Review: The Apple Watch Series 10 is a great watch that's starting to feel the same

05 Nov 2024, 16:00 by David Murphy · Android Police

If you're an Android fan through and through, there's no reason for you to buy an Apple Watch. While you can listen to all the Apple Music you want on your Google Pixel or check out your favorite Apple TV shows on your Samsung Galaxy, hardware is where Cupertino's favorite company draws the line: no iPhone, no Watch activation. And the same is true in reverse. Apple enthusiasts eyeballing a brand-new Google Pixel Watch 3 or Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra will find them as useful as a wrist weight, since neither watch can pair with an iPhone.

While it's slightly annoying that you can't have a divided house between your pocket and your wrist, it does make the purchasing decision a little easier — at least, for the watch family you'd buy. If you're thinking of jumping ship, Apple's new Watch Series 10 throws a big wrench into the decision; it's not much of an upgrade at all. Don't get me wrong, it's a great smartwatch, but it feels born out of Apple's need to show something off, rather than a substantial improvement to what Apple already has.

Apple Watch Series 10

8.5 / 10
$375 $399 Save $24

The Apple Watch Series 10 is a great smartwatch for Apple fans, but it's not as big of an upgrade over the Series 8 and Series 9 as you'd expect. However, it definitely gut-punches the Apple Watch Ultra 2, which doesn't feel like much of an upgrade anymore.

Pros

Gorgeous, bright display with improved off-angle viewing
As thin and light as it gets
Sped-up charging
A few new health-related features (thanks to watchOS 11)

Cons

Not enough new features to warrant an upgrade
Battery life still not as great as an Ultra
No Android support (as always)

$375 at Amazon $399 at Best Buy $399 at Apple

Price, availability, and specs

Apple's "mainstream" smartwatch — greater than the now-ancient Apple Watch SE (starting at $249), but lesser than the Apple Watch Ultra 2 (starting at $799) — arrives at a base price of $399. That's the same as many previous generations of regular Apple Watches at their respective launches. Apple is nothing if not consistent in this regard.

This base price gets you the smallest version of the watch: a 42mm screen enclosed within an aluminum case, with basic Wi-Fi connectivity. Switch to the larger 44mm display size and your base price bumps up $30. Cellular adds on another $100, or swap for a titanium case, and you're looking at a starting price of $699 or $749 for the small and large versions, respectively. The aluminum watches come in three finishes: silver, rose gold, or jet black. The titanium watches also have three: natural, gold, or slate.

Specifications

Case size
42mm, 46mm
Case Material
Aluminum or Titanium
Display
(42mm) 374x446 1.7-inch OLED; (46mm) 416x496 1.92-inch OLED with LTPO
CPU
S10 SiP
Storage
64GB
Battery
18-36 hours
Cellular connectivity
LTE (optional)
Wi-Fi connectivity
2.4GHz; 5GHz
Software
watchOS 11
Health sensors
Optical heart rate, SpO2, ECG, continuous EDA, skin temperature, sleep apnea detection
Dimensions
42 x 36 x 9.7mm (42mm); 46 x 39 x 9.7mm (46mm)
Weight
30g (42mm); 36g (46mm)
IP Rating
IP68
ATM Rating
50ATM
Display glass
Ion-X (Aluminum), Sapphire (Titanium)
Expand

What's good about the Apple Watch Series 10?

Lightweight, big, and easy to read

My watches have been running big lately. I have had an Apple Watch Ultra on my wrist since it debuted, and I recently tested Android's closest equivalent, Samsung's Galaxy Watch Ultra, whose gargantuan size never threw me for a (sport) loop. Not only have I become used to the bulkier form factor, but I like it enough that I never anticipated downgrading to Apple's mainstream offering. I've since changed my mind completely.

Read our review

Samsung's Galaxy Watch Ultra is great, but it's not for everyone

A great watch, but you might prefer the Galaxy Watch 7

Whereas the Apple Watch Ultra definitely felt like I was wearing a watch, the Apple Watch Series 10 feels like I have a cloud strapped to my wrist. For lack of a better way to phrase it, I don't even think about the fact that I'm wearing a watch. And I've frequently caught myself forgetting the watch on its charger for hours at a time, which I partly, but not completely, blame on the 1.3-ounce weight. The Apple Watch Ultra, by comparison, weighs almost 1.7 times as much.

But there's more to this than just weight. The thickness of the Watch Series 10 helps blend it into the background of your everyday life. At a mere 9.7mm — one fewer than the (roughly) 10.7mm design the Apple Watch has enjoyed for many generations — this is the thinnest device Apple has ever made for wrists. It feels great; I actually find the form factor much more enjoyable than I expected, given how much I thought I'd still prefer the big and bulky Ultra design.

The display is big and bright

The larger version of the Apple Watch Series 10 has a display that's now 3mm shy of the Ultra 2's at 46mm, and 1mm larger than the Watch Series 9. The Apple Watch Ultra 2's gigantic screen still looks amazing and is a blast to manipulate — don't get me wrong — but the smaller Series 10 doesn't feel like the major sacrifice I thought it might be.

As a bonus, Apple claims the watch's LTPO3 OLED display delivers better off-angle viewing than all previous Apple Watches. I can't say I noticed this in everyday use, but I did notice that the display's refresh rate now allows for a lovely, ticking second hand on its always-on display (in the Reflections or Flux watch faces, at least). The watch's various notifications and features were always clear to me, whether that was a result of its brightness or something else.

Finally, the Series 10 peaks at 2,000 nits of brightness, two-thirds the brightness of the 3,000-nit Ultra 2. I think the 2,000-nit screen is plenty bright for all uses; there's nothing about the Ultra 2's screen — for brightness, at least — that would make me want it more than the Series 10. We've peaked on this specification.

