Although generally the stuff of science fiction up until a matter of years ago, the concept of the smartwatch was something that nerds (like me) always wanted to be a reality, but weren’t really sure about the logistics of it all.
Yet in 2013, two things collided: the need for health obsessives to monitor and record both their bodily metrics and their exercise routines, and the desire to have a smartphone on your arm.
Today, smartwatches are everywhere, on every wrist and in every size and shape (well, round or a bit square-ish, anyway). Some still remain mostly in the fitness tracking and health monitoring domain, while others offer all the wonders of the smart-connected world, concentrating more on the everyday demands of techie types. Then there are some that bridge both those arenas and offer arm-based smart apps.
There is no denying that the latest batch of smartwatches and – by extension to that tech family – wrist-going fitness trackers, have come on leaps and bounds in the last 12-months. There are also more players in the market now, so the choice open to you, the great purchasing public, when it comes to selecting a smartwatch that’s more or less tailored to your personal box ticking can be bewilderingly immense.
I’ve been hard at work selflessly testing the very latest techie strap-ons on myself in a bid to see which might best suit you. From expensive to cheap as chips, from feature-packed to fitness-based, and from Android to Apple, if you think you might be in the market for some smart-as-a-whip watch action for your wrist, then there’s bound to be something across these next few virtual pages that has just the right amount or arm-appeal for you…
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Best smartwatches for 2023 at a glance:
- Best for adventure all the way: Huawei WATCH Ultimate - £700, Amazon
- Best for helpful health monitoring: mymonX Original - £249, mymonX
- Best for simply the best: Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 5 - £330, Mobvoi
- Best for style and substance: Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro (45mm) - £429, Samsung
- Best for when money is no object: TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 Sports - £1850, Beaverbrooks
- Best for training for an ironman: Polar Ignite 3 Titanium - £324, Polar
- Best for iPhone users with cash to splash: Apple Watch Ultra - £849, John Lewis
- Best for iPhone owners on a budget: Apple Watch SE - £259, John Lewis
Best affordable watch brands to shop in 2023: styles under £200
Best Samsung smart watches: How to choose between the brand’s top models
Best smartwatches for kids 2023 with fun features they will love
Best waterproof smartwatches for swimming to track your performance in the pool
Best Apple Watches to buy in 2023: Which model should you choose?
Best cheap smartwatches 2023: Affordable wearables for Android and iOS
Huawei WATCH Ultimate
Best for: Adventure all the way
Huawei has caught my eye with its ever-growing, increasingly impressive range of smart-time-tellers over the last year, as its models have embraced both worlds of innovation beyond ‘what the other fella is doing’ and of design aesthetics. Take the WATCH Buds for example of the former, a fully featured smartwatch with a face that pop open to reveal two noise-cancelling earbuds concealed beneath, or the WATCH GT 3 Pro Titanium, which took the general, generic ‘round and black’ look of the average smartwatch and gave it a case and strap design that make it look like a classy chronograph. Both stunning examples of Huawei’s hard work to stand out from the crowd.
Then we come to this: the WATCH Ultimate – a whole new Huawei ballgame. Firstly, look at it. Yep, whether in Expedition Black or Voyage Blue, you’ve got to admit these things are gorgeous, formed as they are from zirconium-based liquid metal, making each iteration stronger and more wear and corrosion-resistant than anything else out there. Then there’s the three equally out-there metal physical buttons, which like the rest of the watch, are built to withstand anything from diving in the ocean (waterproof down to 100m) to the wild wastes of the worst winters or driest deserts (ambient operating temperature of -20â–+45â). All that and it’s sure to garner admiring glances at the casino or fancy schmancy yacht club.
So, tough and attractive, but what about the tech? Well, compatible with either iPhones or Androids, the Ultimate runs on HarmonyOS 3.0 which was wheeled out last summer and which runs quickly and efficiently on the watch, opening and closing apps without lag and making it easy to link up other assembled smart kits.
Sensor-wise, the Ultimate may be nails-hard but it’s also sensitive, packing Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Magnetometer, Optical heart rate, Barometer, Temperature, and Depth sensors all in to allow your every move and metric to be accurately measured, while other assorted sensors offer all-day health management.
