Introduction:
Okay, so there were rumors—serious rumors—that the 10th Generation Apple Watch was going to be the one to get this huge redesign. Like, remember the iPhone 10 that sort of reset the design language of the whole iPhone line? And 10 is just such a nice, round, even number, right? So we just kind of figured that maybe the Apple Watch would do the same thing.
I even remember in my last few years of reviewing the Apple Watch Series 8 and Series 9, I was like, "Look, these are good watches, but clearly very incremental improvements, so if you want a big upgrade, maybe wait till the 10th-gen one." And so now here we are. I've been using the Apple Watch Series 10 for the past week, and it's... it's... it's definitely another incremental upgrade.
Now, you know that's not necessarily a bad thing. Obviously, it's not as exciting as a total redesign, but that definitely makes this review pretty simple as far as whether you should get one or not. The main physical differences this time on the outside are that it's slightly thinner and lighter and bigger.
The numbers say 10% thinner and 10% lighter for the aluminum one, and then they actually dropped stainless steel in favor of titanium on the higher-end ones, which makes it 20% lighter. The screens of both sizes are now even bigger, and the result is really just that you can see more, and it's just more comfortable on the wrist. In fact, it actually just feels like someone took last year's Apple Watch and squashed it down a little bit, and there you go—that's the new design.
Of course, it's more complicated than that. There’s a new metal back that’s now one piece, a re-engineered speaker that’s 30% smaller to fit in this, and other pieces shuffled around to fit the new shape. But the end result is still very much an incremental update instead of a dramatic new form factor. I actually think now this visually reminds me more than ever of a Pixel Watch, just depending on what face you have, because of the way the top edges are curved even more and how everything just kind of melts into the sides—especially with this new jet black color.
In fact, it’s true: the larger 46mm Apple Watch Series 10 now basically runs the same screen size as the Apple Watch Ultra. Apple loves to do that thing where they show an older watch on the screen next to the newer watch with a bigger screen and brag about how there’s a bigger screen so you can get even more text and more content on the screen.
It’s easier to type on that on-screen keyboard. To be honest, it never really made that much of a big difference to me—other than maybe the Ultra—but this year, I noticed something very specific. The Dis Sports workout now shows one extra line of information. So instead of time, active calories, total.
Basic:
Heart rate—it now shows me time, active calories, total calories, heart rate, and miles. So there’s that. I think watchOS 11 literally just adds an extra line of text in some instances with these bigger screens, which is kind of funny.
But speaking of watchOS 11, that launches on these new watches and gets pushed as a software update to some older Apple Watches. So you’re going to get things like the new Vitals app, which gives you a sort of energy score, kind of like the Garmin Body Battery. There’s also sleep apnea detection, which just got FDA approval to detect and notify you of potentially high levels of sleep apnea using only the accelerometer.
And there’s training load as well, which keeps track of the perceived intensity of workouts. That stuff is nice and, as I said, is also coming to some older Apple Watches. So if you really want to know what’s specifically coming just to this newest watch—like a reason to get this one—then there are about four things you should know about.
Okay, let me know if these are enough to convince you to get this newest watch. Number one: with this redesigned speaker, you can now listen to media out loud on the watch. Meaning, you could already take phone calls and set alarms, but now you can literally just play media like music, podcasts, or audiobooks out loud. So you could be on a hike, forget your headphones, and just... you could be that guy. But don’t—don’t be that guy.
Number two: this is now an updated LPO 3 display, which means it’ll go all the way down to 1 Hz instead of 10 Hz. Now it can show the second hand all the time when the always-on display is on because it doesn’t take up extra battery. Plus, it has slightly noticeably better off-axis viewing angles, which actually helps for a watch so you can sort of glance and check it without looking like you’re checking your watch.
Number three: there’s a new water temperature sensor. Here’s the thing—I don’t know if you can tell by looking at me, but I don’t really spend too much time around deep water, so I don’t have any test results for this particular new sensor. But it’s there now, so... great.
And then number four: faster charging. So, cared about this one? Turns out, if you use the puck that comes with it, this is how you maximize your charging speed. You can now get it up to somewhere around 65% from dead in half an hour—it’s supposed to be 80%, actually.
Features:
But we couldn't get it quite that fast. Nevertheless, the faster charging speed is very welcome, and that's it—that's the new Big 10th Generation update. There's also a new S10 SIP inside, which doesn't seem to be noticeably faster or better at anything than the S9. It has an improved neural engine but hasn't been enabling anything that the S9 can't do. So yeah, is that enough?
The more I thought about it, honestly, my take is that now that Apple has called this a redesign—like if you watch the keynote, they were like, "This is a huge deal. This is a big new 10th Generation redesign." Now that they've done that, I'm fairly sure that this is what the Apple Watch is going to look like for the next 5 to 10 years.
Like, if this is a real redesign for Apple, then we're going to be back to even smaller changes from here on. Really, the only parts of this update that made a big difference at all to me are the larger display and faster charging. The larger display, for obvious reasons, and the faster charging is nice, especially because if you want to drop it on a charger for a few minutes and get a bunch of use, then you can. I would find it even better if I were doing sleep tracking as well. But I've mentioned this before—I'm not, because I'm using the Eight Sleep for all my sleep tracking metrics.
Shout out to Eight Sleep for sponsoring this portion of the post. The Eight Sleep has been so good to me, which is why I've mentioned it in a previous post. You've already heard about this new one, the Pod 4 Ultra, which can get super cool or super warm to each side of the bed independently. But also, yeah, it's doing that biometric tracking with 99% accuracy no matter how you're sleeping, which I think is actually an advantage over something on the back of your wrist.
Then you just jump in the app, and you can see: here are the different stages of sleep. I've been waking up in the middle of the night randomly since coming back from Australia's time zone, but this is a pretty good night right here. You can see heart rate, heart rate variability, breath rate—no snoring, which is great—and it's helping me get back into my sleep routine here on the East Coast. It can help anyone sleep better, honestly.
You just add the Pod to your current mattress like a fitted sheet, and it automatically cools down or warms up each side of the bed. So you can go to eightsleep.com/MKBHD and get $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra or $200 off the Pod 4, and then you can also leave your wearable on the nightstand.
But okay, so if you have an older Apple Watch Series 4, 5, 6, or 7, and you want a new one, then okay—yeah, this is the upgrade to get. That's the easiest, no-brainer conclusion in the world for this product. But I'm going the extra step as a reviewer and predicting the future of this product.
And just based on Apple's language in their presentations, I really don't think we're getting any planned big upgrades to this watch for a while, which is unfortunate. All those major features we were thinking about, like a rotating bezel, a circular shape, or a meaningful improvement to the battery—any of which would have been the biggest change to.
Conclusion:
The Apple Watch in years—we didn't get any of that with this 10th-generation redesign. So it feels like they're not planning on doing any of it. This is the 10th-generation Apple Watch, and this feels like Apple's big statement of, "This is the Apple Watch."
It's the squirrel, no rotating bezel, these are the buttons, this is the shape—18-hour battery life over and over again. Take it or leave it. That's it. That's the review. Thanks for Reading. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.
