Battery Life and Charging

Battery life is surprisingly similar between the Apple Watch Series 7 and the Apple Watch SE. However, there are some catches to consider. If you use the cellular version of either watch, battery life will be affected. Additionally, if you do a lot of extensive outdoor GPS workouts or have the always-on display turned on, battery life will also be impacted. But if you turn off the always-on display on the Series 7, you can get pretty much the same time on both watches.

I put my watch on at 8 am one morning and went through an entire day just getting notifications, working out, or using my phone with me. I was able to get through almost 12 pm the next day, which is around one and a half days of usage. However, if I wore it to sleep with it, I would generally get less battery life, and I would probably be charging it early in the morning after I woke up. Overall, you'll need to charge these watches pretty much every day.

I wanted to do my own test to see just how much extra time the Series 7 would get me compared to the SE. Both batteries were completely flat, and here's how long it took to get to 100% charge on both of them: the Series 7 charged from flat to 100 in one hour 20 minutes, while the SE did it in two hours 30 minutes.

Connectivity and Features

Both watches have an LTE option, which allows you to pay a little more ($100 for the Series 7 or $50 for the SE) to get a version that lets you take calls, send messages, and use apps on your wrist without your phone being nearby. Both also come with Apple Pay, Apple's voice assistant, and a speaker and microphone on board, which allows you to take calls "Dick Tracy" style on your wrist.

Both watches have 32 GB of onboard storage for things like music and apps. The key difference between the two is that the Series 7 has the U1 or Ultra Wide Band chip, whereas the Apple Watch SE does not. This potentially makes it future-proof, as it could be able to do things involving nearby location tracking and other features in the future.

However, I didn't notice a significant difference between the two watches in real-world use, except for one thing: when I turned on both of these watches at exactly the same time, the Series 7 started up significantly faster. When it comes to long-term updates, the Series 7 is actually a year newer than the SE, which means that if you're considering holding on to one of these for four or five years, the Series 7 might get more updates than the SE.

Choosing the Right Apple Watch

For most people, the Apple Watch SE is probably the best choice in terms of overall value. However, if you need a bigger screen, have trouble reading text, or want those additional health sensors, then the Series 7 might be worth upgrading to. The extra features on the Series 7 are just spending a little bit more money for things that you might not need.

In my opinion, I would probably choose the SE because it's just so similar, and I don't need the always-on display. I like the look of the Series 7, but really, I think I'm just spending extra money for features that I probably don't need. But ultimately, it comes down to what you want in a watch, and which one best fits your needs and budget.

