Introducing the Apple Watch Series 9, the ultimate companion for fitness enthusiasts! This sleek and stylish smartwatch is not just a timepiece, but a powerful tool that will take your fitness journey to the next level.
With its advanced features and cutting-edge technology, the Apple Watch Series 9 is designed to keep you motivated and on track with your fitness goals. It boasts an array of fitness tracking capabilities, including heart rate monitoring, step counting, and even sleep tracking. Whether you’re hitting the gym, going for a run, or practicing yoga, this watch will provide you with real-time data and insights to help you optimize your workouts.
But that’s not all! The Apple Watch Series 9 also offers a wide range of other features that make it a brilliant gift for anyone. Stay connected with notifications for calls, messages, and emails right on your wrist. Control your favorite music playlist, set reminders, and even pay for your morning coffee with just a tap. It’s like having a personal assistant right on your wrist!
The Apple Watch Series 9 is not just a fitness tracker, but a stylish accessory that can be customized to match your personal style. Choose from a variety of interchangeable bands and watch faces to make it uniquely yours.
So, whether you’re a fitness enthusiast or know someone who is, the Apple Watch Series 9 is the perfect gift. It combines style, functionality, and innovation in one sleek package. Get ready to take your fitness game to new heights with this incredible smartwatch!
Craig Laws –
How often do you upgrade your smart devices? I upgrade my iPhone every 2-3 generations, the same goes for my iPad Pro. But what about the Apple Watch? I don’t believe the majority of people upgrade every year, or even two or three years. The incremental improvements to each generation of Apple Watch appears so minor that you’d struggle to see the difference if two successive devices were compared against each other.
Which is why I’ve waited so long to upgrade from my pensionable Series 3. I’ve had it since shortly after its release at the end of 2017. 6 years is a long time for a gadget, especially one that is attached to my body every single day. But I’ve struggled to see the reason for upgrading, despite my Series 3 become less and less reliable over the passing years. The screen was sometimes washing out and made it difficult to read, especially outdoors. The finger gestures to swipe up and down rarely worked, and the crown dial was almost fused to the watch it was that difficult to move. The heart beat monitor was sporadic at best, and it was pure fluke that it ever recorded any meaningful data from a workout. Yet, still I wore it. Mainly because as well as telling the time, the haptics were brilliant and a more reliable way of knowing when a message or call was coming in than my phone which I have on silent and regularly put down and forget I’ve left it behind.
I’d been waiting for a big development of the Apple Watch to tempt me into buying a new one. Every new generation improved all of the health tracking functions a little bit at a time, occasionally adding new things like sleep tracking. What I was really hoping for was a blood pressure monitor, something that Apple have submitted patents for but it still hasn’t made its way to the Watch yet. As someone who has migraines from an early age, I’ve found that a migraine attack often coincides with a spike in blood pressure so a means of tracking this might help in anticipating the next attack. It looks like I need to wait a little longer though for that functionality.
Despite this still not appearing, I felt that Series 9 was the time to finally upgrade. The vast majority of this generations improvements are subtle. It’s got a new processor that is faster than the previous one, which is great but honestly how often to you notice the step up in performance? Especially on a watch that isn’t going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting processor wise. The screen is twice as bright as the previous generation, going up to 2,000 nits. I’ve certainly noticed that the screen is easy to read even in bright sunshine, at least compared to my Series 3 anyway. It also goes down to a very low 1 nit brightness, which is useful if you wear your watch to bed as a sleep tracker.
There’s an improved Ultra-wideband chip which helps finding your other apple devices such as phones, earphones and smart trackers. Siri no longer needs the word “hey” adding before it’ll wake up to your requests. But, generally, there aren’t many ground breaking improvements.
The battery life is still as unremarkable as ever. Compared to most other smart watches the Apple Watch has always been pretty poor. Long-time users will be well used to this, and will have developed their own way of managing the battery, but new users may be disappointed or shocked at the battery life on an Apple Watch. Apple always claim an “all day” 18 hour battery life, and in fairness is based on plenty of use during the day, but it’s still less than impressive. The obvious way to manage your battery is to charge it every night. Take it off your wrist, put it on a bedside charger and it’ll be good to go when you wake up in the morning. But, what if you want to use it as a sleep tracker. The Apple Watch is actually really good for use as a sleep tracker, and gives you a lot of interesting data about your sleep patterns…but when do you charge it? I personally take it off my wrist for a quick charge when I get into bed at night as I’m usually still on my iPad or reading a book for at least half an hour. Then I put it back on again when I go to sleep. From 100% at midnight the Series 9 has been around the 30-40% mark come 11pm. That includes around 7 hours as a sleep tracker, general day use and 30 minutes on the treadmill and walking the dog. Note that for the last few generations the Apple Watch now has a permanently on screen, so you don’t need to lift your arm to activate the screen.
