TechRadar asks "what is it for?"

TechRadar is renowned for giving the latest mobile tech a thoroughly in-depth run for its money, with the site’s Gareth Beavis and Matt Swider certainly sparing few words in their detailed and exhaustive critique of the Apple Watch.

The million-dollar question “what is the Apple Watch actually for?” is answered perhaps better here than just about anywhere else online. The only issue is that you probably need a good hour or more to digest the entire review! So we’ll give you the digested read and bite-sized verdict, which is this:

“Apple Watch is good, but better suited on the wrists of early adopters and boutique shop regulars. It's convenient but there's a learning curve you have to overcome and a high price that some people won't be able to get around."

The reviewers' overall findings were that they loved the overall look ,feel and slickness of the Apple Watch, but it also “both surprised and disappointed” with its intuitive polish and with its UI fiddliness, respectively.

The bad? “This is still a very expensive luxury. You don't need it in the same way a smartphone is a necessity, and unlike the iPad, it's more expensive than the competition by some distance.”

The good? “For iPhone users desperate for a smartwatch, the Apple Watch is perfect for you. It relays some iOS apps and all notifications to my wrist without requiring me to constantly pull out and unlock my phone, and that's a nicely convenient thing to have. This concept is going to become more useful when the hype dies down and new apps emerge.”

Wareable on "the pleasure" and the pain of Apple Watch

The guys over at specialist tech wearable site Wareable (see what they did?) have been all over the Apple Watch ever since they received their review sample, with reviewer James Stables confidently stating that Apple’s tech timepiece is “for our money… the best looking smartwatch made to date.”

Wareable tested the 38mm model with the green silicon band – which is the ‘base’ model and the lowest-price of the range at £299. Which is still quite a bit of cash to drop on what is, so far, a bit of an unknown quantity for Apple and its legions of fans.

Those Apple Watch buyers who want a slightly bigger (42mm) watch face touchscreen (which benefits from a bigger battery) and/or a fancier strap, with some of the gold options running into megabucks territory, will have to shell out accordingly.

But for now, all we really want to know is what is and isn’t decent about the Apple Watch according to Wareable?

The good? “If you love your iPhone and want some of the best looking wearable tech on offer today – the Apple Watch is for you… What Apple has achieved is genuine wearability, and despite its flaws, the Apple Watch could be the first wearable that's actually a pleasure to wear.”

The bad? “While the Apple Watch does a lot right, the battery life and usability issues show the company couldn't quite muster up a miracle of smartwatch design… The lack of GPS and the worrying quality of early third party apps shows Apple has much work still to do… Sports fans should avoid the Apple Watch for now, or risk serious disappointment.”

The Verge asks “would you use this instead of your phone?”

So that’s the bottom-line really. What else do you need to accompany your iPhone if you’re not going to actually use the Apple Watch instead of your smartphone?

Is there a danger that the Apple Watch 1.0 is (obviously) going to appeal to the early adopting hardcore element of Apple’s customer base, but fail to gain traction with the wider mass market consumer who is already perfectly happy with his or her iPhone 6?

Aside from their authoritative analysis, the Verge’s a-typical-day-in-use format of its Apple Watch review is by far the most entertaining review of the product we’ve so far read. But you don’t read tech reviews to be entertained, after all. You read them to figure out if you want, need and are happy to pay for an expensive new gizmo or gadget.

“The Apple Watch is an extraordinarily small and personal device,” writes reviewer Nilay Patel, adding that it is, “also an enormous device. It’s the first entirely new Apple product in five years, and the first Apple product developed after the death of Steve Jobs. It’s full of new hardware, new software, and entirely new ideas about how the worlds of fashion and technology should intersect.

“It’s also the first smartwatch that might legitimately become a mainstream product, even as competitors flood the market. Apple has the marketing prowess, the retail store network, and the sheer determination to actually make this thing happen.”

The good? “There’s no question that the Apple Watch is the most capable smartwatch available today. It is one of the most ambitious products I’ve ever seen; it wants to do and change so much about how we interact with technology.”

