The price increase makes this pretty tough, but I am going from the series 3 to 4. Not happy about the price though.
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Series 4 vs. Series 3.
- Thread starter maflynn
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ECG is banned in the EU.The value proposition is a real question. I will probably replace my Series 3 with a 4 - justifying it with the ECG feature (here's hoping it doesn't become the next AirPower...) but it doesn't feel like it's actually compelling at all. The S3 is still an amazing piece of tech, and the lower price makes it killah.
Hey, help me fund the S4 purchase, buy my S3 Nike+. Still has over a year of AC+, LNIB...
I've had every Series, none are worth the full retail price, esp after they've raised it. I just got a used W3 LTE 42mm for about 30% of the $500+ W4 44mm one. The 3 can do all the functions I want. New spenders do make the economy churn and Apple a trillionaire.
Not relevant at all to the OP or to me. But I'm super-glad that the EU is protecting you all. Wait, what about Brexit? Will the NHS still keep you safe?
The price of the series 3 is what's giving me pause.
A nice write up of the differences can be found here: Series 4 vs. Series 3: Which Apple Watch is right for you?
There's no doubt the 4, offers since nice upgrades, including screen size and performance.
I really don't care about ECG and fall detection, and in fact I can see the fall detection firing off on me often, as I wear my watch during karate class
So does the larger display and faster process warrant the 200 dollar price difference. I'm seeing people sell their Series 3 for around 200, some of those are not that old, so its definitely giving me pause.
Being on the S0, and the battery not lasting the day, I ordered the Nike edition. The staggered rollout of the nike watch allows more time to consider my options
I think i would choose the S4, because it will look and feel like a new device.
If you buy the S3 it will likely feel like you got the same device again, just faster
And it has Bluetooth 5, which will increase the range and speed. Since you got the iPhone X, you can finally make use of it.
Hopefully this will make OS Updates faster too... they are still incredibly slow on my 3.
It will likely also have more RAM, but i guess we will have to wait to find out about that.
If you buy the S3 it will likely feel like you got the same device again, just faster
And it has Bluetooth 5, which will increase the range and speed. Since you got the iPhone X, you can finally make use of it.
Hopefully this will make OS Updates faster too... they are still incredibly slow on my 3.
It will likely also have more RAM, but i guess we will have to wait to find out about that.
That was one thing I was wondering about - the iPhone X also has BT 5? Yeah if that's the case, then that's another check box in favor of the series 4
Yes, well, not because it needs it, there's not much that is particularly computationally intensive in what the watch does... (If there was, it would run out of juice quickly due to its tiny battery.)
Probably just makes it easier (IE, cheaper) on Apple's end, not having to maintain separate 32-bit and 64-bit CPU design teams. It could be that the S4's CPU cores are derivatives from the earlier 64-bit iphone generations (like A7, A8 etc), or derivatives of the low-power CPU cores in the A10 onwards. Possibly an all-new design specifically for the watch, but seeing as the amount of work required to design a CPU from scratch I sort of doubt it (witness: "meltdown", "spectre" type vulnerabilities that are very hard to catch/predict.) Watch is still a comparatively low-volume product, so there's most likely recycling going on here...
Have you had your blood pressure taken? It's not exactly a pleasant process, nor practical to put in a watch wristband...
You realize that there's whole bunches of patents for perpetual motion devices, "free energy" motor/generators and things of that sort, yes? And yeah, none of them actually work.
A patent means nothing as far as the practicality, accuracy, reliability and so on of your device/process.
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You have a source for that? I think you mean by "banned" that it's not (yet) permitted. Not quite the same thing...
You seem to imply that Apple leveraging their previous experience in processor design is a bad thing.
I would expect the 64 bit processor in the S4 to be suppported a bit longer than the 32 bit S3. I also suspect some of the performance boost (2x faster according to Apple) is due to the extra processing bandwidth.
No, that would be reading stuff into what I said that isn't there. I just made some observations, that's all.
Btw, most complex microprocessors (like operating systems in the software world; you have code in windows 10 that is 25+ years old), are evolutions of past designs. Intel for example hasn't designed a completely new desktop processor since the pentium 4, which is old enough now to have graduated highschool already.
No doubt yes, because the watch is becoming increasingly mature. The oldest iphones received software updates for only a couple years. Iphone 4 got 3 updates and 4S got 4 IIRC. Current models (IE 5S onwards - all 64-bit) have no immediate expiration date it would seem. 5S might be seeing its last update this year maybe because there's probably comparatively few of them still in use out there - or maybe not. We'll see in a year's time.
