is a senior reporter and author of the Optimizer newsletter.She has more than 13 years of experience reporting on wearables, health tech, and more. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine.
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
When I walked into Apple Park last week, there was one thing that I did not have on my bingo card: the $249 Apple Watch SE 3 stealing the show from the Apple Watch Series 11 and the Apple Watch Ultra 3.
But here we are. It’s 2025, and the entry-level Apple Watch is the one I’m most excited by.
That’s because compared to the iterative updates of the Series 11 and Ultra 3, the third-gen SE has gotten a massive, wide-ranging glow-up. Unlike the other watches, there also weren’t any leaks suggesting this was even in the cards, making this jam-packed release a total surprise. And the cherry on top? In the lead-up to the event, I wrote the easiest thing Apple could do to make the Apple Watch better was give people what they wanted. Nearly every single update to the SE 3 does exactly that.
What’s new
I could probably just list all the changes, wrap up this review, and crawl into bed because many of them are such obvious improvements. Here they are in a nutshell:
The SE 3 jumps from the S8 chip to the S10, enabling faster processing and features previously limited to the Series and Ultra models, including double tap, wrist flick, on-device Siri, and improved voice isolation during phone calls.
Apple has finally heard the prayers of beleaguered SE users everywhere and given the people an always-on display. Huzzah!
It’s still only got an 18-hour battery life estimate, but the SE 3 finally has fast-charging.
... continue reading