Apple’s first attempt at a smartwatch shows promise with notifications, voice calls and fancy pressure-sensitive taps, but is very much an expensive first generation product with bugs, quirks and confusions.
Apple is late to the smartwatch game. The first smartwatches were launched by Microsoft in 2004, but were dead within four years. In 2013 Pebble relaunched the smartwatch category after a very successful crowdfunding campaign and went on to sell more than 1m watches by the end of 2014.
Samsung had not one but six stabs at the smartwatch between 2013-2014, and Google finally got into the smartwatch game with Android Wear in June 2014.
And with the arrival of Apple’s Watch, there has been greater consumer awareness outside of geeks and early adopters, with many asking: do I need really a smartwatch?
Smaller than you’d expect
Apple’s first smartwatch comes in three variations and with either a 38mm case, which is roughly the size of a slim Casio watch and just twice the thickness, and a larger 42mm case. Neither sizes are as large as most other smartwatches and are tiny compared to large mens’ watches. The 42mm version has a larger battery.
The minimum price of entry is £300 = N91,000 for the aluminium Apple Watch Sport, the stainless steel Apple Watch starts at £479 = N150000, and the gold “Edition” stretches up to £13,500 = N4m. All three have the same innards.
I can’t speak for the Edition, but the rest of the Apple watch range are without doubt, the best made smartwatches currently available.
The fit and finish is great, the watch feels thinner than most of its competitors, and even the rubber strap is nicer with a quality heft to it. But given that even the cheapest and smallest of them is at least twice the price of even the previous most expensive Pebble or Android Wear smartwatch, you would hope so too.
The OLED screen is relatively sharp, but visibly not quite as crisp as an iPhone. It is also not quite bright enough to read without squinting in direct sunlight.
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