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m11rphy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 26, 2009
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I picked up a Space Grey Nike Apple Watch a few weeks ago and love it, however I would like a stainless steel watch to wear at work. I can get a Stainless Series 0 for £235 brand new with a sport strap, this seems like a great deal but I'm worried it won't be as smooth or speed as my Series 2 Nike watch.

Looking for some views as I don't want to spend £600+ of a Series 2 stainless
 
I was in the same boat and pondered about getting a SS SB Series 0 or going with Series 2 Al as successor for my original Series 0 Al. Eventually I settled for a Series 2 Al for various reasons.

From my experience, the Series 2 _is_ smoother in UI and general usage. It is not that a Series 0 would be a jerky mess in comparison. Far from it - it's nearly as smooth. But only nearly.

In direct comparison it feels as if the Series 0 would be running at its hardware limit to provide the experience it does, whereas Series 2 seems to be doing it rather casually, with lots of reserves left for future OS updates. It simply feels more pleasureable to use the Series 2, even though an objective benchmark may show that the differences are not that big.

What helped me in my decision: The pain about paying more upfront is once, the pain about possibly having a not completely satisfying user experience sticks for the product's lifetime / your ownership of it.

Or in other words: Buying cheap often means buying twice.

Edith thinks I should remember you of the (comparably) inferior display on the Series 0 SS.
 
I bought a SS Series 0 with modern buckle band from Best Buy shortly after launch this year at a great discount. It is not quite as fast as my Series 2, but fast enough and looks great for dress or work. Having 2 watches with one phone was what I wanted last year so I wouldn't have to keep changing bands and was happy to learn that you can pair more than one watch with a phone this year. The Series 0 stainless watch is also thinner and lighter than Series 2 which I prefer.
 
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I've gone for the stainless s0 as it was a good price and brand new. I still have Nike series 2 for the heavy lifting
 
I've found the S2 renders my S0 virtually useless. Such a wide performance gap that the older unit is intolerable.
 
I've found the S2 renders my S0 virtually useless. Such a wide performance gap that the older unit is intolerable.

I read your other post and commented on that thread. I'm not sure how you're using your first generation Apple Watch compared to your Series 2. But to Call it intolerable? I question what you're using it for. Because I can tell you from side-by-side comparisons, there are differences and speeds with load times, updates, applications, but to call it a wide performance gap is slightly understanding. I don't believe that the S2 processor is that much faster, but yes, it's faster. But, I do feel that it's how you use the Apple Watch and with what applications that are requiring the power consumption for the S2 to be more fission. If you take someone is as myself, I primarily use the Apple Watch is stock.

The real test comes down to how watchOS is managed through the processor. I think watchOS four will be interesting to see how both watches handle the updates in comparison. But likely not until next September.
 
I think for some of us the fact that we are holding our wrist up to use the watch tends to amplify every little lag and stutter. Series 2 made a pretty big difference for me. Though I still wish it were even faster at certain things.
 
I think for some of us the fact that we are holding our wrist up to use the watch tends to amplify every little lag and stutter. Series 2 made a pretty big difference for me. Though I still wish it were even faster at certain things.

That's a good way to describe it. It assists with lags and stutters, but the processor is no where near 'Powerful.' Series 3 will likely incorporate some form of dual core to assist with the speed of health sensors and tasking.
 
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That's a good way to describe it. It assists with lags and stutters, but the processor is no where near 'Powerful.' Series 3 will likely incorporate some form of dual core to assist with the speed of health sensors and tasking.

Series 2 is already dual core, but I do expect they'll bump the CPU further in Series 3. But that's likely another year away.

I also wonder whether Watch OS 3 is fully optimized to take advantage of the Series 2 CPU yet. It may not be, which would mean even smoother performance after future updates.
 
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