Unboxing the Apple Watch Series 7
The box is the same size as it was for the Series 6. That surprised me. The watch itself is noticeably larger in display area, but the packaging didn't change at all. Inside you get the watch, a usb-C charging cable, and the standard sport band in whatever color variant you ordered. Nothing else. Apple stopped including wall adapters years ago, so you will need your own brick if you don't have one lying around. I took mine out, peeled off the paper backing on the screen, and paired it with my iPhone 13 Pro within about four minutes. That is faster than previous generations because the activation process skips a few steps that used to slow things down. You just hold the watch near your phone and tap through. No account creation delays, no firmware prompts hanging for twenty minutes. The bigger display is the real story here. The bezels are thinner than anything Apple has made before, and the screen area goes from 38 percent more on the Apple Watch Series 7 to roughly 20 percent more actual usable space compared to the Series 6. That sounds incremental until you are actually reading messages or glancing at complications. It matters more than the spec sheet suggests.
Charging is where the shift to USB-C actually shows up. It is faster too. The Series 7 charges from zero to eighty percent in about forty-five minutes with a standard five watt adapter. I timed it. The Series 6 took nearly an hour and a half for the same thing. If you are coming from an older model, this alone might justify the upgrade depending on how often you charge during the day. One thing that caught me off guard though. The always-on display behaves differently at low brightness. When I wore it to a dimly lit coffee shop and set the brightness down low, the screen would flicker occasionally. Not a lot, maybe once every few minutes, but enough to notice. I thought it was a software bug at first. It turns out the sensor that detects ambient light has a narrower range now, probably because the new edge-to-edge glass interferes with the readings. Apple released a firmware update about two weeks after launch that fixed most of it. If you are buying one now, make sure it is running the latest version before you leave the store. The watch is also slightly heavier than the Series 6. About three grams on the aluminum model. You do not really feel it during normal use, but if you sleep with it for the sleep tracking features, the extra mass is perceptible after a couple nights. I switched back to my old watch band that had a lighter clasp design and it helped.
Battery life is still roughly the same as the previous generation. One day with normal use, maybe a day and a half if you are conservative with notifications and skip the always-on display. The fast charging helps bridge the gap if you forget to charge it overnight, but don't expect miracles. If you need multi-day battery, look elsewhere. The new rectangular screen shape means some of your existing watch faces will look odd with letterboxing on the sides. Apple updated most of the built-in faces to fill the new screen, but third-party faces from the App Store sometimes take months to get updated. Check which ones you actually use before upgrading. The Ocean face and the Modular Complex work well on the new display. Some of the simpler ones like the Number Large get stretched in ways that look worse than the old layout. Overall, this is a solid refresh rather than a revolution. The screen is better, charging is faster, and the pairing process is smoother. But if you have a Series 6, it is not a dramatic jump. If you are on a Series 4 or earlier, the difference is substantial enough to matter.
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