September is the month for new Apple product. I am not upgrading my phone this year, and my Apple Watch Series 6 is from 5 years ago. I thought it is time to upgrade. Surely 5 years is enough time for the product upgrade to become something exciting. I put my pre-order a bit late, and missed first day of availability as delivery date. I got my watch on Monday 22 Sep, so essentially I only missed a weekend.

Unboxing was ok. The packaging does not look too different from my old watch’s packaging. The big difference would be that now the watch band is in a separate box. I suppose this helps Apple in managing their inventory.

Right outside the box, I can tell that the new series 11 is slightly thinner than my old series 6. To be exact, the curve at the back of the watch is not as protruded. However, after wearing it for a couple of hours, I did not feel the difference anymore. It feels quite the same.

The display is larger than my old Apple Watch. My series 6 has 44mm display, the new series 11 has 46mm display. I had big expectation with this larger screen because I still remembered when I upgraded from 42mm series 3 to 44mm series 6, it felt like a big upgrade. However, 46mm display does not seem that much bigger. I can tell if I choose certain watch faces and make some effort to notice differences, but otherwise it feels like wearing the same watch.

Turns out, after 5 years, the only sensor added is a skin temperature sensor. Another underwhelming realisation for me. The new watchOS feature to track sleep is also available for older models, including mine, so I really do not get anything new that my old watch could not do (other than knowing the skin temperature of my hand when I sleep, which I am unsure how useful that can be).

The big feature I have waited for years is the blood pressure notification turns out to be something that is not exclusive for series 11. This new hypertension notification is available for series 9 or above. However, I was disappointed to find out that the feature has not received approval from Australian authorities and is currently disabled for Australian users.

Next I went to try listening to music right from the watch, which is something series 6 could not do (it requires Bluetooth headset). This feature works with my series 11, but I can’t help but realising that volume level is very low, even when I set it quite high. Out of curiosity, I did side-by-side comparison of volume level with my old series 6. I compared the sound of clicking the PIN numbers, the sound of alarm, the volume of some sound effects from the watch. Then I realised something big: my series 11 seems to produce incredibly lower volume in everything. I do not believe this is the case with all series 11 products, so more likely that I received a defective unit.

If there is one thing that the new series 11 does better than my old series 6, it is battery life. To no one’s surprise, since the new Apple Watch series 11 is the first model that Apple lists as 24 hours battery life, and my 5 year old watch surely has some battery degradation.

When I brought the watch back to Apple Store on the weekend, they quickly offered me to swap it with brand new unit. I decided to return the watch instead since it is still within 14 days of purchase (Apple has 14 days no-question-asked return policy in Australia) and overall the watch failed to impress me with any noticeable upgrade. My old watch needs to be charged twice a day, but I think I can hang on to it another year and see what series 12 will bring next year.