Apple has officially lifted the veil on its latest pair of smartwatches, the Watch Series 9 and the Watch Ultra 2. The updated wearables bring internal upgrades and new gestures, while mostly retaining the designs on its predecessors.
Watch Series 9
The Series 9 comes in 41mm and 45mm sizes with aluminium and stainless steel options, alongside new FineWoven and improved Sport Loop bands. More excitingly, the display is now twice as bright as its predecessor, capable of going up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness for better outdoor visibility and can dim down to just 1 nit in low-light situations.
Of course, the chipset powering the watch is also new, with the Apple Silicon S9 containing a four-core Neural Engine and a 30% faster GPU. It is paired with a second-generation Ultra Wideband (UWB) chip for improved Precision Finding to track your iPhone. With UWB, the Series 9 will launch Now Playing to control the media when it gets within four metres of a HomePod playing audio.
Coming later this year, the software will include a double tap gesture that can be programmed to do a myriad of actions such answering a call, opening a notification, playing and pausing music, and more. As for Siri, the virtual assistant can now run on the Series 9 locally without the need for Wi-Fi or cellular data, making it faster and more accurate.
Unfortunately, the battery life hasn’t seen any improvement as it only promises 18 hours of usage just like the Series 8. For swimming, the smartwatch is water resistant up to 50 metres and it even has an IP6X dust resistance rating.
Watch Ultra 2
The Ultra 2 comes in a 49mm titanium and features a practically identical design from the first generation model. It offers a brighter LTPO OLED sapphire crystal display that can switch anywhere from a peak brightness of 3,000 nits to just 1 nit.
Its toughness, while impressive, hasn’t changed from the previous model with a 100m water resistance, IP6X dust resistance, MIL-STD 810H certification, and dive-ready up to 40m. Just like the Series 9, it gets the new S9 processor with the 2nd-gen UWB chips.
When it comes to the battery life, there seems to be no upgrade as it can last up to 36 hours with normal usage and 72 hours on low power mode. Moreover, it retains the action button, Digital crown, and 86dB siren as well as the sensors from the first Watch Ultra that tracks your temperature, blood oxygen levels, heart rate, and depth. Similarly, the Ultra 2 will be getting the double tap gesture update later on.
The Apple Watch Series 9 starts from RM1,899 for the 41mm aluminium version with only GPS and maxes out at RM4,949 for the 45mm stainless steel model with cellular data support and a link bracelet. Meanwhile, the Watch Ultra 2 retails for RM3,799 with cellular data and three band options.
Both devices will be coming to the Malaysian market soon, but the tech giant has yet to confirm the exact launch date. In select countries, the new smartwatches will be available starting 22 September, so it shouldn’t take too long for Apple to release them here. On a side note, the 2nd-gen AirPods Pro have been updated with a USB-C port and will be available at the same price of RM1,099.
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