#Is the apple watch series 3 gps worth it series#
It also has an original, physical crown instead of the new, haptic crown of the Apple Watch Series 5. I have gotten a few scratches and scuffs on my glass Apple watches over the years but nothing that I can see when the display is lit up or even really notice unless I hold them up to the light and look for them. If you want the even tougher sapphire crystal, you'll have to move up to the Apple Watch Series 5 and the higher-end materials like steel, titanium, or ceramic, or the special partnership watches like Nike or Hermes to get it. That's a fancy name for the chemically hardened glass Apple uses to reduce the likelihood of scratch, scuffs, and breaks, including on all of the iPhones. Less than a millimeter, but it does end up feeling not quite as flat on the wrist and a bit more capsule-like.Īlso, because Apple is only selling the aluminum version of the Series 3, it's only available with Ion-X, or ion exchange glass. The physical casing for the Series 3 isn't just smaller than the Series 5 either, it's ever so slightly thicker. You do get the same 1000 nits brightness on both Series 3 and Series 5, though, so the display remains legible even under fairly aggressive sunlight.īut you don't get the always-on display of the Series 5 which, instead of turning off when you're not interacting with it, simply abides in a dimmer, lower-power state, but in a way that you can still glance at it and see the time, even complications or workout data, without having to raise or tap to wake it.įor me that makes the watch functional as a watch, but others seem not to like or want it, so it may make no real difference to you. And that's something I've come to depend on as my daily dashboard while at work, for example. In other cases, like with the infographs, the loss is more meaningful: You don't get all the richer, super-complications that provide higher information density. Several of them are just special effects faces, like fire and water, designed entirely to show off the bigger watch faces. For example, the Series 3 doesn't get all the new, fancy watch faces of the Series 4 and 5. That gives the new small watch a display pretty much the size of the old big watch, the new big watch… well, even bigger.Īlso, because the Series 3 display is square and not rounded, and smaller, it seems a bit cramped now compared to the 5. It's not the same as the Apple Watch Series 4 and 5, which hit 324 by 394 pixels at 40mm and 368 and 448 pixels at 44mm. And RGB stripe, not PenTile like phones, which makes them look even sharper. The Series 3 displays are also OLED, which means deep, inky blacks that almost melt away into the big bezels, and rich, vibrant colors that pop right out. The smaller is 242 by 360 resolution at 38mm and the large, 312 by 390 resolution at 42mm. It still comes in two sizes, which is great for people with both smaller and bigger wrists… and display needs.