Apple Watch Series 4 Review

This wearable almost finished right at the top of the group, just barely being outperformed by the Samsung Galaxy Watch, but beating both the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Samsung Gear Sport. While the Apple Watch does have a more comprehensive set of smart functions than the Galaxy, it ends up getting dragged down by its significantly inferior performance in our battery life tests. Both the Gear Sport and S3 have better battery performance than the Series 4, but not by enough to overcome the significantly more comprehensive set of smart features and functions that the Series 4 possesses. However, the Galaxy Watch is gigantic compared to the Series 4, offering a trade-off for its superior battery life.

Ease of Use

This watch is rated for submersion up to 50 meters (ISO 22810:2010) — more than enough to wear while showering or even tracking your swim workouts. However, you probably shouldn't test this limit to the max and take it scuba diving. Additionally, any high-velocity water sports, such as water skiing or wakeboarding, can cause the integrity of the waterproofing measures of the watch to fail if it impacts the surface at a high speed.

This watch charges with a typical wireless magnetic charger that attaches to the back of the watch. We particularly appreciated that the magnet is strong enough to prevent accidentally disconnecting it most of the time and there are a variety of accessories — OEM and third-party — that allow you to charge your watch in a docking cradle.

The touchscreen on the Series 4 is highly responsive, with practically zero delay. Additionally, you also have the option of using either of the two buttons or the crown scroll to navigate through the menus, with this newest edition of the Apple Watch offering haptic feedback.

It is fairly easy to change the wristband, using a button to release the strap and then sliding it out to remove it. There are tons of different bands available, both from Apple and third-party manufacturers. We tested out the gold aluminum case with the pink sand sport loop, but have tried out the sport band in the past — we found the sport loop to be a bit more comfortable.

Finally, the Series 4 makes it a snap to take screenshots of its displays. You only need to hold down both side buttons once the setting is enabled.

Smart Functions

This watch worked with most of our sample set of apps, such as Uber, Messenger, Strava, IFTTT, Evernote, and Shazam. The Series 4 no longer supports the standalone Instagram app as of April 2018, but there are rumors that Spotify is currently developing an app for the Apple Watch.

This wearable does accept voice commands through Siri and will also display most push notifications from other apps, even if there isn't a dedicated standalone watchOS version of that app. You can take calls right on the watch itself — handy, if you have always wanted to live out your secret agent fantasy — and if you have the LTE version of this watch, you don't even need your phone to make or receive calls.

You can set up a payment card in Apple Pay, then use this watch to complete transactions anywhere that has an NFC or contactless payment kiosk, which are becoming more and more prevalent.

Finally, this wearable does have an integrated GPS module that can receive data from GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, or QZSS satellites, making it perfectly equipped to handle all of your navigation and fitness tracking needs.

Display

The Series 4 is available in two sizes — 44mm and 40mm — increasing from the 42mm and the 38mm available sizes of the Series 3. This translates to a viewing area of 977 sq. mm. for the larger size and 759 sq. mm. for the smaller size. However, the Series 4 is slightly thinner than its predecessors.

The LTPO OLED Retina display is one of the highest quality screens that we have seen on these products, definitely offering one of the best images around. The backlight is also plenty bright, making it easy to read in both bright sunlight and in dim conditions.

Unfortunately, you do not have the option to enable the backlight to automatically adjust to the ambient lighting condition or set the screen to always be on.

Fitness Impact

We found this smartwatch to be exceptionally accurate when it came to counting steps, only deviating from the true manual count in a mile-long walk by 11 steps in its best trial and 34 steps in its worst. The Series 4 was spot on at calculating the distance walked in all three of our trials.

We also found the Series 4 to be highly accurate when it comes to measuring heart rate, delivering by far one of the best performances we have seen from these products and matching our control chest strap monitor. Additionally, the Series 4 also now includes an ECG sensor, allowing it to take more comprehensive heart data, including atrial fibrillation. However, there are going to be more features that utilize this sensor released later this year.

There are tons of different workouts that this watch can track, such as outdoor and indoor walks, runs, or bike rides, as well as elliptical, rowing machine, stair stepper, HIIT workouts, hiking, yoga, and swimming (pool and open water). You also can log any other type of workout under “Other”, but you do need to start the workout — the watch won't start tracking a workout automatically.

This smartwatch also offers fall detection, where it can alert the emergency medical system if you take a bad fall and can't confirm that you are OK and has some other wellness features, such as guided breathing sessions.

However, even with the improved accelerometer and gyroscope, we found that this smartwatch struggled to correctly count the number of flights of stairs climbed in our tests. We climbed three flights of stairs before it even started tracking and were overall unimpressed.

Battery Life

In our test, we were able to get two days out of the Series 4 with light to normal use, but this would be severely reduced if you are constantly using the GPS or either of the heart rate sensors. This watch also takes a decently long time to charge, hitting the 50% mark after 76 minutes and completely charging after 170 minutes or so.

Value

While this watch is one of the best you can get, it is also one of the most expensive around, making it a hard sell as a budget pick.

Conclusion