Apple Watch Series 4 Review: It's About Time! By Marques Brownlee

Hey, what is up guys I'm, PhD here, and I've, always carried an iPhone with me, as you guys already know, but I've never been much of a watch person like I've gone on and off with a bunch of different smartwatches over the years that I've tried the original Moto 360 previous generations of Apple Watch. Even the new Samsung Galaxy watch that just came out, but always on and off with them. I've never been consistent with it. This one looks like it might be changing that this is debatably. The best thing Apple announced at that latest event, the biggest upgrade for sure and while I was there, I spent all my time with the phones, but now I've gone to spend a lot of time with the watches over the past couple days and I have to say it's about time. We got something like this so series 4 is the first real redesign of the Apple Watch, and it's massively better in a lot of ways: more powerful, more modern, more functional and just more fun.

It comes in two new sizes, the previous small 38 millimeters, has turned into a 40 mil and the large 42 millimeters has turned into a 44 mil, so I'm rocking the new larger one in Space, Gray aluminum, and it's a low-key way nicer than the series 3 now. Naturally, when you hear it's bigger, you'd be concerned about the watch being too big on your wrist, but basically the actual size of the watch itself is nearly the same, as a couple: fractions of a millimeter taller and a bit wider. But on the wrist you don't noticed it's like if you like, the old size you'll like the new size, but thanks to the bezels shrinking so much you get a way bigger screen a 30%, bigger screen area in the same size, body no, not needed. That is HUGE. Every Smartwatch deals with bezels in some way, and this is a great way to do it.

It also does have rounded corners which I'm not as big of a fan of, but it matches the shape of the watch. Now and overall, it's a less bulky, thinner, more modern, looking piece, it's a bit thinner in that sensor area on the back too, and all the changes put together make every previous Apple Watch look terrible in comparison. This is the first Apple Watch that to me actually looks pretty sleek. There are some other minor cosmetic changes to this is the LTE connected watch and that huge red of paint from the last gen has turned into a more subtle red ring the sensor array on the back. Even they don't necessarily look at it.

That much is now ceramic and looks way better. The mic has moved from one side to the other, so it's further from the speaker, that's functionally better, and the speaker is now made way bigger. But overall it's still familiar Apple Watch shape and the bands from the previous years are all still compatible with this new one and using the watch. Software is now the same, but better meaning. It's now watch OS 5, which all Apple watches are getting now, and functionally it's the same.

It doesn't do anything different. Furthermore, it's still the bubbly app launcher all that stuff hasn't changed, but it's now better. So it's on this larger display already, and then they've made all the buttons bigger and easier to press and all the fonts and texts larger and easier to read. So it just makes the working surface area of the watch so much bigger on your wrist to the point where it's actually not a horrible thing to pull out Maps or open photos up on the watch. You can actually kind of see stuff.

Now, if someone sends you a link, an iMessage and you open it on the watch, you might not hate trying to read it and Apple showing off these huge new displays. The best way they can with some new watch faces that happen, to look perfect on an OLED display, of course, with these inky blacks. But there's a lot of that by design there's the info graph watch face they've, seen like in the ads and all this new promo material. It has a ton of complications in all four corners and then four more in the middle plus an hour and a minute hand, and it's just a ton of information I happen to like it a lot. It's the one I've been using.

Some people absolutely hate it. It's like a crime against design by the amount of colors people, see it's kind of meant to emulate those super high-end watches with tons of visible mechanical parts, but a sort of more digital and more colorful version. I got the temperature in one corner, my battery and another. The UV index outside I. Don't check that or care about that, and my activity rings.

I, don't know it just kind of looks cool I like it I, don't know why you can definitely tune it down them and there's also now a new info graph modular face. That's a more digital version that still has a lot of complications with a similar gradient, color style teach their own there's. Also, a new vapor watch face and a fire watch face and a water one, and these were all made. This is the part that the video nerd in me absolutely loves. These were all made using practical effects and recorded with an actual camera, so they actually made a giant Apple Watch sized bin of metal with a camera over it and filled it with fire and recorded it fun fact, and probably the most gratuitous Apple thing ever: I love it.

