Apple Watch Series 6 Review: It's Bait!

[Music] hey what's up mkbhd here first of all welcome to techtober and i've been wearing this red apple watch series 6 every day since the impressions video now so been living with it i've worked out with it i've slept with it on pretty much everything so this is the full review oh by the way if you're wondering like hey what about the video about this other thing or where's your video on x or insert review here there's a lot going on right now in the tech world that's why we named them october and september so we're catching up to a lot of it expect a lot of videos in october but okay so summary with this watch is there's really not a whole ton of massively new stuff as you already knew like okay some slightly brighter always on display cool slightly faster charging cool and also a slightly new sensor with the blood oxygen but a lot of the stuff that makes the apple watch the apple watch and so good is of course in the software watchos that's going to make its way to other apple watches but i think one of the biggest mistakes we make in the tech world so often in these mature categories is comparing the new thing to last year's thing when most people buying the new thing aren't upgrading from last year's thing that's actually a pretty rare use case most people have three four year old plus versions that are aging by the time they upgrade to this one so yeah surprise if you already have an apple watch series 4 or 5 you don't need to upgrade but if you don't have an apple watch yet well this is the most complete ecosystem bait yet so let's just start with the headlighting new feature which is actually the blood oxygen sensor uh it's not actually the first smart watch to add this but they did add it now to the apple watch and well it probably shouldn't be your reason to buy this watch now i mean for what it's worth i've been getting pretty decent accurate measurements as far as i can tell you get it pretty snug slide it down your wrist near your hand and sit still for a few seconds anything in the upper 90s is normal and i've gotten like 98 to 100 every time i try it sitting down great but if for some reason i stood up or moved around a little bit or for whatever reason i didn't get 98 and i got 88 for some reason which would be a concerning actual measurement i wouldn't really be freaking out at all because lots of people have gotten very inaccurate measurements or just had problems getting a good reliable measure at all but for a little background a dedicated blood oxygen sensor is normally worn on your fingertip just like that i actually learned this while i was working with david blaine on the ascension project uh he needed one to be really accurate to actually tell if he was hypoxic or not which would be dangerous but you clamp it to your finger and it just measures the blood oxygen saturation by shining a light through your fingertip and then reading it on the other side so it's going through your finger now the apple watch is attempting to get the same reading but obviously in a non-ideal place on the back of your wrist so it's shining into your wrist but obviously can't read from the other side so it's trying to read from the reflections and most blood oxygen sensors don't read this way for a reason it's just much more difficult to get an accurate reliable reading from this spot on your body now actually as dave 2d points out in his video you can actually take the apple watch off and put it on your fingertip to get much more consistent readings but yeah if you're doing all that and you care that much about accurate blood oxygen readings you should just grab a 25 pulse oximeter from amazon and it will be way more accurate than any smart watch so yeah this is much more just like a casual extra sensor to give you some new readings in the health app if you want to gamify it and track it uh so if you go for hikes and stuff then cool you get to see oh my blood oxygen's 94 instead of 100 but you shouldn't be taking it to the doctor um speaking of extra readings in the health app sleep mode so there's sleep tracking built into the apple watch now it is actually a watch os 7 feature again so it's not like it's exclusive to the series six but hey i tested it like i said i've been wearing it every day i've been sleeping in the apple watch because i guess that's the apple effect getting people to try things so when you're about to go to sleep you swipe up control center hit that little bedtime icon and the screen goes black and it starts sleep tracking and really what i found is it doesn't track that much hardcore information like basically it's whether it thinks you're asleep or not heart rate once in a while trends up and down things like that pretty casual but nothing really groundbreaking and people who already have been using third-party apple watch apps to track sleep already know way more about their sleep than this will tell you but like i said it's just one more thing that's plugging into the health app and giving you a pretty good basic look at what's going on here so okay it works and that's great and everything but you know what the best part is you know the best part of wearing an apple watch to sleep actually is it's the alarm 100 it's the alarm it just taps you awake just with a little haptic motor no sound or anything and that's been massively underrated i really don't like wearing a thing like this to sleep but the fact that it just taps me awake and i never have an actual alarm sound has been uh pretty sweet but also apple i noticed it adds standing hours while i'm asleep so i wake up every day with like two to four standing hours which is kind of odd because i don't know about you but i sleep lying down but the charging question the charging question is interesting now because if you wear the watch all day and then you wear to sleep when do you charge the thing it does have slightly faster 90 minute zero to 100 charging but when do you actually get it on the charger for me i found two times during the day and neither of them are a full charge but the first one is like right when i like go shower at night but after a workout or something i'll pop it on the charger and that'll juice it up enough to last through the night and then when i wake up in the morning so it taps me awake and i just take it off and put it on the charger and go through my morning routine so it's just sitting on the charger juicing up for the day so it never actually gets to 100 i'm just kind of always bouncing between 20 and 85 percent which is actually better for battery health on the watch and yeah i never got it to die in a day again so battery life on the watch is still good it's still about what it's been for series four and five and i also do have the always on display going to me the real best feature of the apple watch series 6 is just the new s6 chip inside like that's what's giving you the great efficiency to last all day that's what's giving you the brighter always on display uh if you disable the oezon display you'll probably get even better battery life and then it's enabling the faster charging that chip is giving you the great performance through watchos 7 which now has faster snappier animations throughout the whole thing which is great oh and also the hand washing detection in watchos 7 is kind of hilarious like it'll pick up that yes i am washing my hands through the microphone and the the movement it's sensing and then it'll start some countdown timer based on when it thinks you started and if you get to the end of the 20 seconds great little soapy thumbs up thing but if you don't get to the end of the 20 seconds it just kind of quietly disappears like reminding you to do it better next time the shame but yeah all this stuff pretty minor i think the biggest literally the biggest change most people notice with this new watch is the colors which by the way i'm going to be switching back to my black series 5 because it does look cool sometimes but i don't need a red watch every single day but also the other new thing they made alongside the new watch is the new solo loop bands and they are a great idea i love the simplicity of just stretching a band to put it on no velcro or magnets or buckles or anything you just put it on get your size right which can be a little finicky but get it snug and it's super clean the only weird thing is they seem to fit the watch a little bit worse than all the other bands like see how it doesn't go quite all the way to the edge of the watch and you can kind of see some of the metal inside instead of it sitting flush with the red of this watch kind of weird if you find that important i personally don't but it's worth noting so you can see it here but you know these are 50 to 100 watch bands order them if you dare so there you have it pretty short list again the thing to keep in mind is they're make they're not making this for people with an apple watch series 5 or even series 4. i think people with a series 3 or older will just have this as the new version to upgrade to around the holiday season conveniently but the truth is most people don't even need this newest version with all the bells and whistles and extra sensors there's also the new apple watch se which has the new s6 chip but hey there's no electrocardiogram and there's no blood oxygen sensor and there's no always on display but it is a much lower price and that's fine for most people getting their first apple watch so if it ain't broke don't fix it and apple absolutely did not fix anything that wasn't broken they didn't change the shape or offer a circular version or anything like that they didn't add qi charging they didn't you know open up a watch face store for third-party watch faces they didn't change anything drastic that wasn't broken with the apple watch so it's series six for 2020 conveniently available for the holidays well played apple and that's pretty much it for the review like i said i'm going back to series 5. either way that's been it thanks for watching and techtober rolls on catch you guys very soon in the next one peace

