The Apple Watch Review
by Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on July 20, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Wearables
- Apple
- Mobile
- Apple Watch
Display
As with just about everything these days, display matters quite a bit. In a lot of ways, the wearable segment has display requirements similar to the smartphone space. However, unlike the smartphone space it isn’t necessarily critical to have the highest possible resolution, and it isn’t necessarily crucial to have perfect color calibration as in most cases wearables won’t be used for color-critical applications.
In the interest of addressing this, for the near-term we’ll continue to use the standard smartphone workflow, but I hope to expand the testing done here as wearables develop. For now, we’ll continue to do the standard brightness and accuracy testing, but I’ve removed the grayscale test as it strongly emphasizes gamma accuracy. Although it is important to not have obscenely incorrect gamma curves, wearables generally have to prioritize readability over dynamic range, which means that near-black colors would be brightened to try and overcome background reflectance. Similarly, we won’t be placing dE2000 average error in our Bench comparison tool or in graphs, as something like the Apple Watch cannot have controlled display brightness.
As a result, we can’t really be 100% sure that gamma tests and other tests of luminance are actually accurate when automatic brightness means that any inconsistency in light to the sensor will affect display brightness, which will strongly affect dE2000 results.
In the case of the Apple Watch, the display is interesting because this represents the first AMOLED display to ever be used in an Apple product. As far as I can tell, this is an LG OLED display with an RGB subpixel arrangement, but it isn’t quite the same as a traditional RGB stripe. I suspect that for the near future we will continue to see the use of this subpixel arrangement as the resolution of the Apple Watch doesn’t really allow for a PenTile layout. Given the current state of AMOLED (as evidenced by the Galaxy S6) I believe it is effectively the future of mobile displays, and it seems that whoever makes these decisions at Apple agrees as well.
As I mentioned in the start of this section, the Apple Watch also doesn’t have any way of manually setting brightness. You get approximately three choices of auto brightness algorithms, which bias the brightness curve of the display appropriately.
In practice, I didn’t actually care that manual brightness was gone on the watch because I never actually used manual brightness on the iPhone or any phone that has at least a halfway decent auto brightness system. In every phone I’ve ever used, the only time I use manual brightness is when the auto brightness system is clearly programmed wrong in some shape or form. Common cases where this would happen include auto brightness that didn’t actually set the display to maximum brightness in daytime or wouldn’t set the display to minimum brightness in absolute darkness.
Thankfully, the default auto brightness setting on the Apple Watch doesn’t have any of these problems, although for reasons unclear minimum brightness changes depending upon the brightness setting that is selected. As a reviewer though, it would definitely help if the watch had a manual brightness setting for more precise display testing and battery life testing. I’m sure that the precision of the digital crown would allow for precise brightness settings as well, but I suspect that this would have some very real potential to affect practical battery life as I’ve seen more than one person walk around with their smartphone display permanently set to maximum brightness because of reasons.
There’s also the issue of reflectance, which could be a problem given that the two higher-end models use a sapphire crystal glass on the display instead of traditional hardened glass. I did notice that reflectance is much higher than something like the iPad Air 2, but I never really felt like the reflections completely washed out the display. The reflections also indicate that the watch has a properly laminated display, without issues involving index of refraction mismatch. However, if people are worried about outdoor visibility Apple Watch Sport should be better given the use of more common aluminosilicate glass. I’m not sure if Apple has actually loaded different auto brightness algorithms for the Apple Watch/Watch Edition compared to the Watch Sport to try and compensate for this though, and I suspect such a change would be difficult to test for as well.
Although reflectance is one aspect of outdoor visibility, the other is display brightness. This is probably the only aspect of the Apple Watch where I can get consistent and repeatable results. Unfortunately, given that we haven’t actually done any other full-featured wearable reviews I’ll have to reference smartphones to get a good comparison point. As the Apple Watch display is already quite small, we won’t be able to get accurate APL vs brightness readings as it’s impossible to hold the meter in a repeatable position that isolates ambient light while also holding an LED to the display.
At any rate, the Apple Watch gets respectably bright at around 460-470 nits, although not quite the ridiculous 600 nits that the Galaxy S6 can achieve. At this full white display, I recorded a color temperature of 6891K, and 6883K at the ~100 nits that was used for the remainder of display testing. It’s important to keep in mind that these values are only at 100% white, so this isn’t the average color temperature that we normally list in reviews. Of course, this display’s contrast is also infinite, with no visible residual brightness on pure black images.