A true adventurer’s watch, there are some 20+ professional and 100+ basic fitness modes built-in, covering a ridiculous raft of outdoorsy stuff, from trail running to mountain climbing to scuba diving.
On the battery front, the Ultimate is, well, the ultimate, with eight-days on offer under heavy use, a whopping two-weeks with light use, and a fantastically fast 60-minute charging time.
Throw in Bluetooth calling and compatibility with a whole range of third-party apps, and the Huawei WATCH Ultimate is quite possibly the hottest new property on the smartwatch scene.
Compatibility: Android and iOS
OS: HarmonyOS 3.0
Connectivity: Bluetooth, NFC
Display: 1.5-inch AMOLED
Processor: Not specified
Wireless charging: Yes
Water resistant: 10ATM
Buy now £700.00, Amazon
mymonX Original
Best for: Helpful health monitoring
Going in a completely different direction from the Huawei WATCH Ultimate, if your bag is not so much endless adventure as it is simply staying alive, then look no further than this little miracle of home medical monitoring, the mymonX Original.
Whilst there are a few personal health-focused wrist-going wearables on the market, there are not many that look as good and, indeed, as smartwatch-y as this. Slim, light and not at all a hideous chunky medical metrics tool, you could wear the mymonX anywhere without overly nosy types asking you if you’re okay constantly, which is where the aesthetic beauty lies.
Where it gets even smarter, however, is in its ability to non-invasively measure and record your glucose levels. Now, obviously, for diabetics, this is a glucose-checking game changer.
But more than that, it also comes jam-packed with medical grade and/or state-of-the-art heart rate, ECG, blood pressure, blood oxygenation (SPo2), and breathing rate (Rr) sensors too, alongside others to track daily activity and sleep patterns.
With an easy to use app that displays and helps you analyse all your metrics, you need never second-guess your health again. And with all that self-knowing info stored by time, day, week and month, you can chart your physical improvement as you exercise or plot your spiralling decline as you don’t, either way the information is there.
Now, to have access to the myriad benefits of all those functions and others besides (like being able to automatically share your data with another person), you’ll need to subscribe to the mymonX app at a price of £9.99 per month.
Waterproof rated at IP68 too, you can wear the Original in the bath and in the swimming pool alike, so no need to go without monitoring when it is wet.
With a battery life of around a week from a single three-hour charge, for keeping a constant eye on the vitals of you or yours, the mymonX Original is the smart carer you can carry around.
Compatibility: Android and iOS
Connectivity: Bluetooth
Display: 1.3-inch TFT
Processor: Nordic52832
Wireless charging: No
Water resistant: IP68
Buy now £249.00, mymonX
Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 5
Best for: Simply the best
I’ve had Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 5 with me for about three-weeks at time of writing and the one thing I can’t get over is just how damn much it continues to impress me on a daily basis. I don’t know whether that’s because it’s so unashamedly macho, with its sizable 50.1mm (H) x 48.0mm (L) build and relatively chunky silicon strap, whether it’s because it’s decidedly no-nonsense by coming in any colour you want as long as it’s black, or whether it’s because it comes driven by the super-fast Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 chip, something which makes the Pro 5 incredibly responsive and smooth in use. Or maybe it’s all of the above.
Featuring a 1.43-inch AMOLED display ultra-low power display protected by Corning Gorilla Anti-fingerprint Cover glass, the Pro 5 has a dual-display, something new to this model, which means that while ‘at rest’ you get an always-on monochrome screen that still manages to display all your main metrics. Or, as you probe the Pro 5, a full-colour display kicks into life to give you easy access to myriad functions, including 100+ professional workout modes, heart rate monitor, blood oxygen saturation reading, sleep tracking, and a handy one-tap measurement of multiple health metrics. All of this can be scrolled through with ease via the rotating crown and viewed in the neat accompanying Mobvoi Health app, helping you keep your finger firmly on the pulse of, well, yes, your pulse, but also your path to physical fitness.