Channel: Marques Brownlee

Views: 2,542,640

Rating: 4.9290895 out of 5

Keywords: Apple Watch, Apple Watch series 6, Apple Watch SE, Apple Watch review, Apple Watch 6 review, features, Apple Watch features, tips and tricks, MKBHD, Apple Watch tips and tricks

Id: XDamqi_3Aro

Length: 9min 44sec (584 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ArmoredMuffin]

Spitting facts about the alarm. The sleep tracking info isn't super useful to me but god damn is the subtle taps to wake me up so fucking nice.

[u/jayvapezzz]

He claims the SE has the new chip, which is incorrect. It has last years SOC.

[u/justlikeapenguin]

Maybe my s3 can Last till the series 7. It’s got 84% battery

[u/AnonymousSkull]

How to make an MKBHD video:

1. Funky hipster electronic music intro.
2. Offhanded remark about using the device for x amount of days.
3. Scatter colorful but irrelevant, sometimes expensive, trinkets around the sides of the frame.
4. Atmospheric shots of warehouse-style studio or outdoor metal staircases with you, the host, casually sitting or walking. Look off into the distance for effect.
5. Lots of bokeh and low depth of field.
6. Get at least 1 fact wrong, either due to not doing research or believing you’re right.
7. Mention that the device should have a matte finish, or praise it for having a matte finish.
8. Keep any in-depth discussion to a minimum to pander to the lowest common denominator.
9. Sign off by saying “Peace” in such a casual manner that your body might as well become aerosolized and drift away on the breeze.

[u/maxstolfe]

I think this video convinced me on the SE rather than the 6. I was interested in the ECG/BOR, but after seeing how finicky it is, I don’t need it.

I mainly want a watch for exercise, and even more primarily for Fitness+, navigation, quick responses, and sleep tracking.

Sounds like the SE will more than suffice.

[u/CptCockStrong]

He praises it for good, all day battery life but explains how he has to charge it twice a day. Doesn't sound like all day battery life to me.

[u/Cory2472]

Battery life has been awful on my series 6 vs 5 ending my day with 40% instead of 70-80% same use