The Best Apple Watch for Most People Is $50 Off During October Prime Day

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Last month, Apple released two new smartwatches: the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Apple Watch Ultra 4. These wearables offer brand-new features like a heart rate monitor that takes your pulse every five seconds; "Audio Intelligence," that can display a transcript of the last 15 seconds of an in-person conversation; and Apple's new S11 chip, its fastest wearable processor yet.

Despite all these perks, neither the Series 12 nor the Ultra 4 is the best Apple Watch for most people. That title goes to the Apple Watch SE 3, which is currently as cheap as $199 for October Prime Day.

Apple Watch SE 3 (40mm) $199.00 at Walmart $249.00 Save $50.00 Get Deal Get Deal $199.00 at Walmart $249.00 Save $50.00

The Apple Watch SE 3 doesn't have Apple's latest and greatest features, nor does it have its biggest and best display. It doesn't have to: The SE 3 comes with all the features and options most people expect from an Apple Watch. It is available in two sizes, 44mm or 40mm, both with Always-On OLED displays and brightness up to 1,000 nits. The SE 3 has a heart rate monitor and can track both workouts and your sleep. It supports the Vitals app, which can report on heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, and sleep duration. It can track menstruation cycles and predict both period windows and ovulation estimates.

While it doesn't support Audio Intelligence, it does support Apple Intelligence—including the company's new Siri AI assistant. If the AI-powered Siri is important to you, you'll be able to use it with the SE 3 and your AI-capable iPhone. This watch also supports Emergency SOS, as well as fall and crash detection. That means your watch can call emergency services on your behalf if you become unresponsive after a fall or a collision. If you take the SE 3 swimming, you can dive as deep as 50m before you should worry about water resistance.

This watch doesn't have Apple's newest S11 chip, but it does come with last year's S10 chip, which should be plenty powerful for running watchOS for the foreseeable future. It gets up to 18 hours of screen-on time, and up to 32 hours when in Low Power Mode. You can fast charge the watch up to 80% in 45 minutes with the right charger, or get eight hours of use in as little as 15 minutes of charging.

Really, some of the bigger misses here won't matter to most people. The SE 3 doesn't have an ECG monitor, nor can it detect your blood oxygen levels or send you hypertension alerts. Its screen isn't as bright as the one on the Series 12 (2,000 nits) or Ultra 4 (3,000 nits), nor does it have Emergency SOS via satellite. It doesn't support Precision Finding for iPhone, nor does it have as long a battery life as Apple's other watches (24 hours on the Series 12, and 50 hours on the Ultra 4). But for everything save battery life, most users likely aren't going to be swayed, especially when you consider the price difference

Speaking of which, the SE 3 starts at $199 right now for the 40mm option. If you want the 44m option, you'll spend an extra $30, or $229. This watch also comes in a cellular option, which can connect to 5G speeds when available. The 40mm cellular option is currently $279 on Amazon, while the 44mm model is $279.

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