Naturally, like any good smartphone-paired watch worth its salt, you also get app alerts straight to your wrist, can make and take phone calls, set alarms, calendar entries and add events to your agenda, get directions, select tunes from Spotify and YouTube and where to play them, and… well, if there’s an app available, the TicWatch Pro 5 will run it right up thanks to the aforementioned excellent combination of the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 chip and Wear OS 3.
With built in GPS, tracking is nicely accurate and satellite acquisition is relatively quick. Also, rated at 5ATM, you’re all set for swimming, while the MIL-STD-810H rating means it’s tough enough to withstand the lumps and bumps of an active life.
As to battery life, thanks to the low-power dual-display, the Pro 5 just runs and runs, the 628mAh capacity delivering up to 80-hours of on-time, depending on usage, obviously.
Finally, if you’re a thoroughly modern Milly, you can use your Pro 5 to pay for stuff via Google Pay, so no need to lump around a wallet or purse when out pounding pavements, laying down some lengths in the pool or, indeed, just out and about humaning.
In summary, the TicWatch Pro 5 is an excellent example of the smartwatch maker’s art, building on what came before and making it so very much better. For exercise and everyday use, it simply excels.
Compatibility: Android
OS: Wear OS 3.0
Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC
Display: 1.43-inch AMOLED
Processor: Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1
Storage: 32GB
Wireless charging: No
Water resistant: 5ATM
Buy now £330.00, Mobvoi
Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro (45mm)
Best for: Style and substance
Having been a Watch4 fan boy for the past year, I was very keen to get to grips with the shiny new iteration as soon as it was available, but how do you improve on near smartwatch perfection? Also, how would it stand up against the rather remarkable TicWatch Pro 5? Yep, it’s a ‘5’ and ‘Pro’ battle to the death!
First up, there’s no avoiding it, the Samsung is £99 more than the TicWatch, so we should expect to see that extra near-ton in obvious action, and you do from the moment you pick it up – this has a premium feel thanks to its titanium frame and slick 1.4-inch Super AMOLED sapphire glass display.
Running on Wear OS 3.5 and driven by Samsung’s Exynos W920 chipset, the new Sammy is equally slick in operation, with functions running smoothly and without launch delay or glitching. And those functions are numerous, with accelerometer, gyro, heart rate, barometer, skin temperature, and geomagnetic sensors all in place to monitor your metrics as you power through your workouts. Plus, as the Pro model, obsessive exercise types can import GPX files to add hiking and biking routes and waypoints. Plus plus, with accurate GPS available, the Pro 5 will automatically track you and map out your return route on the off chance you get a bit lost.
Naturally, linked to your phone over Bluetooth, all the usual smart functions are available in abundance, such as the ability to make and receive calls, app alerts, text messages, alarms, calendars, sleep tracking, etc. Also, a nice assist for the social media mobile, you can control your phone’s camera from the Pro 5 to take picture perfect selfies.
Waterproof to 50-metres making it safe for swimming and featuring Samsung Pay as a matter of course, the Pro 5 has been positioned as Samsung’s ‘adventure’ watch, and while it’s certainly up for the fight, it’s not quite in the insane exercise league as the Polar Ignite 3 Titanium (below), but for fitness fans seeking a smartwatch that’s at home on the streets too, it could well be ideal.
So, pretty comparable with the TicWatch Pro 5 in terms of features, speed and sensitivity, the Samsung does only have half the storage of the TicWatch, which will limit app downloads, but it is undoubtedly a very accomplished piece of smart kit.
Compatibility: Android
OS: Wear OS 3.5 / One UI Watch 4.5
Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC
Display: 1.4-inch Super AMOLED
Processor: Samsung Exynos W920
Storage: 16GB
Wireless charging: Yes
Water resistant: IP68
Buy now £429.00, Samsung
TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 Sports
Best for: Money no object luxury
Luxury, it has a lap, and this is it. Horology enthusiasts and the relatively well-heeled alike will know the name of TAG Heuer well as one of the most renowned homes of Swiss watches. With a heritage dating back to 1860, today’s timepieces worn and modelled by Hollywood celebrities, and analogue chronograph examples costing up to the sharp end of £20,000, a new TAG Heuer smartwatch was always going to have an awful lot to live up to.
