The newest Apple Watch SE 3, announced at Apple’s September 9 event, comes with much-needed upgrades, and here are nine standout features that make it a good buy on a budget.
First, what Apple Watch SE 3 still lacks…
SE 3 is the cheapest Apple Watch in Apple’s smartwatch lineup. To keep the costs down and differentiate it from Series 11 and Ultra 3, Apple Watch SE 3 lacks these notable features:
- No electrical heart sensor, and thus you can’t take an ECG.
- No blood oxygen monitoring.
- Watch SE 3 won’t detect hypertension (high blood pressure) and alert you to it.
- No U1 or U2 Ultra Wideband chip for Find My Precision Finding.
- The back is made up of nylon composite material as opposed to metal on Series 11 and ceramic on Ultra 3.
- It lacks a water temperature sensor.
Despite these missing features and an older, thicker design, the new Apple Watch SE 3 has received several notable hardware and software upgrades. If you’re on a budget for a good smartwatch for your iPhone or don’t mind spending a lot on a watch that will become outdated in a few years anyway, then the SE 3 could be the ideal investment.
1. Always On display
After I upgraded to Series 10 last year, I gave my Apple Watch SE (1st generation) to my wife, and she didn’t like it a bit. In addition to the thick front bezels (which are on SE 3 as well), the lack of an Always-On display (AOD) was a deal breaker for her. She said that “with the screen off, Apple Watch just looks like any other cheap $50 plastic smartwatch from Amazon.”
Thankfully, Apple has addressed this deficiency in the third-generation Watch SE by adding an Always-On Retina display. As a result, the time is always displayed on the screen, and you don’t have to lift your wrist or tap the display to wake it up and then see the time.
But note that compared to the 2000-nit maximum brightness of Series 11, the Watch SE screen caps out at 1000 nits. Additionally, it features the standard LTPO OLED display, as opposed to the improved LTPO3 wide-angle OLED. Nevertheless, having an Always-On display was one of the most sought-after features missing from the Watch SE, which Apple has finally fixed.
2. Fast charging
Unlike Series 11, whose advertised battery backup is now 24 hours compared to 18 hours on Series 10, the Watch SE 3 still has the same 18 hours of rated use time as the previous SE 2. However, given that SE 3 now features an Always-On display, it’s certain that Apple has made subtle under-the-hood improvements in battery, software, and display technology to maintain the same all-day battery life. Turning AOD off can help get even more use time.
The new Watch SE 3 now supports fast charging, which charges twice as fast as the previous model. So, if your watch is discharged and you need to leave the house or go to bed for sleep tracking, you can use a 20-watt or higher adapter to:
- Charge up to 80% in 45 minutes.
- Get up to 8 hours of usage by charging for 15 minutes.
- Get 8 hours of sleep tracking by charging for 8 minutes.
Additionally, Apple also says that the Watch SE 3 now offers up to 32 hours of use time in Low Power Mode. Even though you can enable Low Power Mode on old SE 1 and SE 2, Apple never gave an official ‘X hours’ of usage time for these devices.
3. 5G on cellular models
Apple didn’t skimp on cellular connectivity, and just like the Series 11, if you get the GPS + Cellular version of the Apple Watch SE 3, it now supports 5G. All previous models were limited to LTE/4G networks. 5G means improved music streaming, texting, location sharing, and app downloads when you’re using the Apple Watch SE 3 away from your iPhone.
4. Supports watchOS gestures
Thanks to powerful S10 chip (which is the same as last year’s Series 10 and even the latest Series 11 and Ultra 3), the Apple Watch SE 3 also supports the new watchOS 26 wrist flick gesture which uses the built-in accelerometer, gyroscope sensors, and on-device machine learning model to silence phone calls, dismiss alerts, snooze alarms, and more just by flicking the wrist — no screen touching required.
Additionally, the Watch SE 3 supports the now two-year-old double-tap gesture, which first debuted with the Series 9 and Ultra 2. This allows you to pick up calls, reply to messages, and scroll through your Smart Stack widgets by tapping your thumb and index fingers.
5. Voice Isolation for phone calls
The powerful S10 silicon on the Apple Watch SE 3 supports Voice Isolation, which suppresses background noise and makes the person on the other end of the phone or FaceTime audio call hear you more clearly, even in bustling surroundings.
6. Nightly wrist temperature tracking
With nightly wrist temperature tracking, the Apple Watch SE 3, like the Series 8 and later, can measure your skin temperature while you sleep. It utilizes this data, along with the night-to-night variations in baseline temperature, for menstrual cycle & ovulation tracking as well as other health insights.
7. Media playback via on-device speakers
The Apple Watch Series 10 was the first to allow listening to music and podcasts through the on-device speaker. In contrast, the speakers on all previous models were limited to calls, Siri, system alerts, and listening to voice memos.
The new Apple Watch SE 3 joins the elite club of Series 10, Series 11, Ultra 2, and Ultra 3 in letting you play media through its tiny loudspeaker.
8. 64 GB internal storage
The first two generations of Watch SE had 32 GB of on-board storage. But the Watch SE 3 is upgraded to 64 GB, just like the Apple Watch Series 9 and later models. Among other things, this means you can now save a significantly larger number of Apple Music and Spotify songs for offline listening on your watch.
9. No price increase
Aside from the above significant changes, the new Apple Watch SE 3 can also send sleep apnea notifications, features on-device Siri that can tap into your health & fitness data and provide valuable answers, and improved front glass that’s four times more crack-resistant than the previous generation. The latest watchOS 26 on Apple Watch SE 3 ensures you’ll get the two new Flow and Exactograph watch faces, Liquid Glass design, Live Translation, Notes app, and more.
Even with all these significant life improvements, the Apple Watch SE 3 still starts at the same old price of $249. Here’s the complete price list for Apple Watch SE 3:
- 40 mm (GPS): $249
- 44 mm (GPS): $279
- 40 mm (GPS + Cellular): $299
- 44 mm (GPS + Cellular): $329
You can preorder it now, and deliveries will begin on September 19th.
Also, check out: 10 features missing on the new iPhone Air