The Apple Watch Series 11 is the latest version of Apple’s flagship smartwatch, and the GPS 42mm model with a Jet Black aluminum case and Black Sport Band is the most affordable way into the current generation. It runs on the S10 chip with 64GB of storage, features an Always-On LTPO3 OLED display pushing up to 2,000 nits of brightness, and delivers up to 24 hours of battery life on a single charge, a meaningful jump from the 18 hours on the Series 10.
A multitasker of a smartwatch perfect for just about any use case
The health monitoring features on the Apple Watch Series 11 go far beyond basic step tracking. It provides an Electrocardiogram (ECG) reading at any time with just a touch of your finger to the Digital Crown. The watch will also send you a notification if it senses either a too-high or too-low heart rate or irregular rhythm. The watch is designed to track signs of sleep apnea and measure your blood oxygen level throughout the day. In addition, it’ll monitor your wrist temperature during sleep. The Health app pulls all these readings from the day into a dashboard accessible every morning, so you can get a quick overview of your current values.
The hypertension notification feature is the major addition this year. The optical sensor feeds data into a machine learning algorithm that analyzes how blood vessels respond to heartbeats over rolling 30-day windows. Apple developed it through studies involving more than 100,000 participants and validated it in a clinical trial. High blood pressure affects over a billion adults worldwide and frequently goes undiagnosed because it rarely shows symptoms, so passive monitoring on a device worn every day has real potential to flag something early.
Fitness tracking encompasses multiple types of workouts and uses many different data and metrics, including Heart Rate Zones, Training Load, Pacer for running, and the Workout Buddy feature. Workout Buddy is a new feature that uses information from your iPhone paired with Apple Intelligence to provide audio-based coaching tailored to your workout.
The 42mm case weighs 30.3 grams and is thin enough to wear during sleep for overnight tracking. The Ion-X glass has a ceramic coating Apple says is twice as scratch-resistant as the Series 10. Water resistance is rated to 50 meters; the watch is IP6X dust-resistant; and connectivity on the GPS model runs through your iPhone or Wi-Fi for calls, texts, notifications, Siri, Apple Pay, and music.
The Apple Watch Series 11 is on sale for $299 right now, down from the usual $399. Anyone still wearing a Series 6, 7, or 8 would get hypertension monitoring, longer battery life, a brighter, tougher display, blood oxygen, sleep apnea detection, and years of software support in a single upgrade. At a hundred off, this is the cheapest the current model has been since launch.
