Apple Watch SE 3 review: Affordability at a price

Apple’s thriftiest smartwatch has come a long way since it was introduced back in 2020. Where it once sat as a sub-premium counterpart to the company’s iconic wearable, the third-generation Apple Watch SE has well and truly come into its own as a cheaper smartwatch for those who still want to stick to the iOS ecosystem. 

The gap in price between it and its siblings has grown wider, and the underlying hardware has only improved. As a result, the case for the Apple Watch SE as an alternative to a smartphone for your kid or even as a first smartwatch has never been easier to make.

In Australia, the Apple Watch SE 3 starts at $399. That makes it one of the cheapest smartwatches that Apple sells. It isn't quite as budget-friendly as something like the OPPO Watch Free, but it's a fair bit more affordable than the standard Apple Watch.

That said, the price does vary based on your preferred size and whether or not you want cellular connectivity. Opting for the larger 44mm size will cost you an extra $50. Meanwhile, mobile connectivity comes at a $90 premium. 

Still, you can save some money if you shop around. Check out the table below for a round-up of deals for the Apple Watch SE 3.

For as far as this branch of Apple’s wearable lineup has come over the past five years, you wouldn’t know it based on the design. 

As with its predecessors, the Apple Watch SE 3 is available in both 44mm and 40mm sizes but only in a single aluminium material. Either version of the wearable comes with an OLED display akin to the one found on the older Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch SE 2. Unlike those wearables, however, this screen is an Always On Retina OLED one with a crisper resolution and new IonX glass protection - which Apple claims is twice as scratch-resistant as the screen found on the previous model. 

Speaking of durability, the Apple Watch SE 3 does not come with an IP rating for dust resistance, but it does offer up to 50m of water resistance. That’s in line with the Apple Watch SE 2, but it does feel like there’s room for improvement.

The edge of the Apple Watch SE is host to a stubby digital crown that’s not as chunky as the one found on the likes of the Apple Watch Ultra 3 but functional enough regardless. There’s a secondary shortcut key that can be used to jump straight to the setting when needed. However, there’s no action button to be found here akin to the one that appears on Apple’s more expensive wearable.

Under the hood, the Apple Watch SE 3 comes armed with a new temperature sensor. Otherwise, the arsenal of health tracking hardware here is more or less on par with what the Apple Watch SE 2 offered. You don’t get ECG and the heart-rate sensor is a generation behind the one found in the Apple Watch Series 11 and the Apple Watch Ultra 3. You do get sleep tracking plus all the usual features and functionality enabled by the Apple Health and Fitness apps.

One area where the Apple Watch SE 3 does offer notable improvements over its predecessor is fast-charging. You can now get 8 hours of sleep tracking off just 8 minutes of charging, while 15 minutes will get you around 8 hours of everyday use. According to Apple, 45 minutes will get you around 80% charge. There’s also a new low-power mode, which promises to help you double the usual battery life to around 32 hours. At least on paper. More on the reality later down the line.

Although the Apple Watch SE 3 doesn’t differ too much from its predecessor when it comes to overall looks and features, the inside of the device is a definite improvement thanks to the new S10 processor. Even if this silicon was introduced in last year’s Series 10 and can be found across Apple’s latest lot of smartwatches, it’s still a significant step up from the S8 found in the older Apple Watch SE 2.

Of course, there is a connectivity caveat worth touching on here. As reported by WhistleOut, local telcos currently don't offer 5G for smartwatches. As a result, Australian variants of the Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch SE 3, and Apple Watch Ultra 3 all come with 5G connectivity that cannot be used. Once this changes, the Apple Watch SE 3 will be able to connect to 5G. Until then, it’s stuck on 4G.

Even so, everyday use of the Apple Watch SE 3 mostly met my expectations. For as much as the thriftiest Apple Watch might evoke the idea of cut corners, the fact that you’re still pairing this device up with software experienced as polished as the one Apple offers does a lot to sand away those potential edges. The screen wasn’t as generously sized as the one found on the Apple Watch Ultra 3, but it was still plenty usable for both at-a-glance notification management and during workouts.

The battery life, on the other hand, fell short. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that this is the one area where the compromises being made to achieve a more affordable price point are most keenly felt. The fast-charging helped somewhat.

Even so, the reality is that the Apple Watch SE 3 could barely make it through my usual workday. By 5PM, I’d usually have less than 10% battery remaining. As someone using taking their the watch off charge at around 8AM, that's well short of the up to 18 hours of use that Apple touts in its official marketing for the wearable.

Coming off reviewing both the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and the Pixel Watch 4, it was a stark contrast. If you’re keen to make use of the Apple Watch SE for sleep tracking, this reality quickly made the hardware here a little more difficult to live with.