So, where to begin? With the price? Hey, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. But if you can, that’ll be £1850 with a rubber strap or a cool £2000 with a steel bracelet, which is chips-cheap compared with many of TAG Heuer’s analogue offerings.
Measuring 45mm (a 42mm variant is available) and made from stainless steel with a ceramic bezel, there’s no denying the Connected Calibre E4 Sports is a particularly handsome-looking watch; in fact that’s a hideous understatement – it’s utterly beautiful, extremely well made, and, well, if you want all the benefits of a Wear OS smartwatch that doesn’t look like all the other Wear OS smartwatches, but rather a thoroughly classy chronograph, get your wallet out now.
Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100+ processor, it’s also a smooth operator with a rotating crown (that I liked so much on the TicWatch Pro 5) letting you simply scroll through its features, while the two large push buttons flanking it work to further enhance the premium feel. Meanwhile, the 1.39-inch, 454 x 454 AMOLED display, complete with sapphire glass, is bright, clear and crisp.
With an equally stylish app available for Android and Apple, once you’re hooked-up over Bluetooth, you can start tracking and recording your exercise routines, inside and out, using the E4’s heart rate sensor, compass, accelerometer, gyroscope and barometer, plus you can – should you so choose – share your fitness facts with Google Fit.
Off the track and in the not-so-mean streets (you are wearing a TAG Heuer, remember), the E4 offers all the usual Wear OS apps that we’ve all come to know and love, so you can make and take calls, send texts, listen to music from Spotify or YouTube, check your schedule, check the weather, cough up with Google Pay and all the other good smart stuff, while swiping around the face is an identical process to all others on this OS.
By now you may have got the impression that I’m rather taken with the E4 and you’d be correct. It looks sensational, like any other of TAG Heuer’s luxury watches, and runs like a digital dream, plus the array of faces you can choose from are simply stunning. Aspirational for most, I know, and some may baulk at the idea at spending so much on, what is essentially, a flashy bauble during these crippling economic times, but the question my duty to ES Best demands I answer is this: if I had the money would I buy one? Yeah, you’re damn right I would.
Compatibility: Android and iOS
OS: Wear OS 3
Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, GNSS
Display: 1.39-inch AMOLED
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100+
Wireless charging: No
Water resistant: 5ATM
Buy now £1850.00, Beaverbrooks
Polar Ignite 3 Titanium
Best for: Training for an ironman
Some smartwatches are designed with the casual keepfitter in mind, often created as a playful mix between a way to keep track of both yourself and your light-to-medium exercise and an easy way to access apps and alerts when on the go. However, for some smartwatches, that will simply not suffice. Some smartwatches will not be happy until they’ve pushed you harder and faster than everybody else. Some smartwatches want to see you suffer while they document every agonising second. Some smartwatches are sadists. The Polar Ignite 3 Titanium is just such a smartwatch.
Having reviewed the Polar Grit X recently, I know just how hardcore and hard wearing Polar watches are, and the new Ignite 3 Titanium is another well-hard entry into the Polar pantheon, coming waterproof down to 30-metres and having an operational temperature that runs from a minimum of -10°C to a maximum of 50°C. However, unlike the TicWatch Pro 5, the new Polar has not been tested against military standards, which seems a tad odd. Regardless of that, with a plastic case, stainless steel bezel, Gorilla Glass display cover and a silicon or leather and silicon strap, the Ignite 3 Titanium is lovely and light at just 36g, which is what you want from a watch that you’ll end up hanging off a mountain with.
Bluetoothed to your phone (plays nice with both Apple and Android), you can get alerts on the go, control your music and enjoy 24/7 activity tracking stored straight on the Polar app. But that’s not what the Ignite 3 Titanium is about. No, with over a whopping 150 different sports profiles at your disposal, compatibility with pretty much any other training app you can think of, plus dual-frequency GPS, you can indulge in any form of sport or exercise imaginable - even professional kabaddi, set running programmes, plan your sporting season, add training targets, measure swimming metrics, and even enjoy a weekly summary of exactly how burnalicous you’ve been.
After all that, the new Polar will also help you relax with some breathing guidance and by tracking your sleep – including your nighttime skin temperature – to ensure you’re getting the best recovery rest as possible.