Excellent stat-tracking for your life

I don't really use a lot of apps on my smartwatch — sorry, Apple — because I usually have a phone nearby that does a much better job with everything I'm trying to do. However, the Apple Watch is excellent for tracking stats, and I spend most of my time using its various health-related apps. I'll check my heart rate (especially resting) during periods of low and high activity and track my regular indoor and outdoor workouts. I'm always dialing into various activities, whether rowing, dying in a HIIT class, or lifting heavy things over and over.

The Apple Watch Series 10 doesn't have any brand-new health sensors to speak of, which means your dreams of having a wristwatch that can take a body-composition measurement or tell your blood pressure will have to wait. You do get access to a similar depth gauge as the Apple Watch Ultras, but it's only rated for six meters, more a snorkel than a deep swim or scuba. (The watch's water resistance is also rated for half the depth of the Ultra 2: 50m versus 100m.)

The new "how are you doing" prompt that asks you to rate your workouts on a difficulty scale of 1 ("pfft") to 10 ("I see a white light") following a workout is especially useful. It feeds into a new tracked fitness metric: Training Load. While this hasn't yet discouraged me from going ham on workouts when I should probably know better, it's a useful way to monitor endurance.

Also new to WatchOS 11 is a handy (FDA-approved) tracker for potential sleep apnea symptoms, called Breathing Disturbances, providing information for a formal evaluation at your doctor's office, but it's not a feature exclusive to the Watch Series 10; any watch that can run watchOS 11 gets it. Similarly, a super-handy Vitals feature now gives a warning when one of your key metrics (heart rate, respiratory rate, etc.) might be off when you're sleeping. But that's also available to any device that can run the new watchOS.

In general, most of the major new statistical improvements on the Watch Series 10 are thanks to watchOS 11.

Compared to my experience with some Android smartwatches and fitness trackers, what I like most about the Apple Watch is how information is presented. The iPhone's Health app is easy to understand, devoid of "beta" or "experimental" measurements, as well as any strange summary numbers that require you to do way too much external research to understand (cough Samsung's Energy score cough).

Other than watchOS's trends feature, which simply indicates when measurements might be out of whack, Apple isn't interpreting data and coughing up some artificial "you're healthy" diagnosis. It leaves that part up to the user. Similarly, it's not throwing in sketchy metrics because it can, nor do you have to scroll through promotions, news, or other nuisances just to get information.

Read our review

Review: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is big, bulky, and no longer special

It was unique, but now there are better alternatives

What's bad about the Apple Watch Series 10?

I still miss a big ol' battery

There's not a lot that would make me want to jump back to an Apple Watch Ultra 2, but I absolutely miss the larger watch's bulky battery. Since everyone's daily experiences are different, I didn't bother measuring the watch's exact uptime for this review. Instead, I found that I could get more than a day, maybe a day and a half out of the Watch before needing to charge it.

The good news is that the Series 10 supports what Apple calls 'faster charging', which is the same nomenclature it also uses for the Apple Watch Ultra 2. You can go from zero to around 80 percent in just around 30 minutes or so; the Ultra 2 and its larger battery takes about an hour to get to 80 percent. Though you get the charging puck you'll want to use in the box of the Apple Watch Series 10, you'll have to supply your own power adapter that supports USB Power Delivery of at least 5W.

If the Apple Watch Series 10 could last two full days without a charge, that would be an absolute slam-dunk. Unfortunately, that would also increase its heft. I think Apple has struck a great trade-off between form and function in the Series 10, especially with all the built-in battery optimizations that boost longevity and reduce one's reliance on full charges every time. I just wish I could have a little extra uptime.

I (almost) miss the action button

I have no shame admitting that I acted like a complete and total newbie when first using my Apple Watch Series 10. By that, I mean I painstakingly tapped through the Watch to launch the Workout app, then scrolled and tapped my exact workout. And I did that for about a week, internally cursing the loss of the Ultra's super-handy action button I previously used to launch my workouts.

I wised up, switched to a new watch face, and adjusted my complications to include a handy workout-launching shortcut right in the bottom-left corner of my display. I don't miss the action button anymore, even though I have almost accidentally triggered a workout more times than I expected throughout the course of my time with the Series 10. That's fine.

Should you buy the Apple Watch 10?

The choice is pretty simple. If you're already an Apple Watch owner, I wouldn't consider an upgrade unless, at minimum, I was using a Series 7 watch whose battery life was finally starting to give out. The better, bigger screen is a boon, but that might not matter as much if you, like me, mainly use your watch to glance at phone notifications and track your workouts.

If you're currently in the Android ecosystem, you'd have to switch platforms entirely — or go the multi-phone route — just to use the Apple Watch. That's an expensive ask that doesn't make much sense.

If you love your Android smartphone, get an Android smartwatch. You may have a slightly more cumbersome experience with the device's controlling app than what you'd experience on an Apple Watch, but you'll still get all the basics on your wrist: notifications, calls, texts, health-tracking, etc. Google's Pixel Watch 3 and Samsung's Galaxy Watch 7 are great at what they do, though I'd avoid Samsung's Ultra watch for nearly the same reasons as I'd avoid the Apple Watch Ultra 2 right now.

If you're dead-set on making the conversion to Apple, the Series 10 is a great watch for a first-time purchase. It's perfectly priced compared to all the watches that have preceded it for the performance, battery life, and useful features you'll get — especially if you care about health.

Apple Watch Series 10

8.5 / 10
$375 $399 Save $24

$375 at Amazon $399 at Best Buy $399 at Apple

Best smartwatches for Android in 2024

Our favorite smartwatches for any Android phones