So the bigger screen and the new design I'd say those are the main draw the biggest reasons to get this new watch. But I'd say there are two other reasons: one the new specs, it's a bit faster, which helps the s4 chip helps to swipe through the UI, which you don't do nearly as often as you do on your phone, but it used to be painful on the watch, so I'm grateful that they focused on they can, it smooth? Now, switching between watch faces adjusting complications, scrolling launching apps, all that and launching Siri is actually noticeably faster and getting responses from her is snappy. There's also now just raised to talk, so you can raise the watch up and immediately just start talking, and it'll quickly. Hopefully answer your question: if you're asking one so how tall is the Empire State Building when it doesn't work, though it kind of just looks like you check the time and then just started blurting out words, which is probably not the best look, so I definitely still prefer like holding down the watch crown and holding and talking and letting go, even though it takes an extra hand and an extra second. So how many feet is a hundred meters? It's fast, you could probably also just hear.

Then the speaker is actually a lot louder. The big slot on the side. I'd say it's significant. So if you're one of those people that makes a lot of phone calls on the watch or like gets a lot of responses from Syria or just talking to it a lot or even does walkie-talkies, then that that louder speaker will matter which brings us to your final reason. You might want to get this watch and that's just the sprinkling of new features Apple tossed in here, and they're, like the new walkie-talkie mode, is maybe the most gimmicky thing ever, but in case you want to talk to people on your watch, but don't want to call them.

There is a walkie-talkie mode that you can enable that lets you push the talk over and with that throwback to Next and the 90s I think that falls in the bucket of old people are going to love. This features alongside fall, detection and EKG's fall. Detection is exactly what it sounds like, so it is, after all, an accelerometer and a gyroscope on your wrist, so Apple tuned this and studied a lot of people falling and with that, if you take a hard fall and then don't move for a while, it will automatically call emergency services and notify your emergency contact, which is actually pretty smart, and I'd, say an Apple Watch for someone is way cooler than the pendant of Shame. You normally see for fall detection, but also construction, workers and painters, and many other people who work at Heights will love this too, of course, and the EKG feature is actually extremely impressive. It's not enabled yet, but when it is, you'll be able to just hold down the watch crown, and it will connect the circuit and the watch can accurately read your heart and produce an EKG that you can then export as a PDF and send directly to your doctor, and it'll detect things like irregular heart rhythm, a fib.

This is a feature that, when it's available could legitimately save lives. So the new Apple Watch has a lot of things going for it, but it's not all great there's. Definitely it's still very Apple in a couple frustrating ways, meaning there are some things that they could definitely do with it. That would clearly make it better, but they just don't do there. There is no sleep tracking at all, which you would think would be kind of a big deal in a watch.

That's so focused on health and fitness, but it's not there. There's also still no completely custom watch faces. Just the customization of the ones Apple made now to be fair apples made a lot at this point, but I feel like. If Apple opened this up to developers and had an app store for watch faces, it could be huge right. You still can't use any assistant other than Siri.

Of course, I'm not surprised by that, but if I could switch it to google assistant, I would be so happy. There's also no always-on mode that I think they could totally do with this battery life, and these OLED displays it is as consistent as ever with the whole race to wake thing, but a lot of people I've talked to you want it to look more like a normal watch, even when you're not using it and part of that, would just be showing a watch face all the time now. That would definitely bring battery life down, but it's already two to three days that I get now, so it bring it down to maybe one day and that's not the end of the world. I'd think it would be fair to give that as an option, but at the end of the day, this is the best Smartwatch by far all over again and obviously the one to get. If you have an iPhone, it's the best productivity watch, the best for notifications and responses to them.

The best fitness watch the best health tool on your wrist. Now the price ranges a lot based on what size, what material and then whether you go with LTE or not, ranging from 399 all the way up to like you could spend 8 900 bucks on this thing. I wouldn't recommend that but yeah overall I just feel like I've always been in this weird place where I know I carry an iPhone, and I've always been a fan of the Apple Watch, but I never feel like I'm missing out on anything when I, just don't have one, but this one I'm going to keep on me, I'm, pretty sure biggest upgrade to the Apple Watch yet, and I love it and I. Think. If you're looking for an Apple Watch, you will too thumb up for me till the next one.

Thanks for watching catch you later, peace.

Source : Marques Brownlee