The watch's utility as a HR monitor and fitness tracker are a big deal to me. The only mention in reviews I've seen was in the Verge review and it wasn't good. Please link any others.
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Its definitely nice to have these presets built in, but again, its all pretty much table stakes. Theres nothing that captures lifting weights, yoga, or other exercises that dont either crank up your heart rate or trip the accelerometer with movement. You can use the other preset, which will always give you credit for a brisk walk even if the other sensors arent returning a ton of data, but its definitely not perfect. And I found that the heart rate sensor struggled during my workouts, especially when I was really sweaty; it consistently measured about half my correct heart rate instead of my full 148bpm.
Again, Apple will surely improve all of this with software updates; its hard not to see them adding more workout types over time. But out of the box right now, the Apple Watch is a very expensive, barebones fitness tracker. Its much nicer than its competitors I used it with the white sport band and thought it was really quite striking but its certainly not more full-featured.
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Its definitely nice to have these presets built in, but again, its all pretty much table stakes. Theres nothing that captures lifting weights, yoga, or other exercises that dont either crank up your heart rate or trip the accelerometer with movement. You can use the other preset, which will always give you credit for a brisk walk even if the other sensors arent returning a ton of data, but its definitely not perfect. And I found that the heart rate sensor struggled during my workouts, especially when I was really sweaty; it consistently measured about half my correct heart rate instead of my full 148bpm.
Again, Apple will surely improve all of this with software updates; its hard not to see them adding more workout types over time. But out of the box right now, the Apple Watch is a very expensive, barebones fitness tracker. Its much nicer than its competitors I used it with the white sport band and thought it was really quite striking but its certainly not more full-featured.