Saturation Sweep
Moving on to the saturation test, we can see that Apple has put a huge amount of effort into calibrating these displays, which is somewhat surprising given that one might expect wearables to not be all that critical when it comes to color accuracy. In my experience, I never actually bothered looking at photos on the watch outside of the messaging app and Twitter. I suspect that this was done in order to make it so that images look the same across all Apple devices, as something would seem “off” in most photos taken by an iPhone 6 if displayed with an Adobe RGB gamut. In this test, the dE2000 average error was 2.33, and as one might guess from the photo above most of the error was concentrated in blue, which appears to have some gamut issues as the native gamut appears to be wider than sRGB but not enough to completely cover sRGB.
GretagMacbeth ColorChecker
The GretagMacbeth ColorChecker test reveals a similar surprising level of attention to detail in color calibration. Color accuracy isn’t quite on par with the very best, but given that this is a first generation product I’m really surprised that the display is already receiving this much attention with an average dE2000 error of 2.42. Overall, this means that the display has relatively little perceivable error for sRGB content, which is the standard almost across the board, although wider gamuts like Rec. 2020 or Adobe RGB may one day supplant sRGB.
Overall, I’m impressed with the quality of the display of the Apple Watch. The AMOLED panel could probably reach a 600 nit max with sufficient progression in emitter technology from LGD, but I suspect this will take some time. The calibration is also incredible for a first-generation wearable, and the use of a full RGB subpixel helps to avoid a lot of the aliasing issues that tend to plague PenTile or other RG/BG subpixel arrangements at these relatively low pixel densities.
The reflectance of the sapphire lens on the display is a bit high and could probably benefit from anti-reflective coatings of some sort, but given that I haven’t had to worry about scratching the display thus far it’s probably a fair trade as a screen protector will usually increase reflectance noticeably. It’s also a bit annoying as a reviewer to not have manual brightness settings, but as an end user I never felt the need for manual brightness as the auto brightness algorithm works quite well.
Ultimately the entire user experience around the display in every aspect is well-executed, although there is still room for improvement on the technology side of things.
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JoshHo - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
It would be great to get specific instances of overly wordy areas, and information that you have learned elsewhere that is redundant in the review to improve our wearable reviews going forward.Blairh - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
As an iPhone user I think the notifications aspect of the AW would be very appealing, but Apple is asking for too much money for such a luxury. And I'm talking about the Sport models. The SS models are ridiculously expensive. It's no surprise that roughly 3/4 of all AW sales have been the Sport models. Seriously you are nuts IMO to buy the SS model unless you have money to burn. Plus I think the Sport models are just nicer looking in general. And lighter to boot.Anyways, this review highlights a current glaring weakness which is the inability to respond to IM 3rd party apps directly on the AW. If you use WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger often as I do you are SOL if you want to respond with your AW right now. Perhaps this will change with the 2.0 update come fall, but still, right now this is really only ideal if you main communication is the messages app. Email is another story as there are several 3rd party email clients that offer voice dictation.
I'm waffling between an AW and the Vivosmart. The Vivosmart won't let me reply to any notifications from my wrist however it's a third of the price of the 38mm AW and feels awesome on your wrist.
I do believe in the future of the AW, but right now its got a lot of glaring holes to fill.
nrencoret - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
The worst article I've ever read on this site by miles. Too many words for nothing insightful. What I find here is a desperate struggle to justify what cannot be justified. As a person who loves the site's content I'm stumped by the horrible mess I have just read just a few points:- Apple has "solved" how a watch has to fit like no other company, traditional (ie. Rolex) or tech focused. That is a simply mindboggling statement.
- The UI/UX is great. The Apple mouse and the iPhone have just one primary button for interacting. The crown, side button and force touch trilogy are the work of a comitee which couldn't settle for a simple means of interacting with a piece of technology. What Apple is best known for is how great they are at removing complexity -"just works" and "boom" come to mind- the reviewers were far to forgiving to all the usabily issues (ie. force touch discoverability). These would have been major issues on any other piece of technology.