No doubt about that also. Technically a processor with 64-bit wide registers and instructions to process data on two 32-bit numbers at once could be interpreted as "twice as fast" as a 32-bit processor processing 32-bit numbers. It'd be a narrow usage scenario, but it wouldn't be wrong.
Since Apple didn't state what they meant by 'up to twice as fast', we don't know. Hopefully they didn't mean the above case, but rather that the new CPU is consistently significantly faster in general processing.
I'm unaware of any benchmarking software for Apple Watch, so it's hard to tell. Watch apps tend to be lightweight on processing, and most noticeable is startup time due to some rather slow flash memory compared to iphones, so it's hard to say for sure what effect a faster CPU has. The particle swirl seen when closing rings probably is one of the better real-world measurements available. On OG Watch the swirl is very choppy. Not sure how S1/S2 Watch performs, but S3 seems to be fully fluid from what I understand. Once you hit full framerate though you won't see any effect from an even faster SoC...
To this day, optical BP monitoring is not a truly feasible idea. Especially not in a package the size of the watch. Similar to non-invasive blood sugar monitoring. work is being done, but it is nowhere ready for prime-time. The closest thing that is constructed and awaiting FDA approval is a watch from Omron. And it still uses a bladder cuff to measure pressure. I, for one, would not want a bladder compressing my wrist on a regular basis.
I disagree. Series 2 was a much needed move to improve the Watch in almost every way with the 1000 Nit dispay, GPS, 50 Meter water resistance, ect. Series 3 was more or less an ‘S’ upgrade only with LTE becoming the biggest factor.
I just got my first iWatch as the previous versions just didn't get me very excited. I was originally planning on purchasing the 4 but it would have cost almost $600 on the Apple site. Since I didn't know if this was going to work for me or not I ended up getting a factory refurb 3 version that is pretty much like brand new for $270....not a blemish or scratch anywhere.
My main concern was battery life. I checked the Apple website and they list both as pretty much the same, in fact it shows that connected to an iPhone, the 3 actually has a longer talk time. So far I love it and it does basic functions that I want.
When battery life significantly improves I will upgrade at that point.
https://www.apple.com/watch/battery.html
My main concern was battery life. I checked the Apple website and they list both as pretty much the same, in fact it shows that connected to an iPhone, the 3 actually has a longer talk time. So far I love it and it does basic functions that I want.
When battery life significantly improves I will upgrade at that point.
https://www.apple.com/watch/battery.html
I am coming from a Series 0 as well and I bought both. I got a new Series 4 that I am testing out now and a refurb Series 3 that is sitting sealed in a box at my house. I got the S4 at Target with a RedCard, so after the discount it came out to $407.55. Apple sells the refurb for $259.
I'm going to give it a week to figure out, but my first impression of the S4 just using it the past couple of hours leads me to seriously question if it is worth the extra $150 for my needs. I use the watch for notifications and fitness tracking. The extra screen size is less noticeable to me than the fact that the display goes closer to the edge. The latter is taking some getting used to. Some angles are a little different when you are trying to look at the screen because the glare from overhead lights are hitting the edges and making it difficult to read, which wasn't there with the wider bezel. Also, my 42mm band fits, but not completely flush. Only have the one with me, so I don't know if it's just the band I am using now (and Apple band, for what it's worth) or if its just a quirk of trying to fit a 42mm band in a 44mm hole.
They are the same (except for a design change on Milanese), but are labeled 44mm. The only real difference is the watch case dimensions.
Someone on here had an issue with one of the lugs sticking out on an older band with a Series 4. I don't recall, but I think it was one of the leather bands.
I haven't had any issues myself.
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Yea my biggest disappointment was Apple’s move from $70 for LTE to now $100 - even the Series 3 got a similar boost in price, guess the first year of LTE was to encourage people to try it out at a more affordable price point.
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Yea LTE is one of those things that you either really love it like I do and it changes fundamentally how you use the watch or its something you don’t care about because you still can’t get by with just the watch and no phone nearby. The addition of LTE is something I was shocked happened with Series 3 and thought we’d be waiting at least a few more gens to get! The speed enhancements with Series 3 were also pretty nice, but LTE was game changer. So far each watch upgrade has been fairly substantial especially for heavy watch users and can’t wait to see what is next with Series 5.
Do you remember we are nice spoke of our desire for a good stainless steel watch- thankfully Apple released one! I’m still torn between my usual Spaxe Black vs Gold. Worried about scratching. My S0 SBSS is still immaculate under any light.