If you have any additional questions or comments about either of these two watches, feel free to leave them below. You can also find me on your favorite social media platform (Instagram, Twitter, etc.), where I'll catch you next time!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso you've decided you want an apple watch but how do you choose between the latest series 7 and the apple watch se let's find out your first consideration is probably the price the series 7 starts at 400 us dollars while the se starts at 280 and of course both get discounted at certain times of the year so i have put latest pricing and availability in the links in the description below in this video i'm going to break down all of the major differences between these two watches to help you decide everything from the screens to health and fitness sensors to connectivity and of course battery life you might also be looking at the series 3 which is still surprisingly available for sale at 200 but really you have to ask yourself the question is it worth spending that much money to buy the series 3 brand new when the tech is at least 4 years old let's kick things off with the design and the display now at first glance if you look at these two side by side or on someone's wrist quickly it's going to be pretty hard to spot the difference but when you inspect it a little bit more closely you'll notice that the series 7 has slightly more rounded and more contoured edges than the apple watch se both of them have that same square watch face design that we've had ever since the first apple watch there's a digital crown and a side button that you use to interact with the watch and both of them come in the choice of two sizes depending on your wrist so the apple watch se has a 40 and 44 millimeter size whereas the series 7 is a little bit bigger 41 and 45 millimeter are your options and overall it's that size of the screen itself that is going to make the biggest difference to which one you choose what you need to know is the se has more visible bezels i've put the side by side of the same watch face on both so you can actually see the difference there is more screen real estate on the series 7 than there is on the apple watch se really the biggest thing to be aware of is how much text is actually going to be visible on that screen now if you have trouble reading smaller screens you'll probably appreciate that the series 7 has two additional text sizes larger than the se so that's really beneficial if you often find yourself squinting down at your wrist not quite sure what it says or you're pulling out a magnifying glass on the regular the larger screen on the series 7 also means that it can accommodate a full-size keyboard so on top of the regular ways that you can say respond to text messages using either emojis scribbling on the screen even sending quick responses or using the dictation feature with your voice on the series 7 you can swipe and tap to write a message using the keyboard of course cramming a qwerty keyboard onto a smaller screen does leave some room for errors but i was generally surprised at how accurate the swiping and typing was as long as i was going slow enough but let's put it frankly you're probably not going to be writing the next great american novel or war and piece on this apart from the screen size the other big difference between these two watches is of course the always on display the series 7 has it and the se does not now this is the feature that lets you just glass down at your wrist and the display will always have something on it whether that's the time or your workout stats for example now is this a must-have feature honestly if this is your first apple watch or your first smart watch i really don't think it's necessary unless you somehow hate lifting your wrist to see the time or tapping on the screen to turn the watch face on i don't find it so much of a problem at all and on the series 7 to be honest a lot of the time i turn off the always on display because i want to save battery life and we'll talk about that when we get to that section or you can skip right ahead with the links in the description below there are two exclusive watch faces on the apple watch series 7 that you won't find on the se both of them are water resistant to 50 meters and that also means that you can use it in the shower and jam out to your favorite tunes or take a call i don't know why you would but it's there if you want it the screen on the series 7 is also crack resistant and the watch itself is rated ip6x which means it's dust resistant the applewatch se is not and you can also get different finishes on the series 7 whereas there are only aluminum or as i would say aluminium casings on the se you also get titanium and stainless steel options on the 7 although that bumps the price up a little bit too let's get into the health and fitness features on both of these watches key thing you need to know even if you don't watch any of the rest of this section is that the fitness tracking experience on both of these watches is pretty much identical you'll be able to track things like your steps you'll also be able to see your overall calorie burn as well as your exercise goals and stand hours for the day using apple's ring based system each can track pretty much any workout that you've ever wanted to do from your regular walking running and cycling you'll also have the options of boxing curling and even fitness gaming which is kind of a nice addition actually both also run watchos 8 which is the latest apple watch os at the time of recording that gives you additional exercise types such as tai chi pilates and outdoor cycling features specifically around e-bikes if you want to find out more details about what that update has and how it all works i've got a detailed review video you know where to look for that so on the software side things are pretty much the same you're getting sleep tracking you're getting high and low heart rate alerts you're getting watch os 8's mindfulness prompts you're getting things like emergency sos as well as fall detection there are two extra sensors that the series 7 has that the se does not including a blood oxygen sensor which lets you see oxygen saturation in the blood either on demand and you can also have it doing background reads during the day and night as well as an ecg app or an electrocardiogram app that can help detect signs of atrial fibrillation now do you need these sensors well it's only you that's going to answer this question i can't answer that for you but it's important to note that only the ecg is fda cleared the blood oxygen sensor is not and overall you should not be using any wearable device to substitute for proper medical advice but here's a hot tip maybe you don't need the ecg maybe you're only interested in blood oxygen you could still get the apple watch se and like a 15 pulse oximeter that sits in your finger and you'll still be out on top and think of all that extra fun stuff you can do with the cash that you have spare from not buying the series 7. i don't know you can buy extra watch bands you could take a vacation to hawaii maybe you can just buy a giant comical teddy bear i don't know what you spend your extra cash on but hopefully it's giving you some ideas battery life is surprisingly again similar if not the same on both there are of course a couple of catches battery life is going to be affected if you do things like using the cellular version of either of these two watches if you're doing a lot of extensive outdoor gps workouts and of course if you have the always-on display turned on on the series seven but let's say if you turn it off on the series seven you are able to get pretty much the same time on both of these if i put the watch on at 8 am one morning and then i go through an entire day just