Sport vs. regular Watch

Sapphire may not be better than glass for Sports. It is much more scratch resistant but it seems to shatter easer. As a runner/athlete I could write a book about falling. I fell on a concert sidewalk on july 2 and shattered my iPhone 5S. The Home button (Sapphire) also shattered.

Stainless Steel has the premium look/reputation and is generally more durable than aluminum (easy to dent).

 

They both will scratch and look like chit in a year, but maybe more so with the aluminum. If the stainless can be had at a decent price, I'm going for that and will use the watch in any scenario. Since it's tech, I'm gonna treat it nicely but ultimately it's likely disposable.

 

Since Titanium is not offered (at least initially...), I will probably choose Stainless Steel . It appears to offer a polished finish & looks great; the Aluminum appeared dull in some photos.

If pricing is not "crazy", I would LOVE to actually buy 2: one for work (interacting with fellow engineers) & one for casual knock-about. This would also alleviate the daily charge concerns. It all depends on the $$ of each model...

 

I would picture an iPhone 5/5s or a Macbook, or an iPad, which are all Apple devices made from aluminum. The sport editions they showed look like the aluminum they use for iPads and Macs.

 

Normal aluminum is 6 series (6xxx), the kind found in most products. The watch is said to be 7 series (7xxx). Twice the cost of 6 series, 7 series is as strong as some grades of titanium and nearly as strong as premium stainless.

Heres a small article I wrote introducing 7075 aluminum to my customers:

http://www.oveready.com/insiders/53/


7 series + sapphire would be awesome!

 

Convincing article! (I am interested in looking into Surefire Flashlights after reading your article!)

 

Sure thing! But to be clear, even Surefire lights are 6061. Very very few flashlights, even high end / custom are 7xxx. I'm hoping to change that this year.

 

Good information!

I hope to buy an Edition AND either a Sport or a Standard, and will watch your recommendation between Sport & Standard for your preference, based on your background on various materials and manufacturing.

 

I was wondering what the "7000" meant on the bottom of the watch seen in some shots. Thanks! That does help a ton.

 

If I had to choose one, I would buy the steel one.... materials seem to be premium... and steel is tougher. Moreover, sapphire is potentially scratch less....I used to wear a nano as a watch in the gym and I can say that it scratched and dented a lot, so maybe steel would be better.... but this is just my opinion

 

That's not what the article says. The Sport is 7000 Series Silver Aluminum.

Aluminum is anodized but underneath is the same color so it won't look like an eyesore like the slate iPhone 5 with the anodized coating rubbing off.

 

Were I work, we work mostly with Titanium and Stainless Steel every day.

We also work with other Steels, and on occasion Aluminium.

I have to be honest with you all. When it comes down to raw material costs, for a piece of metal the size of an Apple watch is does not matter a stuff

Even if you were looking at say 1 dollar for Aluminium, vs 4 dollars for Titanium, so what, when the end product is $350+

Cost of raw material is a zero issue.

Machining time will be up. Depending on the grades. Stainless can be much worse than Titanium to machine, so we could class them on a par machining time and tool life.

Aluminium is as cheap as chips, and soft as putty in comparison.
Even weight wise. the amount of metal in the actual case is probably not much of an issue when compared to what's in the case and the strap.

Certainly not enough to notice when it's on your wrist.

A lot of the 'oooooh it's fancy metal' is just fashion marketing junk to justify a far higher price for something that costs only a few dollars more to make.

Unless you are into precious metals of course. But then we don't know, but we are assuming Apple mean solid sold.
But again, unless you have stripped an Apple watch apart and weighed the case we don't know. It's not going to be very thick metal

 

I thought that the Sport watch will be the cheapest because it has different materials (no sapphire, no ceramic) from both the regular and the Edition(*) models, but...

This _IS_ Apple we're talking about, and they might spin it as more expensive because it's lighter or more fracture resistant on its face.

Guess we'll find out soon.

(*) If they were better materials, wouldn't the Edition have them?

 

It already has sapphire display and what's better than solid 18K gold in terms of charging $1200-4000 for it?

 

7 series aluminum is more expensive than normal stainless. But premium stainless can cost more. Not sure about 316, but sapphire is way more expensive than any other glass. So any model with sapphire standard will not be entry level.

Anodize is not like other coatings. Technically a form of rust, its not applied by grown. And it grows down from the surface simultaneously while growing up. Type II anodize is thinner and softer but allows bright colors (think Maglite). Type III anodize (aka HA or hard anodize) is thicker and harder but (depending on thickness) is limited to dark colors, usually black and gray. One way to tell them apart is shininess. Type III tends to be more matte in appearance.

In all cases, the aluminum underneath remains bright silver. If the anodize is scratched off, it can be seen. One strategy is to use thin silver anodize so scratches are easy but difficult to see. Another is to go full thickness and risk the contrast. Its my opinion that the slate gray on the back of iPads and the new iPhones is type III. Its durable stuff and probably 6061. Type III 7xxx would be even more so.

 

Interesting, as people were speculating Apple was using regular Aluminum 6061 and type II anodizing on the iPhone 5 which is why it was prone to bending and susceptible to scuffgate. Maybe they changed to the stronger 6061-T6 (tempered) and type III anodizing (hard anodizing) for the newer iPhones but this is speculation.

 

i wonder how much heavier the stainless one will be.

i would prefer the stainless one but since I will probably only wear the apple watch while working out or when i'm dressed very comfortably, I would prefer it to be lightweight.

 

I do wish people would stop fantasizing about material cost differences.
For the most part we'd taking about the raw material differences and a little different 'feeds and speeds' of cutting cycle time on a CNC mill.

A few dollars here and there is negligible.

Like when they say ohhh, sapphire is 4x the price of normal glass.
so 4 dollars and not 1 dollar then. whoop dee doo.

Stainless, Aluminium, Titanium, Mild Steel, Brass, Copper, normal glass, gorilla glass, sapphire it's all a bit here a bit there.

On a 400+ dollar item it's all soaked up really.

Only when you get onto precious metals of course is there going to be a large spike any any real cost at the manufacturing end.
And then it's only the raw material cost, it's still machined the same.

 

John Gruber wrote in his article that the stainless steel one is noticeably heavier than the Sport version and the gold versions are even heavier.

 

...and equity if not more important. Benjamin Clymer says "...It feels expensive..." and you can take it to the bank. This guy has reviewed and played with more $50,000 watches than most have played with smart phones.

 

My preference is definitely torwards the Watch over the Sports watch.

Having said that I am not going to get this thing if it starts at 999$ like Gruber said, by the time you pay for upgrades and a couple of decent bands your probably at around 1500$ for a watch you will use 2 years? No thanks.

This is the 1st generation of this thing, I am not going to pay 1500$ for something that will be completely obsolete in 2-3 years.

If I can get the stainless steel model for under 1000$ then maybe, if not I'll pick up a sports model in space grey with the black sports band for what I assume will be around 500$