00:04The Apple Watch Series 11 is the middle child in this year's Apple Watch range
00:07refresh. It's not as super premium as the Apple Watch Ultra 3, yet with more about
00:12it than the Apple Watch SE 3, the Series 11 offers a balance between features and
00:16affordability. Is it right for you? Let's dive into its design, features and
00:20performance to see if it's worth picking over either it's cheaper or it's more
00:23expensive sibling. And of course, if you want to find the best deals on a Series
00:2711, you can check out our links below as usual. So, without further ado, let's dive
00:32into the meat of the review.
00:36If you've seen the Apple Watch Series 10, this is going to look very familiar. The
00:41Apple Watch Series 11 looks almost exactly the same at first glance, from the
00:45slightly larger screen than its predecessors, with sloping sides, to the two
00:48speakers on the side and that iconic digital crown. It's even packing last
00:53year's S10 microchip. It remains the thinnest Apple Watch at just shy of a
00:57centimeter in thickness, while screen sizes are also the same as last year, 42 and
01:0246 millimeters. As well as sticking with the ultra-low slim profile, this year's
01:06Apple Watch also keeps the excellent display that its predecessor introduced.
01:10It's an always-on Retina LTP-03 wide-angle OLED display. That's a lot of tech
01:16jargon, but the gist is vibrant colors, deep contrast and a butter-smooth refresh rate.
01:21Watch faces like Flux and Reflections still update automatically in always-on
01:25mode and looks slick. The screen gets very bright, up to 2,000 nits. This is less
01:31than the Apple Watch Ultra 3's 3,000 nits, but plenty good enough for most night
01:36usage situations that we experience during testing. Other changes include new
01:40colorways for the aluminum and titanium finishes, plus a doubly tough IONX glass
01:45screen to resist all those scratches and scrapes.
01:50Out of the box, the Apple Watch Series 11 runs WatchOS 26, like most other modern
01:56Apple Watches. It's a packed update that brings a fresh look to its core interface.
02:00The new look, liquid glass design, shines in subtle navigation elements, which are now
02:06translucent, as well as in watch faces. The new Flow watch face, for example, might be
02:11the purest form of liquid glass on the Series 11, or any Apple Watch come to that.
02:16It's all bubble glass numerals with a lava lamp-like liquid flowing behind them.
02:20Very 70s. WatchOS 26 also brings the Notes app to your wrist, finally, which we found
02:26handy during testing for jotting down quick thoughts or referencing notes created on
02:30iPhone, iPad or Mac. Call screening also comes to your wrist, especially helpful with
02:35a cellular plan letting you see if it's spam before answering. The Series 11 also
02:39supports gestures like double-tab, which lets you control navigation with a pinch between
02:43your forefinger and your thumb. Invaluable. The new wrist flick gesture, which lets you
02:48flick the watch backwards to go back a step or dismiss something, is even handier for
02:52one-handed usage, as is raise-to-speak to activate Siri. When paired with a phone with
02:57Apple Intelligence, you get new tools like Workout Buddy, a motivational workout partner
03:02beamed directly to your headphones. A major new addition this year is hypertension notifications,
03:07also available on the Series 9, Series 10, Ultra 2 and Ultra 3. This feature can alert you to
03:13possible hypertension or high blood pressure over a rolling 30-day period. Sleep score is another
03:19welcome new feature. The Apple Watch has long tracked sleep, but has never presented the data
03:24in a digestible way before. Now you'll wait to a score from 0 to 100, rated from very low to
03:31excellent.
03:31It's about time, in my opinion. Every other wearable, from Garmin to Aura, has had a sleep score for years
03:38now.
03:41Just like the Series 10, the Series 11 features redesigned speakers with dozens of precision holes
03:47forming two grills on the left side. They sound similar to the Series 10, passable for a song or a
03:52voice
03:52memo. But the real standout is the onboard microphones, which still pick up your voice clearly,
03:57even in noisy environments. During our testing at a noisy Yankee Stadium, the other end of a call
04:03just using the watch could hear us without the problem. Both the 42mm and the 46mm models
04:09now pack larger batteries, and Apple claims this extends the runtime from 18 to 24 hours with regular
04:16use, and up to 38 hours in low power mode. In practice, it performed even better than expected.
04:22One Sunday night, our reviewer picked the watch up from the charger at 54%, wore it through sleep
04:27tracking, woke up with 42% left, and it didn't hit 1% until after 5pm, following a full day
04:33of use.
04:34That's about 17 hours from just half a charge. Great for an Apple Watch. The S10 chip is still
04:40plenty powerful, with its dual-core CPU, GPU, and 4-core neural engine. Apps, both first-party
04:47like Notes and Photos, and third-party ones such as Tesla and Parcel, all opened quickly and ran
04:53smoothly. Both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3 pack the same optical heart rate sensor. We tested
05:00the sensor on the Apple Watch Ultra 3 against a Polar H10 chest-mounted heart rate monitor, and found it
05:06was incredibly accurate. Just one beats per minute difference between the watch and the heart rate
05:11monitor on average. We've just hit the 5k mark on my run test for the Apple Watch Ultra 3, and
05:18so far
05:19it is incredibly close to the readings from the Polar H10 heart rate monitor, which I'm using at the
05:24moment right here under my clothes. This matches what I did in the cycle test, so as far as I
05:29can see,
05:29the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is as accurate as we hoped it would be. While the design hasn't changed, the
05:38bigger battery, new health features, and watchOS upgrades make it the most capable, best-looking,
05:44mainline Apple Watch yet. If you're in the market for something super rugged or something cheap and
05:48cheerful, you might be tempted by the other watches in the range. But if you want an accurate, longer-lasting
05:54Apple Watch with a bright display and crystal clear cooling capabilities, the Series 11 is well worth
06:00your consideration. Which Apple Watch will you get? The Ultra 3, Series 11, or the little engine that could,
06:06the SE3? Let us know in the comments below and we'll see you next time on techradar.com.
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