getting notifications a workout or two with my phone with me i can actually get through to almost 12 p.m the next day so i would say around one and a half days of usage out of the watch that's if i don't wear it to sleep with if i do have it to sleep with it generally gets me a little bit less i'll probably be charging it early in the morning as after i wake up say for example but overall what you need to know is you're going to be charging these watches pretty much every day but i wanted to do my own test to see just how much extra time the series 7 was going to get me in terms of charge compared to the se both of the batteries are completely flat let's see how long it takes to get to 100 on both of their respective charges the series 7 charged from flat to 100 in one hour 20 minutes while the se did it in two hours 30. let's get into connectivity and the other features that i haven't yet mentioned both of them have an lte option so you can pay a little bit more a hundred dollars more on the series seven or fifty dollars more on the se to get a version that lets you take calls send messages and use apps on your wrist without your phone being nearby they both come with apple pay apple's voice assistant so you can use your watch hands-free as well as a speaker and microphone on board on both so you can take calls dick tracy style on your wrist they both have 32 gigabytes of on-board storage for things like music and apps the key difference is that the series 7 has the u1 or ultra wide band ship whereas the apple watch se does not does this make a difference what does this mean really what you need to know is it's probably future proofing this model because it potentially will be able to do things involving nearby location tracking and doing things using future digital car keys and so on but so far if you're looking for right now what the difference is between that each one chip and not having that you on chip you tell me it really beats me the 7 also has a newer processor than the se does this make a difference in real world use well in terms of overall things like loading apps and sending messages making phone calls everything that i use my smart watch for i really didn't notice that much of a difference between the two the only thing that i thought was worth noting was the fact that when i turned on both of these watches at exactly the same time the series seven did start up significantly faster something else to note about long-term updates is that the series seven is actually a year newer than the se so if you're considering holding on to one of these for say four or five years just think about the long term implications maybe the series seven will get more updates than the s8 we don't know anything about future plans for software updates but just something to bear in mind now it's crunch time let's work out which apple watch is the right one for you now i think for most people the apple watch se is probably the best choice in terms of overall value especially now you've seen how similar these two watches really are but are you most people i don't know if you need a bigger screen maybe you have trouble reading text you also want those additional health sensors then this series seven might be worth upgrading to or just spending a little bit more cash on just to get those extra features if i was picking one look the se is just so similar i would probably just choose the se because i don't need the always on display i like the look of the series seven but really i think i'm just spending extra money for things that i probably don't need in question i'm sorry what's going on why are they talking to me thank you as always for watching i hope this was really helpful for you and working out which apple watch is the right buy for you feel free to leave me a comment with any additional questions that you might have about either of these two watches and let me know which one you're picking of course you can also find me on your favorite social media platform instagram twitter what have you i will catch you next time see yaso you've decided you want an apple watch but how do you choose between the latest series 7 and the apple watch se let's find out your first consideration is probably the price the series 7 starts at 400 us dollars while the se starts at 280 and of course both get discounted at certain times of the year so i have put latest pricing and availability in the links in the description below in this video i'm going to break down all of the major differences between these two watches to help you decide everything from the screens to health and fitness sensors to connectivity and of course battery life you might also be looking at the series 3 which is still surprisingly available for sale at 200 but really you have to ask yourself the question is it worth spending that much money to buy the series 3 brand new when the tech is at least 4 years old let's kick things off with the design and the display now at first glance if you look at these two side by side or on someone's wrist quickly it's going to be pretty hard to spot the difference but when you inspect it a little bit more closely you'll notice that the series 7 has slightly more rounded and more contoured edges than the apple watch se both of them have that same square watch face design that we've had ever since the first apple watch there's a digital crown and a side button that you use to interact with the watch and both of them come in the choice of two sizes depending on your wrist so the apple watch se has a 40 and 44 millimeter size whereas the series 7 is a little bit bigger 41 and 45 millimeter are your options and overall it's that size of the screen itself that is going to make the biggest difference to which one you choose what you need to know is the se has more visible bezels i've put the side by side of the same watch face on both so you can actually see the difference there is more screen real estate on the series 7 than there is on the apple watch se really the biggest thing to be aware of is how much text is actually going to be visible on that screen now if you have trouble reading smaller screens you'll probably appreciate that the series 7 has two additional text sizes larger than the se so that's really beneficial if you often find yourself squinting down at your wrist not quite sure what it says or you're pulling out a magnifying glass on the regular the larger screen on the series 7 also means that it can accommodate a full-size keyboard so on top of the regular ways that you can say respond to text messages using either emojis scribbling on the screen even sending quick responses or using the dictation feature with your voice on the series 7 you can swipe and tap to write a message using the keyboard of course cramming a qwerty keyboard onto a smaller screen does leave some room for errors but i was generally surprised at how accurate the swiping and typing was as long as i was going slow enough but let's put it frankly you're probably not going to be writing the next great american novel or war and piece on this apart from the screen size the other big difference between these two watches is of course the always on display the series 7 has it and the se does not now this is the feature that lets you just glass down at your wrist and the display will always have something on it whether that's the time or your workout stats for example now is this a must-have feature honestly if this is your first apple watch or your first smart watch i really don't think it's necessary unless you somehow hate lifting your wrist to see the time or tapping on the screen to turn the watch face on i don't find it so much of a problem at all and on the series 7 to be honest a lot of the time i turn off the always on display because i want to save battery life and we'll talk about that