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Cnet's review of the AW3

maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
Original poster
May 3, 2009
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Cnet has their review out https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-watch-series-3/review/

More positive then the the Verge's review but still the battery just as many of us predicted would take a major hit with LTE

The Bad Battery life takes a major hit when making calls or during GPS workouts. 42mm cellular model is expensive, and that’s before monthly wireless service and Apple Music fees. Still requires an iPhone to set up and pair with.
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I'm still unsure if I'll cancel my order, I like what the LTE has to offer, but at what cost?
 
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I'm still keen to try it out for myself. I don't expect to make heavy use of LTE. In fact, in part because of how slow my S0 is and in part because of how awkward most interactions are on a watch UI I find that I don't actually use my S0 for all that much - but what it does provide for me is extremely convenient and I don't want to live without it. All I really expect of the LTE model is that it modestly extends that convenience. Yesterday for example I was out for my normal lunch run and I returned to my desk to find that my wife had been trying to contact me because one of our kids was sick at school and she couldn't get there. With the AW LTE I would have known about that and been able to modify my route slightly to get me back to deal with it a bit sooner.

So long as the battery lasts me as well as it's been lasting on the S0 (which isn't very good since Watch OS3), I'll be ok with it.
 
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I'd say that the costs are pretty well described.

The review wasn't overly negative of the battery life. He said he made a half hour call, recorded two workouts and listened to some music and had 50% battery remaining. That seems pretty good to me. Sure, it's not an all day, talk on the phone battery. But certainly sufficient for quick "where should we meet" type of calls.
 
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Yeah, I think as long as your workouts are short and/or your expectations are not to use LTE all the time it should be fine. We probably are not yet to the point where you can expect to go for a several hour run while streaming music to your Airpods yet, although that day will come soon!
 
zhenya said:
We probably are not yet to the point where you can expect to go for a several hour run while streaming music to your Airpods yet, although that day will come soon!
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Due to events outside of my control, i.e., injuries I've not been able to run beyond 5 miles this year, heck I've been struggling on much shorter runs. Still on any given day, I can see myself running, having an hour cardio class, and an hour karate class. While the apple watch may not be on me for the entire karate class, it is for the 1/2 half at the very least.

I'm not down on the Series 3 LTE, but these reviews are helpful and there was a method to my madness (which is usually not the case), in ordering the Nike version. I have a month to see how actual usage from others, before finally committing to the watch
 
maflynn said:
Cnet has their review out https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-watch-series-3/review/

More positive then the the Verge's review but still the battery just as many of us predicted would take a major hit with LTE



I'm still unsure if I'll cancel my order, I like what the LTE has to offer, but at what cost?
Click to expand...

Why is 'required iphone to setup & pair with' is "Bad"?

Reviewers these days....
[doublepost=1505919461][/doublepost]And looks like techcrunch said that they can get a full day on LTE only.
 
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I'm not expecting to make long phone calls but I would be curious what standby time is like just using it away from your phone? Could you get through a full day just with it keeping in touch with notifications for emails/messages/couple of short calls?
 
bruinsrme said:
638 talk minutes last month.
I was surprised.
I’ll just hang up on more people.
My intended usage shouldn’t be too limited.
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Over 10 hrs. But divide by 30 days = 21 minutes a day.
I use less than 10 minutes a month.
It used to be a little more because i had to call Tmobile to contest free upgrade turned into two missing trade ins. But now i chat with them online so i use hardly any talk time.
 
I don’t think anyone is going to spend more than 1 hour calling someone on the Apple Watch it’s not very practical, I think it’s more for quick calls maybe to let someone know your on our way or something like that. I don’t an Apple Watch to make calls, I use mine mainly for the fitness aspect when I go for a run, notifications from my phone and as a nice time piece that I can change the faces on.
 
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The only significant benefit for me of being connected is streaming music while I’m out running. Doesn’t sound like this Watch will do an amazing job of that.
 
Honestly the connection issues are similar to those the Watch has had shifting between bluetooth and wifi since day 1. I often try to use the watch in areas where it should have wifi connection and find I have to wait a bit for it to complete the connection. It's definitely not 100% reliable. Hopefully these public reviews will spur Apple to deal with the issue across all connection types asap.
 
I will say I have been back and forth on updating my S0 SS with a S3 SS with LTE being a major driver of that decision, and these reviews are telling me it is best to wait and see what happens with the wide release. It definitely looks possible that the S3 is not fully baked.
 
Dave245 said:
I don’t think anyone is going to spend more than 1 hour calling someone on the Apple Watch it’s not very practical, I think it’s more for quick calls maybe to let someone know your on our way or something like that. I don’t an Apple Watch to make calls, I use mine mainly for the fitness aspect when I go for a run, notifications from my phone and as a nice time piece that I can change the faces on.
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I would say the majority of those who are using the LTE version Apple Watch to receive or make calls, it's for a brief moment or two. It's just the fact of having the capability of accepting an emergency call, or important call that somebody was expecting to make or receive. One hour is much longer the most would expect using LTE alone continuously. It's actually three hours of usage if it's connected via Bluetooth with the iPhone.
 
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Relentless Power said:
I would say the majority of those who are using the LTE version Apple Watch to receive or make calls, it's for a brief moment or two. It's just the fact of having the capability of accepting an emergency call, or important call that somebody was expecting to make or receive. One hour is much longer the most would expect using LTE alone continuously. It's actually three hours of usage if it's connected via Bluetooth with the iPhone.
Click to expand...

I would hang up long, long before I spoke to anyone on the phone for an hour. That is, if I even answered in the first place.
 
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