Hands On With the Apple Watch Series 2
by Joshua Ho on September 8, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Apple
- Wearables
- Apple Watch
- Apple Watch Series 2
For better or worse, Apple is pushing on with their smartwatch endeavors in the form of the Apple Watch Series 2. For the most part I would say that there isn’t a ton that can be said about the new watch in the context of a hands-on, but I figured that at least some discussion of the new ceramic casing would be interesting to see.
For those that are unaware of what this finish entails, the ceramic casing is much stiffer than stainless steel which makes it much harder to scratch and impervious to corrosion. It’s going to feel a lot more like glass rather than steel. However similar to glass, the ductility and malleability of ceramic is fairly low and if you really do something to damage the case it’s likely that it will shatter altogether rather than bend and deform.
In the hand, the ceramic casing of the Apple Watch Series 2 feels a lot like glass. It has a high-gloss finish like everything but the Apple Watch Sport, so it picks up your fingerprints and other sebaceous matter fairly easily and shows it quite obviously, but the white ceramic color does make it harder to see this sort of thing.
Other than the new casing, it’s hard to really see any of the new features of Apple Watch Series 2 unless you rely on canned demos, so I’ll refrain from making any comments here until we can actually test one for usability. The one interesting feature I found while playing with the Apple Watch was the ability to manually enable the water clearing speaker system, and when you do so it makes you turn the digital crown to activate the speakers and clear water from within the watch.
Other than this the changes to the watch are hard to see and when watchOS 3 hasn’t launched for the original Apple Watch it doesn’t make sense to compare the two together given the major changes in performance across OS versions.
The Apple Watch Series 2 goes on preorder starting September 9, and goes on sale September 16. Prices start at 369 USD with the usual bands with a choice of aluminum, stainless steel, and ceramic casings.
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lefenzy - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link
Josh is the official hand and arm model of AnandtechJoshHo - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link
The last two photos were of the watch on a helpful assistant. :^)BrokenCrayons - Friday, September 9, 2016 - link
Ah! Well, if its possible, please thank your assistant for volunteering to wear the Watch for those photos. Size comparisons are really useful for wearable tech. It's hard to get a good idea of how something looks from vendor/company-supplied images. Between this and the famous Coke can placed alongside cases, AT has a good thing going.mdriftmeyer - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link
Due to the teenager arms using the oversized face and not the ladies 38mm.Deelron - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link
Pretty much this, I'm a 6' guy, 200 pound guy and the 38mm still "looks" correct on my wrist, the 42mm looks too big unless you're into really big watches.Samus - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link
Ditto, I have the 38mm, it's just right.mdriftmeyer - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link
I'm 6'2" 190. It's all about bone structure. I'd buy the 38mm too, unless the width of my wrist warrants the 42mm. Classifying them as female/male was idiotic to start.OreoCookie - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link
38 mm is not ladies' size. My mechanical wrist watch has a diameter of 39 mm, and they also sell 36.5 mm and 41 mm variants. Size is about what fits you and to a degree fashion. My other good watch is rectangular, and it is significantly chunkier than an Apple Watch (it's an Omega Constellation Megaquartz, one of the first quartz wrist watches).nonoverclock - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link
10 years from now, these are going to look super dated.ZoomMod - Saturday, September 10, 2016 - link
Guess for the ceramic versoin they did not get around the patents of Rado watches. To me their edition version looks like american standard has teamed up with apple. Is Tim Cook in that board, too?