Apple Watch SE 2 (2022) review: The affordable Apple Watch; why pay more?

Whether you want some fitness and health tracking in your life, or just a good-looking smartwatch as a fashion accessory – the SE 2 does not disappoint. Should you save some money and get it, instead of the more expensive options from Apple? Let's take a closer look and find out…

Apple Watch SE (2022), 40mm is 24% off on Amazon

The Apple Watch SE (2022) is available at Amazon. The smartwatch currently retails at 24% off. This is the 40mm model with S/M sport band.

$60 off (24%)

Buy at Amazon

Apple Watch SE (2022) 44mm: save 22% on Amazon

The bigger version of the Watch SE (2022) is also available to order at Amazon. Right now, the GPS wearable arrives for 22% less than usual. That saves you $60 on the 44mm smartwatch.

$60 off (22%)

Buy at Amazon

What’s new about the SE 2 over the first-gen SE

• New S8 processor (as opposed to S5), which is also in the Series 8
• Crash detection
• Bluetooth 5.3 (as opposed to Bluetooth 5)
• Lower starting price

Table of Contents:

• Unboxing
• Specs
• Design, Models & Sizes
• Software & Features
• Battery and Charging
• Processor & Storage
• Connectivity
• Audio Quality and Haptics
• Competitors
• Summary and final verdict

Apple Watch SE 2 Unboxing

Although this is the budget Apple Watch to buy right now, the unboxing experience is the same as if you just bought a Series 8, which means – as premium as you'd expect from Apple.

You get a sleek, long, white box with just the Apple logo and the word "Watch" on top, so if you need to check which Apple Watch this is, and what size, look at the stickers on the bottom.

Pulling two tabs unboxes the Apple Watch SE 2 like a Christmas present, and inside you'll find your watch wrapped in protective foil, plus a magnetic charging cable (which needs a USB-C charging brick that's not included).

You also have a second box with your chosen wristband. We've got the Storm Blue Sport Loop band for this review. In any case, prepare for lots of cardboard to come out from this unboxing experience.

Apple Watch SE 2 Specs

Notably, despite its lower starting price, the SE 2 gets the same processor that's inside the Apple Watch Series 8 – the S8 SiP (system in a package). For reference, the first-generation Apple Watch SE is powered by the S5.

• Apple Watch SE (2022) specs

Apple Watch SE 2 Design, Models & Sizes

Despite its lower price tag, the Apple Watch SE 2 feels very nice, lightweight and premium. Its recycled aluminum case is on par with the more expensive Apple Watches, which is a good thing. Also good is the fact that we have water resistance of 50 meters, which Apple claims means the SE 2 "may be used for shallow-water activities like swimming in a pool or ocean".

Nothing serious like scuba diving or water skiing though, you'll have to look to the Apple Watch Ultra for that stuff.



On the left side of the watch we have a speaker grill, and on the right – a digital crown, and a side button under it. The crown is surprisingly clicker than on the Apple Watch Series 7 I've been using until now by the way, which is not an issue, just worth noting.

You can pick between a smaller 40mm display variant, starting at $249, or the bigger 44mm variant, that starts at $279. If you want cellular connectivity on your watch, as opposed to just Wi-Fi – the cellular Apple Watch SE 2 starts at $299.

Although the larger display of the 44mm variant (which we're using for this review) is easier to see and makes sense for people with bigger wrists, rest assured that the cheaper, smaller 40mm variant is just as good. I've used the 41mm Series 7 until this very moment, and not once did I feel like the screen size was handicapping my experience in any way.

Regardless of which screen size you choose, you get a beautiful, bright Retina display, which is also OLED, meaning the blacks are pitch black. No backlight bleeding when using it in the dark, and you can probably save on some battery by using watch faces with black backgrounds. That's because to display a black background, OLED screens just turn off a lot of those pixels. Good stuff!

What's not so good is the fact that the always-on display feature is not available on the Apple Watch SE 2. So instead of staying on all the time, the screen on the SE 2 turns completely off when the watch thinks you're not looking at it, and turns on only when it senses that you've turned your wrist, or when you start interacting with the display or the side buttons.

Now, that shouldn't be a big deal for many people, considering a good bunch of Apple Watch Series 7 (and now 8) users already turn always-on display off to save on battery life. So if you were going to do that anyway – well… You don't need to, there's no such feature here.

