Apple Watch Series 7 review – a millimetre bigger but miles better

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• VERDICT

Apple Watch Series 7 sets itself apart again as the smartwatch that ticks all the boxes in terms of design, features and versatility. Once you start using an Apple Watch you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

Apple Watch Series 7 has just become an even more attractive daily companion that now allows you to do even more things right from your wrist thanks to a larger display, faster charging and other key improvements.

It might not seem like a big change from Apple Watch Series 6, but when you place them side by side the differences become more apparent.

Firstly, the display offers 20 per cent more screen area than Series 6 and more than 50 per cent more screen area than Series 3.

The borders on the display are just 1.7mm wide which is 40 per cent thinner than Series 6 which allows the screen to grow noticeably while the device itself has barely grown by a millimetre.

In fact, the new Apple Watch sizes are 41mm and 45mm but if you upgrade from a Series 5 or Series 6 your 40mm and 44mm watch bands will still fit.

It’s only when you place full screen images side-by-side that you notice this extra screen real estate.

Apple has taken advantage of this with new watch faces, more text to read on screen, larger passcode keys, an easier to use calculator and even a full QWERTY keyboard.

We never imagined the day we’d see a full keyboard on an Apple Watch but here it is.

And the good news is, it works really well whether crow picking the letters or taking advantage of QuickPath swipe typing.

The new Contour watch face takes the numbers on the dials literally to the bleeding edge of the screen with the numbers magnifying as the hour hand approaches or if you wind the digital crown.

The Modular Duo face can now accommodate larger data rich complications like heart rate, activity, world time or the phases of the moon.

The world time face now has a lot more room to breathe and lets you track the time into 24 time zones all at once.

On the design side, Apple Watch Series 7 does have a slightly redesigned case with softer and more rounded corners.

Another improvement is with durability with a new crack resistant front crystal and a new IP6X dust resistance rating along with the current WR50 water resistance.

The display is noticeably brighter indoors even while your wrist is down so it’s even easier to check the time or glance at a complication without raising your wrist.

One major improvement of the Apple Watch Series 7 is in its charging architecture which can get you fully charged 33 per cent faster than Series 6 when using the new included magnetic fast charge USB-C cable.

It now takes just 45 minutes to charge from zero to 80 per cent with eight minutes of charging enough to give you eight hours of sleep tracking.

On the battery side, the Apple Watch Series 7 gave us the same all day use without the need to charge it before we went to bed.

The faster charging is a huge charge though especially for those users who want to wear the Apple Watch Series 7 to track their sleep instead of charging it overnight.

Now you can have it fully charged by the time you start your day if you put it on the charger as soon as you wake up.

As a health and wellness product, the Apple Watch Series 7 is still highly credentialed with features like ECG, the blood oxygen app, high and low heart rate notifications and fall detection.

What it doesn’t have is blood pressure tracking which has been included with the Samsung Galaxy Watch Series 4 which, after a calibration with a cuff reading, can track fluctuation for 28 days.

On the fitness side, Apple Watch Series 7 can show your metrics in three areas – move, exercise and stand.

These make up the activity rings that track your progress and your goal is to close these rings each day.

Apple Watch Series 7 can now track cycling, yoga, strength training, swimming, hiking, dance and now with, watchOS 8, it also includes Tai chi and Pilates.

Subscribers to Apple Fitness+ will discover the service is built around Apple Watch and can display the metrics like heart rate on the device you’re using to follow the workouts whether it’s your iPhone, iPad or Apple TV.

Apple Watch Series 7 is available in aluminium in a range of new colours – midnight, starlight, green, blue and PRODUCT(RED).

The new midnight and starlight colours replace the space grey and silver aluminium colours.

Stainless steel colours are graphite, silver and gold and Apple Watch Edition are available in space black titanium and titanium (which is silver).

There are also midnight and starlight Nike versions of Apple Watch Series 7 as well as Hermes models in silver and space black stainless steel with dedicated leather watch bands.

Apple Watch Series 7 is available now and is priced from $599.

VERDICT

Apple Watch Series 7 sets itself apart again as the smartwatch that ticks all the boxes in terms of design, features and versatility. Once you start using an Apple Watch you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.