Apple Watch: reviewing the reviews

Overhyped or the must-have accessory? The Apple Watch has gone on pre-order, and the initial reviews have been hitting the news sites.

Back in March, journalists were given a brief look at Apple’s smartwatch and all its functions, but the first crop of reviews were carried out by tech reporters who had been given the devices to try for about a week. Just enough time to get a good idea of whether the Apple Watch is the wearable we’ve all been waiting for.

The verdict? Maybe you’ll want one – particularly if you are caught up in the impressive hype – but it’s unlikely you need one. Helpful, right?

Reviewers were divided on whether the average consumer really needs an Apple Watch. While on one hand they raved about the health and fitness apps, the convenience of it all, the quality of the screen and the ability to take calls on your wrist, there was some uncertainty creeping in.

The Verge’s Nilay Patel described it as easily the nicest smartwatch available. On the other hand though, it’s “kind of slow”, he said, although he noted this was something Apple had promised to fix with software updates. He also described it as feeling underpowered, particularly because the screen flips off when you aren’t looking at it – a nice way to save battery power but the time lag in turning on the screen when you raise the watch gets frustrating.

The Daily Telegraph's Matt Warman described it as "by far the best smartwatch" he had worn. Unlike other reviewers, who struggled to get a full day out of the battery, he managed to eke out almost two full days out of his. He praised the health and fitness apps too but said that, going on experience, version two or three of the watch should be even better.

CNet’s Scott Stein said the Watch was “beautiful and promising” but still left plenty to be desired. It was perhaps a victim of its ambition, trying to cover all its bases with the first generation of the product. He praised the Watch’s Siri integration, its microphone quality for calls and Apple’s fitness apps, which he said were the best on any smartwatch not a dedicated fitness watch.

But you don’t need one, he said, describing it as a “in many ways . . . a toy”, albeit an “amazing little do-it-all, a clever invention”.

Once you get past the steep learning curve, it seems, things improve. At least that's what the New York Times's Farhad Manjoo wrote. It took four days before he could really appreciate it, and "the Watch became something like a natural extension of my body – a direct link, in a way that I've never felt before, from the digital world to my brain". There's a benefit to that too, with the watch weaning Manjoo off his smartphone and his addiction to checking it.

The Wall Street Journal's Geoffrey Fowler said smartwatches "finally make sense", thanks to what he described as "the year's most-hyped piece of bling". His colleague Joanna Stern billed it as "exciting and messy. Just like life." But she still advised waiting to buy one, because the next version would be better.

And that seems to be an underlying subtext from the reviewers: Watch 2.0 may solve many of the teething problems likely to crop up in this version.

If reports are accurate though, the mixed reviews haven’t put consumers off. There’s a four to six week wait for many of the models, with others stretching into June.