Apple recently released their series 4 Apple Watch in September along the Apple iPhone XS release. The Apple Watch series 4 received a good response at the event floor with the reduced bezel and increase in size of watch faces. Will it fair against other smartwatches? Is it really the best smartwatch ever by Apple?
Apple Watch Series 4
Apple released their first smartwatch back in 2015 which like every other Apple product was received very well. It kept evolving year after year but nothing huge changed apart from OS updates, chipset, and few other incremental upgrades. But one thing is for sure, it was a hit in the market and soon rose up the ladder to be the number one smartwatch globally. We will see the Apple Watch series 4 specification, functionalities, how good it is and all other aspects of it.
Design
The design hasn’t had any noticeable changes ever since release it has got the same square display inside of a watch body either 38mm or 42mm. This year the biggest upgrade is in the design department. the design is improvised to a whole new level. The watch face’s now come in larger sizes – 40mm and 44mm. It is 2018 and bezels are dying, Apple Watch series 4 now has a very small bezel and hence a large display area. Apple claims a 30% increase in the display area and the current 40mm model has screen same size as the last gen 42mm model. Edges are no more right-angled, they are curved and that goes well with the shape of the watch face. The rotating button now has a red ring instead of the big red dot.
Hardware
The watch feels sleek overall. The rear sensors are made of ceramic and you feel the Apple’s exceptional build quality in every aspect. Battery life is good and lasts a minimum of two days. Mic and speakers are located away from each other and the speaker loudness has gone up by 50%. Be it for calls or conversation with Siri both work very fine and feels loud enough.
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What has Changed?
The all-new Apple S4 Chipset makes for a good improvement in the process speeds. The difference is evident in the app usage. Apps are no more sluggish, thanks to the new WatchOS 5. Apple has brought a few new watch faces with room for little customization. The default watch face is loaded with almost all the information you can get from the watch. Click on it and you can view them in detail long press to customize it or change watch faces. There are smoke, colors, and fire watch face which are not animations but a real video created under control conditions by Apple solely for watch faces.
ECG
The new Apple Watch series 4 has a first of its kind feature. We all know Apple Watches are very much health-centric but we never guessed they could do ECGs. Surprised or shocked? It is not the same tech used in other health bands to read heart rate using light. The watch asks to hold the rotating button with the other hand than the hand wearing the watch then it passes electricity through the sensor on the back an receives it back via the other hand making the current pass through the heart. This sounds effective and real but the feature hasn’t rolled out yet. It is expected to come with an OS update very soon but only for the US.
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Apple Watch OS 5
The new watch OS 5 is what the Apple Watch series 4 comes preloaded with. Older Apple watches will get the OS update but not all the features as the current gen watch. It has a few nifty and interesting features to check out with.
Now the Apple Watch can detect Yoga and hiking. This is a nice addition if you do any of the two regularly. It doesn’t auto detect though. You manually need to start and stop it. In case you forgot to stop and no activity is done a prompt arises reminding you to stop the workout which is nice to use.
Fall detection is a feature that detects the person’s fall with its various sensors and automatically calls emergency services for help and messages to your emergency contacts if you remain dormant after the fall for few mins. Apple says it has studied thousands of different ways of falls, trips, and slips to design the pattern and make it foolproof. Sadly, we couldn’t test the feature and you know why.
The walkie-talkie is a new feature coming with the WatchOS 5 to all the Apple Watches. The functionality is very simple, if you wanna talk to someone and don’t wanna call, you can reach them on walkie talkie if they too have Apple watch. Press to talk and the opposite party hears it and when you are done they can do the same to talk back.
Siri can be triggered with the hand rise, the same way screen is triggered on. The feature works fine but it gets funny when you rise to see the time and speak something with people nearby which Siri takes as input by mistake. We had it turned off in our time with the Apple Watch series 4.
Watch bands
There is a wide variety of watch bands for both 40mm and 44mm as always. And the good news is all the previous gen watch bands can still be used on them. Thanks to Apple for not making it incompatible just like ditching the headphone jack.
Drawbacks
No gadget comes without drawbacks. Of course, there is a ton of feature to use but one simple feature that is available on health band as cheap as 50 USD but not available in the Apple watch is sleep tracking. It can easily be added with a software update but Apple has left us wondering why they never included it.
It is apple and you get very fewer customizations. For example, there are limited watch faces and customization within the watch face possible. You can’t create one of your own or purchase a watch face from the store. The glass on the face is very prone to scratches and breakage due to the raised-up display placement.
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Verdict
If you are in search of a smartwatch or looking for an upgrade from previous gen Apple watch then Apple Watch 4 is a good choice. Health tracking is good on the Apple Watch series 4 but you have better options at a cheaper price. And if you don’t fall into any of the above categories we recommend not to buy this, because this is not the gadget for everyone.