The Apple Watch SE 2's display is also covered with what Apple calls Ion-X glass, which, speaking from experience, can scratch pretty easily. Not from nails or anything that bad, but from the occasional bump into a table or rub against your phone – you might start seeing unwanted results. So I'd recommend looking into a screen protector, or just being extra careful, if you want to sell your smartwatch for a good price at some point later on.

Apple Watch SE 2 Software & Features

The Apple Watch SE 2 comes with the newly-released watchOS 9.0 software. If you're new to watchOS in general – let's quickly summarize what it entails. When you lift your wrist, tap the screen or press one of the watch's buttons, your watch will wake up, revealing your current watchface.

You have many watch faces to choose from, and most of them can be customized with different colors, and a big number of complications too – so you can add things like the date, current weather, your battery life, and so on, and see all that at a glance; not just the current time.



Pressing the digital crown will take you to your installed watchOS apps, which can include Reminders, Activity, Messages, Heart Rate, Settings and Mail, among many other apps you can download from the app store.

Pressing the side key (the one under the digital crown) reveals your most recent apps, similarly to how you can view your recent iPhone apps by swiping up and holding.

That's the standard stuff for an Apple Watch running watchOS 9, but let's get on to the notable features your Apple Watch SE 2 has (and the ones it doesn't have).

Perhaps the most important feature that it has would be heart rate tracking, which includes high and low heart rate notifications, plus irregular rhythm notifications, which, as someone who has arrhythmia, I personally appreciate.

Whether you wish to track your heart rate during workouts, or during your normal day-to-date life, or during sleep, you can find all the data this watch will collect in the Health app on your iPhone. You can also, of course, check your current heart rate on your watch at any time.

The Apple Watch SE 2 will also track your activity, as you'd expect from a modern smartwatch. That includes calories burned, steps taken or meters walked in particular workouts (of which there are many to choose from); there's also sleep tracking and even cycle tracking on board.



Siri is always on your wrist too, which is really handy, and I regularly use it to set reminders. You can either press and hold the digital crown to trigger it, or you can enable the "Hey Siri" voice command to get the virtual assistant's attention with your voice, without pressing anything.



Fall detection, and Apple's new crash detection features are also here. The latter will attempt to trigger an Emergency SOS if it detects that you've been in a car crash, using either cellular (if you have the cellular Apple Watch SE 2 model) or your iPhone's internet connection.

It's a pretty grim feature to think about, but something you'd expect and want from a health-oriented device, and hopefully it works reliably. I'm definitely not willing to test it, but during Apple's recent presentation, it seemed like the Cupertino company had reassuringly tested it plenty of times.

The SE 2 also has a GPS, a compass, an always-on altimeter (for altitude measuring), plus support for Apple Pay / NFC.

Another feature you may appreciate, particularly if you're planning to buy this smartwatch for a child or just anyone else who doesn't have their own iPhone yet, is Family Setup. You can, say, pair this smartwatch to your own iPhone, but let your kids use it.

So yeah, the Apple Watch SE 2 has the basic health and fitness features covered, but as you might expect, it's also missing features that the more expensive Apple Watches have, so let's go over those.

We already mentioned that there's no always-on display, and there's also no Blood Oxygen tracking and ECG tracking. No body temperature sensing either. So although this can be a perfect smartwatch to get as a fashion accessory or for your average health and fitness tracking, those few extras will require you to shed more cash for a more expensive Apple Watch model.

Apple Watch SE 2 Battery and Charging

As we mentioned in the unboxing section, the Apple Watch SE 2 comes with the familiar magnetic charging dock, but no charging brick to plug that into, so you may need to either use your phone's charger, or buy another USB-C charging brick separately.

In any case, Apple promises the usual all-day battery life (or more precisely, up to 18 hours). For indoor workouts, you can expect up to 10 hours of battery life, or up to 6 hours of outdoor workouts with GPS tracking on (e.g. running).

Since this watch doesn't have always-on display, it's almost certain to last you longer than an Apple Watch Series 8 or 7, especially if you just use it as a fashion accessory and not a workout device, but don't expect anything groundbreaking.

In my experience, the Apple Watch SE 2 easily lasts through a whole single day of sparse usage, with even some battery left for the next day. It's lasting me longer than my Series 7, and again – likely because it doesn't have always-on display.