Ah, the prestige of owning an Apple product. You know you’re paying for an item that’s functionally identical to every other one like it but it’s just got that Tim Cook promise that all your friends will look upon you with wonder and amazement. (Spoiler: they probably will.)
It used to be that your iPhone was enough to communicate your social standing but as Apple has expanded ever outwards. Soon you needed to prove your worth with an iPad, and then an Apple Watch… which is the thing we’re focusing on today. Announced a couple of weeks back, the Apple Watch Series 6 is the latest version of the company’s smartwatch and its announcement brought with it the Apple Watch SE, the cheaper, more compact version.
The cost of living (well)
So the big question is how much are these new toys going to cost you? Let’s start with the Apple Watch Series 6, the new flagship watch, which will retail from R9,000. That’s a lot of money to spend on a watch but you’ll get the latest Apple Watch firmware as well as features such as blood oxygen scanning, advanced heart rate monitoring, an improved always-on display and sleep measurement functionality.
That’s all well and good but let’s go back to that R9,000 price tag because, let’s be honest, many people won’t be willing to spend that much cash on an advanced watch.
Instead, you could pick up the Apple Watch SE for R6,500, which is a far more reasonable price point. Now the Watch SE does most of what the Series 6 can do but it’s being pushed as a more robust, active version for Apple users. The major differences between the two are that the SE has a weaker chipset than the Series 6 and lacks some of the more advanced sensors — like those blood oxygen and advanced cardiac monitoring.
If you’re tempted by either of these you can find them over on the iStore. We’d go with the cheaper SE’s feature-set over spending more for small luxuries in the Watch Series 6.