking time. There are some tradeoffs with the Apple Watch Series 3 because it is a much older model, such as a smaller display, an older chipset, and the lack of a compass, fall detection, ECG, and blood oxygen monitoring. Measure your blood oxygen level with a revolutionary sensor and app.
Along with other innovations like mindfulness and sleep tracking to keep you healthy from head to toe. At the same time, Apple's ongoing dedication to Apple Watch's rectangular design heritage is appreciated. Apple's focus on maintaining all-day battery life despite larger power requirements, like a brighter and larger screen, is also something that can't be ignored.
If you have used an Apple Watch in the past, the experience will be very similar. Pressing the digital crown opens up the app drawer on the Apple Watch, and this can be set to zoom in/out and also be used to scroll through menus and notifications. Apple has also added a sensor on the digital crown for measuring ECGs using Apple Watch Series 7.
I found the watch to be quick to respond to touch inputs, and the bigger display compared to previous models did make content a little easier to read. The Contour watchface highlights the new rounded screen edges of the Series 7, while the Modular Duo face shows details of three complications at once. The Apple Watch has been one of the best smartwatches in the industry, and each new generation becomes the wearable of choice for those using an iPhone.
Apple Watch has been improved over the years, with multiple generations each bringing in new features and capabilities. So is the Apple Watch Series 7 a big leap over the Series 6, or just a small iterative step? The health and fitness tracking is comprehensive, detailed, accurate, and in my case, total overkill for my needs — and that's a good thing. It means should I decide to do more, the Watch will be ready without the need to upgrade. Or I use the app selection mode by pressing the lower button on the Watch to leap straight into the workout app. It takes seconds, which as a casual exerciser, is what I want.
Even though there's a lot to be said about faster charging, battery life on the Series 7 has been better than I expected. Unless I go on an extended outdoor bike ride and use GPS, the Series 7 gets through a full day of use and sleep tracking that night without needing a quick top-off charge. The most notable addition here is a display that's 20% larger than its predecessor, capable of fitting 50% more text. The screen is brighter as well, and fortified by stronger crystal, with the watch now sporting an IP6X rating for dust, coupled with the existing WR50 water rating for swimming. Contrary to rumors, the overall battery life hasn't improved , but charging is now 33% faster. The Apple Watch 7 does get a 70% brighter always-on display while indoors, IP6X dust resistance, the same WR50 water resistance as prior models, and more durability.
Finally, keep in mind that for all their impressive features, Apple's and Samsung's smartwatches offer only one-day battery life. If that's one of your main concerns, we suggest the Editors' Choice-winning $229.95 Fitbit Versa 3, which offers less in the way of third-party apps and feels a bit less refined, but lasts for days on a charge. This might sound negligible over previous years, but again, switching from the Series 3, there is definitely a noticeable weight difference to the new watch. A series of seemingly negligible design changes actually add up to make a big difference, and whilst at first glance the Series 7 doesn't look much different, it feels almost like a whole new product.
Paradoxically, one of the best things about the Series 7 is that despite all the new screen real estate, it feels like the design, relatively speaking, has barely changed at all. Apple doesn't provide capacity specs, but the Series 7 Apple Watch has the same 18-hour battery life as prior models. That's enough to get you through the day, but if you want to do sleep tracking, you're going to have to charge the watch.