There is one big improvement for the Apple Watch Series 9 though. Double Tap. This was demonstrated in the Apple launch show in September, and is a means of controlling certain functions on whatever the current live app is by tapping your thumb and index finger on your watch hand together. If a call is coming in, tap your thumb and finger to answer it. If an alarm is going off, tap your thumb and finger together to silence it. This means you’re able to interact with your Watch without your other hand. That might sound a bit daft, but in practice I can imagine that being really useful. I use timers a lot in the kitchen and I’ve often got greasy or floury hands when a timer goes off, so this could well be a useful function I use a lot. I say could, because at the time of writing Apple haven’t activated it. It’s apparently going to be available in a software update in October.
There are an awful lot of options for buying an Apple Watch Series 9. It comes in two standard sizes, 41mm and 45mm, and is available in GPS only or GPS + cellular form. There is the Ultra 2 as well, which is only GPS + cellular and is 49mm. You’ve then also got a huge array of colours and straps to choose from. I went with the 45mm GPS only version, which I would imagine will be the most common option. There’s £30 difference in the RRP of the 41mm and 45mm, and the extra screen size is more than worth it. My Series 3 was 42mm, and despite only an extra 3mm increase the Series 9 fits so much more on its screen that the Series 3. It makes such a big difference so I would recommend the larger size. Regarding whether you need cellular, this will be down to what you’ll use it for. My Series 3 was cellular, and for the first few years I paid for a separate contract with EE which started at £5 per month but gradually got more and more expensive. It was nice to be able to leave my phone behind on workouts, but when COVID landed and our lifestyles changed I found that I no longer needed the Watch to be cellular, and cancelled my EE contract. I can genuinely say I haven’t noticed. The occasions when I might not have my phone with me are so rare that it just wasn’t worth the extra cost of buying the Watch and then the ongoing sim contract.
Set up of the watch was as straight-forward as Apple products usually are. I’d backed up my Series 3 and when I turned on the 9 it gave me the option to install from my backup. I said yes and everything came over automatically. The only thing I needed to do was add the 3-digit code from my payments cards to Apple Pay. If you’re new to Apple Watch, do remember that it is still dependant on having an iPhone. An iPhone continues to be the life support for Apple Watch.
So, is the Apple Watch Series 9 right for you? Given the very minor improvements over the previous two generations, I would say that there’s little reason to upgrade from a Series 7 or 8. However, earlier generations will see a marked improvement over their current watches. I debated for a long time whether to finally go for it, but the difference over my Series 3 is significant. Most things still look the same, but they work more reliably and efficiently. The brightness of the screen is noticeable. I’ve got more information on my home screen than I had previously. The extra size of the screen is barely noticeable on my wrist.
For me, I feel justified in my purchase of the Series 9. Even with the 6 year gap, there isn’t a huge difference, but it’s enough for me to be satisfied I’ve made the right decision. I wish Apple could sort out the battery life, and one day a blood pressure monitor will be great, but until then the Series 9 is the new benchmark for smart watches.
Juss McDB –
I had the series 3 and decided to purchase a new one so went for the 9. The watch is very stylish, comfortable to wear and the features are great too. Other people have also commented on well it looks. The apps are similar to my 3 but with more additions and faster speed. So far I am loving the new watch.
Hussein –
Well known for quality and ease of use. Managed to buy it for £369 when was on sale which is amazing
Scott –
I decided it was time for an upgrade from my very faithful series 4 to the mighty series 9 & like so many reviews that I have read, it certainly is noticeably faster.
As with every Apple product, you truly get what you pay for; ease of use, bright display, fast speeds & a fab fitness tool (as well as a stylish looking watch).
This watch is a must have if you’re looking to put your health (and now well being) first. The sheer amount of workouts you can now do on here and that it’s able to track is amazing! You can now log your mental health on the watch too which I I think is a lovely new feature alongside it’s multitude of stately features such as; fall & crash detection.
I also now love that it’s a carbon neutral product, so no more guilt in how this is been created and how it’s impacting the environment.
If I’m honest, if you are thinking about what size to opt for, I would say spend a little more and go for the 45mm as the watch truly shines on a bigger screen. The graphics, watch faces and workout metrics just look stunning and let’s face it. We only live once, so treat yourself!
Overall, I’m very happy with this product. Have never been let down by Apple & on this occasion they have really done a fab job upgrading their watches!
Enjoy!!
Simon David Gladwell –
Fantastic Apple Watch , works perfectly as it should. Perfect gift for my wife. Swift delivery as always.
nathan –
basically a UTLTA version 1 for a fraction of the price, great features – long battery life compared to the 8 series – still could use work (perhaps if apple were to speak with garmin in some kind of partnership their batteries would then be game changing truly) just imagine an apple watch with a months battery life with solar glass etc.
still would recommend this watch as i think its fantastic for the price – defo the market leader without doubt – i had the samsung before this and i must say the quality of samsung has been getting worse of late.
E –
Came quickly and the pink looks great. The Apple Watch is amazing and this is by far the best watch I’ve had for a while
Mihaylo –
At the beginning, I thought that I would rarely use my smartwatch. I was wrong; it is an extremely convenient device in terms of payment and other functions that quickly becomes indispensable in everyday life. Comfort at work
, the impossibility of missing sight and wearing comfort at a high level. The downside is the battery.