This weekend I drove over to AU, my cellular carrier here in Japan to pickup my new Series 3 w/ LTE Apple Watch that I ordered a couple weeks ago. I have the original Series 0 and I've been waiting for enough feature additions to justify an upgrade. When Apple announced the Series 1 and 2 about 18 months after the original I was still very happy with my Series 0, and decided to wait for the next version. The Series 2 was faster and more waterproof than my Series 0, and it had a couple other features, but for the most part it was exactly the same as the one I had. So still no real desire to upgrade.
Apple Watch Series 3 w/ LTE and the Apple Red Sport Band.
Last month Apple released the new Series 3, and this time in addition to adding a performance bump and a few other features, they also add LTE enabling the Apple Watch to be used independant of the iPhone. While I probably won't use my Apple Watch that often for making phone calls, I do love the idea of being able to leave my iPhone 7 Plus behind when I exercise or go for a walk. Having the ability to still make and receive phone calls, text messages, email and even stream music from Apple Music (feature coming this fall) all without my iPhone in my opinion takes the Apple Watch to a whole new level of functionality.
Apple Watch Series 0 (Top) and Series 3 w/ LTE (Bottom).
I decided to stay with the Stainless Steel version with the white sport band, the same as my original version. I was very happy with that one and always felt the Stainless Steel works with any band compared to the darker versions of the Apple Watch. Plus I think it looks a bit more premium. I've purchased 6 additional bands over the past couple years, so knowing that all my bands will still work and match is nice.
I'll post a full review after I've had some time to really live with the new version and have a better feel for the new features and battery compared to my original. In the meatime I've also uploaded a new video to my YouTube channel of my picking up the watch and discussing the cost of the LTE feature here in Japan.
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