The bad? Ironically, that very ambition “robs [the Apple Watch] of focus”. “By the end of each day, I was hyper-aware of how low the Apple Watch battery had gotten. After one particularly heavy day of use, I hit 10 percent battery at 7pm, triggering a wave of anxiety.”

The Guardian’s fashion editor offers a different view

The fashion verdict comes from The Guardian’s Jess Cartner-Morley, who offers a slightly different take on the value of the new Apple Watch.

“I have been wearing the Apple Watch for two hours now, and I’m profoundly disappointed. Because despite chuckling with exaggerated laughter as I read an email on my wrist in Topshop, and ostentatiously finger-sketching smiley-faces in full view of the queue in Wasabi, not one single person has noticed it.”

“You can choose the size (small), strap (stainless steel) and the clock face (phases of the moon), but what I really liked about the Apple Watch is not having my iPhone in front of my face,” is Cartner-Morley’s succinct take on the Apple Watch.

After all, the point of having your most-used, familiar apps and messaging services available on your wrist is exactly for this reason. So that you are not constantly digging in your skinny-jeaned-pockets trying to fish out the iPhone every time you want to check your mail, look at Facebook or monitor your Twitter feed.

The good? “Apple’s much hyped smartwatch is carefully crafted with a masterful design…”

The bad? “Poor battery life and confusing software mean curious consumers should wait…”

Pocket-lint is unconvinced that the Apple Watch is a transformative product

Pocket-lint founder Stuart Miles kindly reminds us that the Apple Watch is still affectionately (though incorrectly) referred to by many as “the iWatch”. And that, whatever you do or don’t call it, it has successfully managed to polarize opinion amongst gadget and tech fans worldwide like no other product this decade. Other than, perhaps, the very first iteration of the iPad.

For Miles, the question that the Apple Watch poses is the fundamental one that every cutting-edge consumer tech company has to ask itself when launching a new, category-defining product – is this moving things forward or is it not worth your money and time?

“You probably either believe it's a product moving technology in a positive direction or one simply not worth the time of day,” notes Stuart. “In reality it's neither one nor the other.”

“But can the Apple Watch walk the fine line between fashion and function? Is it an accessory that others will lust after and promote your social standing - regardless of how vain you fancy being that week?

The good? “The Apple Watch is a powerful smartwatch with plenty of features on offer - from calls, to notifications, and thousands of apps all on your wrist.”

The bad? “There's nothing to set it apart from the competition. Put simply, the Apple Watch doesn't deliver the transformative experience that the iPod, iPhone, or iPad did at their respective launches... This is Apple's toughest sell yet.”


Stuff.tv gives Apple Watch a 5-star thumbs up!

Out of all the online tech pundits testing out the Apple Watch over the last month, Stuff.tv’s David Phelan is the only one to wholeheartedly recommend it with a solid 5-star review. Quite a definitive message, if you were wavering and were at all on the fence about shelling out £300-plus on an Apple Watch!

Phelan argues that tackling the modern disease of constantly checking our iPhone’s in public spaces (or, even worse, in intimate, private settings such as being out at dinner with a lover) is the greatest achievement of the Apple Watch.

“Picture the scene: a modishly lit restaurant. You sit surrounded by tables with couples face-deep in their smartphones, the eerie blue-grey glow lighting their faces more brightly than the restaurateur’s careful ambience.

“You: Well, honestly, look at them all. They’re not even talking to each other. I mean what’s the point of going to dinner if all you do is bury your head like that. It’s a disgrace. Ooh, hold on, I think I’ve got a text. *dives for phone*”

The good? It’s hard to pin down a specific thing that makes the Apple Watch special, but having worn one for almost two weeks now, it’s become an important, valuable part of my everyday life. In some ways it’s the ultimate gadget. A device that no-one needs but that oozes desirability, that doesn't change any aspect of life in a substantial way but makes a number of subtle improvements that you wouldn't want to give up.’

The bad? The fact that nobody seems to have truly understood the Apple Watch’s appeal to date. “You can’t say it’s greater than the sum of its parts because we don’t know what all of the parts are. Some derided the iPhone at its launch. Almost no-one saw the point of the iPad when that was announced.”