In short then, the Polar Ignite 3 Titanium is the smartwatch you want if extremes of exercise and for a model that can not only keep up but push you ever onwards. Tough and teched-up precisely for that task, it’s all the training buddy you’ll ever need.
Compatibility: Android and iOS
OS: Polar proprietary
Connectivity: Bluetooth
Display: 1.28-inch AMOLED
Processor: 192MHz
Storage: 32GB
Wireless charging: No
Water resistant: Yes
Buy now £324.00, Polar
Apple Watch Ultra
Best for: iPhone users with cash to splash
First up of the Apple products is the top-of-the-line Watch Ultra, which I’ve gone with as this is the Big A’s largest and most expensive option at the moment, so logic dictates it’s the best, yes? Yes, with a, frankly, brilliantly vivid and bright (2000-nits, nits fans) 1.8-inch OLED touchscreen that’s a fingertip felicity to use, a 49mm titanium case makes the Ultra attractive and light at 61g, while the S8 processor moves everything along at a very pleasing pace.
And it’s tough too, with water resistance to 100-meters, an IP6X dust resistance rating, supports EN13319 recreational scuba diving to 40-meters, and has been tested to MIL-STD 810H. Why so solid? So that you can take advantage of the depth gauge, water temperature sensor, blood oxygen sensor, electrical heart sensor and ECG app, optical heart sensor, compass and always-on altimeter, while you throw yourself with wild abandon into whatever insane exploit it is you’re engaged in, for this is Apple’s ‘adventure’ watch - so its near indestructible. However, because you’re not indestructible, if things go awry in the wild and making a call or sending an SMS is not an option, the Ultra’s dual speakers can emit a noise at some 69dB – a siren like the wail of a banshee – to attract attention to your position and plight.
Naturally, being Apple, the Ultra shuns all things Android like a snooty Parisian, so you’re going to need at least an iPhone 8 with iOS 16 or later to make the magic work – the price of buying into an exclusively proprietary system.
But the plus side of biting into Apple is that, with the Ultra, you get a free three-months of Apple Fitness, so you can jump right into fruit-based fitness and core training from the moment it hits your wrist.
Is the Apple Ultra Watch very expensive? Yes, it is. Does it feel and look expensive? Yes, it most definitely does. Is it the ultimate adventure watch for those with an iPhone? No, it’s not, for that you need to go back to the Polar Ignite 3 Titanium. Is it damn near close though? Yes, yes it is.
Compatibility: iOS
OS: watchOS 9.1
Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC
Display: 1.8-inch OLED
Processor: Apple S8
Storage: 32GB
Wireless charging: Yes
Water resistant: 100m
Buy now £849.00, John Lewis
Apple Watch SE
Best for: iPhone owners on a budget
Racing to the other end of the Apple Watch spectrum now, we come to the budget baby of the range, the Watch SE. Coming with change from £160, the much smaller (44mm) and lighter (33g) SE still comes with Apple’s S8 processor and runs on watchOS 9, like its much pricier sibling, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end, as the SE sacrifices features to keep costs down. But if you’re simply in the market for an Apple-centric smartwatch that lets you receive alerts, make and take calls, track workouts and sleep in equal measure, then look no further.
With a 1.78-inch display with half the nits of the Ultra, the SE is obviously not as bright, but it’s certainly sufficient to see in both bright and low light, so who needs 2000-nits?
Swim-safe thanks to water resistance to 50m, packing GPS and featuring an accelerometer, gyro, heart rate (2nd gen) monitor, barometer, always-on altimeter, and compass to track your exercise, plus three months’ free on Apple Fitness to keep a firm eye on your road to becoming fit-tacular, it basically does all that most folk would want.
For Apple users not blessed with pockets deeper than the Mariana Trench, the SE is a bit of a no-brainer that puts all the essential smarts in the right place.
Compatibility: iOS
OS: watchOS 9
Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC
Display: 1.78-inch OLED
Processor: Apple S8
Storage: 32GB
Wireless charging: Yes
Water resistant: 50m
Buy now £259.00, John Lewis