when we get to that section or you can skip right ahead with the links in the description below there are two exclusive watch faces on the apple watch series 7 that you won't find on the se both of them are water resistant to 50 meters and that also means that you can use it in the shower and jam out to your favorite tunes or take a call i don't know why you would but it's there if you want it the screen on the series 7 is also crack resistant and the watch itself is rated ip6x which means it's dust resistant the applewatch se is not and you can also get different finishes on the series 7 whereas there are only aluminum or as i would say aluminium casings on the se you also get titanium and stainless steel options on the 7 although that bumps the price up a little bit too let's get into the health and fitness features on both of these watches key thing you need to know even if you don't watch any of the rest of this section is that the fitness tracking experience on both of these watches is pretty much identical you'll be able to track things like your steps you'll also be able to see your overall calorie burn as well as your exercise goals and stand hours for the day using apple's ring based system each can track pretty much any workout that you've ever wanted to do from your regular walking running and cycling you'll also have the options of boxing curling and even fitness gaming which is kind of a nice addition actually both also run watchos 8 which is the latest apple watch os at the time of recording that gives you additional exercise types such as tai chi pilates and outdoor cycling features specifically around e-bikes if you want to find out more details about what that update has and how it all works i've got a detailed review video you know where to look for that so on the software side things are pretty much the same you're getting sleep tracking you're getting high and low heart rate alerts you're getting watch os 8's mindfulness prompts you're getting things like emergency sos as well as fall detection there are two extra sensors that the series 7 has that the se does not including a blood oxygen sensor which lets you see oxygen saturation in the blood either on demand and you can also have it doing background reads during the day and night as well as an ecg app or an electrocardiogram app that can help detect signs of atrial fibrillation now do you need these sensors well it's only you that's going to answer this question i can't answer that for you but it's important to note that only the ecg is fda cleared the blood oxygen sensor is not and overall you should not be using any wearable device to substitute for proper medical advice but here's a hot tip maybe you don't need the ecg maybe you're only interested in blood oxygen you could still get the apple watch se and like a 15 pulse oximeter that sits in your finger and you'll still be out on top and think of all that extra fun stuff you can do with the cash that you have spare from not buying the series 7. i don't know you can buy extra watch bands you could take a vacation to hawaii maybe you can just buy a giant comical teddy bear i don't know what you spend your extra cash on but hopefully it's giving you some ideas battery life is surprisingly again similar if not the same on both there are of course a couple of catches battery life is going to be affected if you do things like using the cellular version of either of these two watches if you're doing a lot of extensive outdoor gps workouts and of course if you have the always-on display turned on on the series seven but let's say if you turn it off on the series seven you are able to get pretty much the same time on both of these if i put the watch on at 8 am one morning and then i go through an entire day just getting notifications a workout or two with my phone with me i can actually get through to almost 12 p.m the next day so i would say around one and a half days of usage out of the watch that's if i don't wear it to sleep with if i do have it to sleep with it generally gets me a little bit less i'll probably be charging it early in the morning as after i wake up say for example but overall what you need to know is you're going to be charging these watches pretty much every day but i wanted to do my own test to see just how much extra time the series 7 was going to get me in terms of charge compared to the se both of the batteries are completely flat let's see how long it takes to get to 100 on both of their respective charges the series 7 charged from flat to 100 in one hour 20 minutes while the se did it in two hours 30. let's get into connectivity and the other features that i haven't yet mentioned both of them have an lte option so you can pay a little bit more a hundred dollars more on the series seven or fifty dollars more on the se to get a version that lets you take calls send messages and use apps on your wrist without your phone being nearby they both come with apple pay apple's voice assistant so you can use your watch hands-free as well as a speaker and microphone on board on both so you can take calls dick tracy style on your wrist they both have 32 gigabytes of on-board storage for things like music and apps the key difference is that the series 7 has the u1 or ultra wide band ship whereas the apple watch se does not does this make a difference what does this mean really what you need to know is it's probably future proofing this model because it potentially will be able to do things involving nearby location tracking and doing things using future digital car keys and so on but so far if you're looking for right now what the difference is between that each one chip and not having that you on chip you tell me it really beats me the 7 also has a newer processor than the se does this make a difference in real world use well in terms of overall things like loading apps and sending messages making phone calls everything that i use my smart watch for i really didn't notice that much of a difference between the two the only thing that i thought was worth noting was the fact that when i turned on both of these watches at exactly the same time the series seven did start up significantly faster something else to note about long-term updates is that the series seven is actually a year newer than the se so if you're considering holding on to one of these for say four or five years just think about the long term implications maybe the series seven will get more updates than the s8 we don't know anything about future plans for software updates but just something to bear in mind now it's crunch time let's work out which apple watch is the right one for you now i think for most people the apple watch se is probably the best choice in terms of overall value especially now you've seen how similar these two watches really are but are you most people i don't know if you need a bigger screen maybe you have trouble reading text you also want those additional health sensors then this series seven might be worth upgrading to or just spending a little bit more cash on just to get those extra features if i was picking one look the se is just so similar i would probably just choose the se because i don't need the always on display i like the look of the series seven but really i think i'm just spending extra money for things that i probably don't need in question i'm sorry what's going on why are they talking to me thank you as always for watching i hope this was really helpful for you and working out which apple watch is the right buy for you feel free to leave me a comment with any additional questions that you might have about either of these two watches and let me know which one you're picking of course you can also find me on your favorite social media platform instagram twitter what have you i will catch you next time see ya\n"