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These activities aren't battery killers on the Series 2 or Series 3 without LTE, but with the Series 3's constant cellular connection, you can forget about it lasting 18 hours on a charge. I managed to squeeze another 12.5 hours out of the watch by not relying on it too heavily for the rest of the day. It had drained to 60 percent after running every battery-sucking feature simultaneously. When I returned home to eat breakfast, I checked my watch battery. I started the day with a 3.5-mile run, during which I streamed Apple Music's Pop Workout radio station the entire 37 minutes.
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I quickly discovered the LTE Series 3's limitations when I left my iPhone at home.
That did the trick for me.) A look at Twitter and Reddit shows that other Series 3 buyers experienced the same early problems I did. (If you run into a similar problem, try deactivating the watch's data plan, and then reactivating and rebooting. I experienced some launch-weekend jitters with phone call reliability, where calls on the watch over LTE would fail, but those issues seem to have been resolved. A customer service agent couldn't help me figure out the problem over the phone, so I eventually paired the device to an Apple-provided iPhone 8 on T-Mobile to test it out. I ran into a myriad of issues when trying to activate the watch on my AT&T plan. I eventually got my watch activated on AT&T's network, but it took a trip to my nearby AT&T store and the help of five customer service reps - four in-store and one over the phone - more than an hour to navigate the complicated setup process. But then I got to the part where I had to activate the watch's cellular connectivity. The Series 3 pairs to your iPhone the same way past generations did, with a dynamic image on the watch face that you scan with your iPhone camera. Apple Watch Series 3 activation: A frustrating process Those floated down to earth as soon as I unboxed the device. All that, and it can't even last a full day on its own.īut even though I knew the watch couldn't replace my iPhone, I still had high hopes. That disappointment sinks in after you add up the costs - $399 for the 38-millimeter model or $429 for the 42-mm version, and then an extra $10 on your monthly cellphone bill so that the watch can draw from your data bucket. If you're expecting to leave your phone for extended periods of time and use the watch to handle all your tasks, you will be disappointed. The LTE Apple Watch Series 3 is designed to bridge that gap, but that's it.
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