Apple Watch SE 3 – Review

It is an execution that Apple has perfected – launch a new product to great fanfare, before releasing a premium version with bells and whistles, and another with reduced functionality or features. Except that the Apple Watch SE 3 is anything but a poor cousin to this year’s Apple Watch 11, offering a slew of standard features packed under some new hardware, but still maintaining its entry-level pricing.

As one of the, if not the most popular smartwatches in the world, it’s no surprise that the Cupertino giant is pushing to make the Apple Watch as feature-rich as possible with each iteration but not everyone has the desire to pay top dollar for a peripheral device, a fact Apple understands well, and that’s where the Apple Watch SE – which stands for Special Edition – comes into play, offering a more affordable lineup of devices that prioritise essential features and are positioned to attract first-time buyers or families.

Since the SE’s debut in 2020, each iteration has introduced notable features apart from the expected general performance improvements, such as Crash Detection and Bluetooth 5.3 on the SE 2. With this year’s Watch SE 3, Apple has changed things up somewhat, making this the most cost-friendly and comprehensive iteration of the line-up yet.

Dimensions-wise, the SE 3 is nearly identical to its predecessor, coming in two variations – a 40mm (40mm x 34mm x 10.7mm) and a 44mm (44mm x 38mm x 10.7mm) version. While the latter weighs in at 33g, just like the SE 2, its smaller variant has seen a slight weight reduction at 26.4g versus the previous iteration’s 27.8g, though users will be hard-pressed to feel any sort of difference between the two.

Likewise, its chassis remains virtually unchanged from the previous generation, although it’s now reinforced with Ion-X strengthened glass, the same as that on the Watch 11, to which Apple claims it provides four times more crack-resistance over the SE 2. Screen dimensions also haven’t been touched, retaining the same 1.78-inch 448 x 368 resolution Retina LTPO OLED display that caps at 1000 nits of brightness, although it now features a minimum brightness of 2 nits (more on that later).

So far, it might sound like the Apple Watch SE 3 hasn’t changed much since its predecessor, and that’s because it’s the device’s internals and suite of features that have seen an upgrade here, which is largely thanks to its new S10 chip, which powers this year’s family of Watch 11 and Watch Ultra 3 as well. This also marks a two-generation jump from the SE 2’s S8, and brings with it a new four-core neural engine, alongside double the memory capacity at 64GB. This also means that the SE 3 can now stand head-to-head with its Series 11 and Ultra 3 peers, as all three feature the same chipset.

With this extra horsepower, the device now features a host of new capabilities, such as its always-on function, which dims the screen when worn and not in use, instead of switching it off completely, allowing users to quickly glance at important information like time, notifications and various app alerts without the need to raise their wrist, in exchange for a slight reduction in battery life.

On the topic of battery life, Apple has once again stuck with their trend of providing estimated total usage time over actual capacity stats, and the Apple Watch SE 3 once again features up to 18 hours of battery, with its notable upgrade being the implementation of fast-charge, with the company claiming it can go from zero to 80 per cent in around 45 minutes.

In practice, the device is true to its “all-day battery” claims, able to power through a day of basic use – meaning purely checking time and some light app usage – although the usage of more intensive features like workout and sleep trackers or the aforementioned always-on display will deplete the device at a much faster rate. In all, don’t expect the longevity seen in Apple’s more substantial watch offerings like the Watch Ultra line-up, although this is a suitable compromise considering the price and size difference.

The other compromise is with the few features it doesn’t have, including Hypertension notifications, ECG, Blood Oxygen detection and the electrical heart sensor, and for active swimmers, a water temperature sensor and depth gauge. While good to have, these aren’t always necessary unless you have a pre-existing condition that requires them. Otherwise, it packs everything else that the majority of us need, from fitness tracking for the young and a mindfulness app with state-of-mind tracking, as well as heart rate, respiratory rate, and wrist temperature monitoring for adults.

In terms of new features, the Apple Watch SE 3 builds upon the foundations set by its predecessor, Sleep Score, for example, which tracks the quality of a user’s sleep on a nightly basis, has added sleep apnea notifications, a feature that tracks irregular breathing during sleep and was first introduced in the Apple Watch Series 10. In the same vein, the device also adds wrist temperature tracking, adding to its already substantial suite of metric trackers in the Vitals app.

Rounding out the device’s new features are various quality-of-life enhancements to further improve usability, such as 5G mobile connectivity that allows data connection even without the presence of an accompanying phone, the ability to play select media like music or podcasts straight from the watch itself, and gesture support for better ease of use. Although some of these features aren’t exactly new and have already been seen in previous iterations of the Apple Watch, it’s still nice to see them coming to the SE line.

With all this talk on the new bells and whistles of the Apple Watch SE 3, how does the device actually feel in use? As expected with its upgraded chip, navigating through its various menus is as smooth as ever, and there’s little latency when syncing between notifications on the connected phone and the watch itself. It’s not completely free of annoyances, though, as buttons on the device’s top left corner, such as the “X” button on certain apps, are extremely unreliable, and often take multiple re-presses to hit that sweet spot to actually trigger it, an issue that’s not present in the base and Ultra versions of the lineup.

Still, the Apple Watch SE 3 presents an enticing option for those who want the convenience of owning a smartwatch but have no need for the more advanced features seen on Apple’s more substantial counterparts. Its battery life and screen sensitivity may leave some elements to be desired, but at prices starting from S$349 (in comparison to the Apple Watch Series 11’s S$599), this affordable option gets the job done, and sometimes, that’s all that matters.

Kevin Low

Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.