- Understanding what it is you get for your money: If you own a jewel like a watch or ring its timeless and has an intangible value. The watch can cost a pretty penny for something that has no better hardware than whats out there. There is no inherent intangible value in the watch because as has been stated in the review there will be future iterations of it, killing the timeles argument. As such, this watch is a piece of technology not jewelery and thus, its way overpriced. Lets just see how many dads give their sons Apple Watches and how those sons give them to theirr own.
- Battery life of a single day for a timepiece is not even remotely acceptable. The Basis Peak, Fitbits and Pebbles may not be as smart but they nail the basic concept of a a time keeping device must do.
- Nowhere was there a real argument of how the current incarnation of the watch is mostly useless without being tethered. Basis Peak comes to mind as how useful a device can be with our without tether.
I could go on, given the amount of sheer nonsense of this review. I'm really dissapointed that this came from Anandtech.
alanpgh1 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Awesome Review... and right on target.I've had an Apple Watch for 2 months, and it continues to be an important and non-intrusive assistant in my life. I seem to learn something new that is helpful all the time.
The only thing I ask the author to consider are these words from your review:
"Finally, "Hey Siri" works well in terms of activation, but it's really kind of disappointing that the hotword detection doesn't work with the display off. I suspect this is due to power requirements as I haven't seen any other wearable have screen-off hotword detection, but it would definitely be great to see such a feature in the future."
It is actually a feature to have the watch only listen for the "Hey Siri" hotword when the arm is lifted.
Otherwise, if listening all the time, the system would have false triggers. Think about it; this way of operation is by design.
Thanks for an excellent and thorough review!
TheRealArdrid - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
Gotta admit: I didn't get past the second page of this review. This is dripping with the feel of an Apple shill piece. Am I really to believe that no other watch in history, including recent smartwatches, properly fit the author's wrist but the Apple Watch, with its amazing Milanese band, magically did? Statements like that completely destroy legitimacy and credibility. Come on man...zodiacfml - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
Their failure is sticking to the old, physical idea of a watch.FunBunny2 - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
-- Their failure is sticking to the old, physical idea of a watch.Yeah, and what would GUIs be without radio buttons, menus, and all of the other analog clones they're built on? Face it: it's just pixels made to look "physical".
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
Honestly, I love that Apple is successful. The sound of PC-worshiping heads exploding all over the Internet is amusing. It lifts my spirits on a regular basis.Seriously, people... Apple didn't run over your mother, kill your dog, or beat your sister.
The level of nerd rage over Apple's success really is misplaced. There are far worse things to cry over than yet another big tech firm that dodges taxes and overprices stuff. It's not like Apple is the only one and it's not like society in general doesn't reward that behavior.
I've seen the anti-Apple zealotry for decades. It never changes. It always comes down to whinging about how much Apple charges, along with accusations that only gays, girls, and social-climbing superficial people use the products. In reality, despite their flaws, Apple products have been dependable workhorses for people for a long time, and some of them have been pretty innovative.
The Lisa was a thousand times more innovative than the IBM PC. Apple didn't execute because of some poor management and the sudden spike in DRAM cost (caused by Japanese firms pushing US firms out of the market with price dumping and then colluding to raise prices, as far as I have read). Yes, it was expensive but the platform was a very solid foundation for line of machines. Apple had an office suite, multitasking, protected memory, tool-less design, a bootloader that made it easy to boot from multiple operating systems, and a plethora of other modern features back in '83.
Unfortunately, the Mac was botched because it was turned from what was envisioned to be a $500 computer into a $1000 computer and then into a $2400 computer -- without making the underlying OS robust enough to justify that price or the hardware expandable enough. But, despite that, it had a very efficient GUI and people were willing to put up with bombs and freezes because that GUI was miles nicer to work with than Windows (up until 95 when things almost became as good on Windows, but not quite).
If you think Apple is so fraudulent then start your own company or get a job running one already out there and out-compete them. Then let us know about your success. Until then, find something more productive to do with your time than rant ineffectually on Internet forums.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
As for this product specifically, my advice is to wait for the next iteration that comes with a shrunken process. Apple's first iPad had a relatively short lifespan, rapidly orphaned. I wouldn't want to be stuck with this device if the same thing were to happen. It has generally been the same advice for quite some time: when Apple comes out with a new form factor, wait until version 2.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
This even applied to the Mac, come to think of it. Jobs demoed (without telling the audience or the press, of course) a 512k prototype in order to run speech synthesis when he was unveiling the first Mac (128K, not expandable) to the press.