The Apple Watch 7 replaces the last Apple Watch 6 as the premium model in Apple’s wearable range for those wanting a second screen to complement their iPhone.
The main difference is the screen, which is 20% larger still packing the impressive feature set that makes it well worthy of your consideration, definitely the best Apple Watch yet but only marginally.
While most will be buying this Watch so that they don’t have to take their phone out of their pocket as often, or because they want a decent fitness companion, you’re also getting good heart rate monitoring and a range of useful apps, all wrapped in an attractive package.
That package comes in five new colors, and the larger screen means everything is slightly more visible than on the Watch 6 or SE. It also has the always-on display that means you don’t need to raise your wrist to see the time (something the Watch SE doesn’t offer) and the glass covering the attractive OLED display is slightly curved – although we couldn’t see much benefit to this.
We had hoped for more of a design upgrade with the Watch 7 – flat edges to match the new iPhone design, an even bigger screen… something that would justify upgrading to the latest version of the Apple Watch.
The larger screen does allow for more features – for instance, you can see more of your messages or have a larger surface area for bigger buttons to tap. Apple also thinks this extra display space means it’s time to add a keyboard to the Watch – and we have to say we found it pretty easy to peck out messages on the Watch 7 (although dictation was just as good and less fiddly).
The power inside hasn’t been upgraded year on year, so although the chip here is called the S7, it brings no power advantage – it’s just been reconfigured to allow for the slightly larger design. That’s not to say you’ll want for power, as everything runs super-smoothly on the Watch 7, with the intuitive WatchOS 8 platform allowing you to start a workout, view images, or read messages with ease.
When it comes to the fitness prowess of the Watch 7, you’re getting an enhanced cycling mode – this watch can now detect when you’re cycling, and that worked fine for us, although it didn’t notice when we’d stopped and forgotten to end the workout.
Overall we found the new Apple Watch to be a decent fitness companion – and you get three months of free Fitness+, which means you’ve got a workout in your pocket any time of the day or night.
The Watch 7 does the basics of running, cycling, and swim tracking well (among other workouts), and there are some nice extras like the meditation app, which we often enjoyed using, and Apple’s ring system, which lets you know how active you’re being during the day, is useful and fun to view.
The electrocardiogram and blood oxygen monitoring won’t be of much use to a lot of people; we’ll dig into that more below, but these headline features aren’t going to be a key reason to buy for many.
While the Apple Watch Series 6 is still on sale, we can’t recommend the new Watch 7, especially if you can get the 2020’s model at a decent discount – something to check out in the Black Friday Apple Watch deals that are upcoming.
But when that sells out, if you want a high-end Apple Watch, this will be your only option – and with a decent display, good fitness tracking, and easy-to-read notifications, Apple is slowly ironing out all the reasons not to buy one of its wearables.
