The 20th annual Pocket-lint Awards, sponsored by new EE, celebrated the best devices and products across a number of categories on 9 November 2023. Categories ranged from smartphones to cameras, each with six nominations, all of which we’ve reviewed at some point during the last 12 months. The Best Smartwatch category is all about rewarding the best wrist-worn gadgets with the best all-round performance and collection of fitness and lifestyle features.
After deliberation and judge voting, one winner emerged and it’s probably no surprise to see this latest smartwatch at the top of the pile again.
Smartwatch of the Year: Apple Watch Series 9
Pocket-lint
Apple Watch Series 9
It didn’t change a huge amount from the previous version, but the Apple Watch Series 9 delivers a top experience. It’s got accurate health sensors, feels fluid and smooth, and lots of great lifestyle features.
The Apple Watch Series 9 offers a solid design, beautiful and bright display, more sensors than you’ll know what to do with and more features than it’s possible to list. It plays it a little safe, so if you have a Series 7 or Series 8, there isn’t a huge reason to upgrade but for newbies or older owners, this is a well-rounded smartwatch with lots to love.
We’d love to have seen the Action Button from the Watch Ultra arrive on this model and a battery life that lasts longer too, but the overall experience is still a fantastic one.
Highly commended: Garmin Venu 3
With its comprehensive health tracking, excellent sleep analysis and recovery data, the Venu 3 is a stellar fitness-focused smartwatch. The fact it can go two weeks between charges, and offers music and payments too rounds out a truly excellent wearable.
What we really like, however, is the Venu’s shift to focus more on recovery, energy levels and rest. It helps get that balance right between intense physical activity, and ensuring that you rest properly. The Body Battery feature combines really well with the Sleep Coach and recovery time predictions to ensure you don’t overwork. Add in the big, bright AMOLED display, contactless payments and support for offline music from Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music, and you have a really well-rounded smartwatch.
Of course, it’s not perfect – it’s missing some of the interactivity you’d get from an Apple Watch or Wear OS watch – and isn’t the most exciting design in the world, but for the health and fitness-focused consumer, it’s a better choice than a smartwatch that’ll only last 24 hours between charges.
The best of the rest
Google Pixel Watch 2
The Pixel Watch 2 is so close to brilliant that it almost hurts. With better battery life, a larger display with skinnier bezels, and a larger size option, it’d be practically perfect in every way: the Mary Poppins of smartwatches.
Fitbit is the killer feature here, though, with the sensing hardware and software combining to create a sublime fitness and health-tracking watch. In fact, I can’t think of any other Wear OS watch, or any smartwatch for that matter, which is as competitive on the fitness side – beyond perhaps Garmin and Apple.
As it stands, it’s a beautiful watch with great software, offering a fluid and smooth performance and one that’ll work brilliantly with your Android phone.
Huawei Watch Ultimate
There’s no denying Huawei has – yet again – pulled out another absolute stunner of a watch from its bag of tricks. The only stumbling block for most people is that it’s a lot of money to spend on a watch that, in a lot of ways, works and acts just like the much cheaper Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro.
It’s made from a rare, luxury material – dubbed Liquid Metal – which has super durable and corrosion-resistant properties, and the thick sapphire crystal glass on the display means it can withstand a lot of pressure. That combination makes it ideal for deep-sea diving.
With all of that, plus accurate and responsive health and fitness tracking, it’s a super watch, even if it is quite pricey.
Mobvoi Ticwatch Pro 5
If you’re looking for a Wear OS smartwatch, we think the TicWatch Pro 5 is one of the best options available today. It offers unrivalled battery life, snappy performance and a wealth of health-tracking sensors.
Ticwatch Pro 5 was one of the first to feature the Snapdragon Wear 5+ Gen 1, delivering that smooth and responsive experience, but also delivers up to 80 hours of battery thanks to its beefy 628mAh battery and the innovative dual-layer display.
Add to that all the latest WearOS features and abilities, 5ATM waterproofing, and more than 100 different workout tracking options.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic
The Galaxy Watch 6 Classic is a solid feature-rich Wear OS but with a more traditional design than its regular Watch 6 sibling. In the end, the experience of using the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic is the same as the Galaxy Watch 6 and why only one of them is on this list.
What you get for the extra cash versus the basic model is a more premium build, a watch made from stainless steel and a bezel that can rotate to control the interface. It’s also a genuinely strong all-round watch and one that’s absolutely worth considering if you’re an Android phone user looking for feature-rich experience with great fitness and health tracking abilities.
How the EE Pocket-lint Awards judging works
The winner for the Smartwatch category is decided by the Pocket-lint team, along with a panel of expert judges from publications across the industry. Following a rigorous scoring process, the Best Smartwatch winner for 2023 will be announced at an in-person event on 9 November 2023, along with the winners from the other 20 categories.
A Product of the Year winner will also be announced, chosen from the winners of the 21 categories. On the night, we will be announcing the results on the Pocket-lint Twitter handle as they unfold, and there will also be a feature detailing the winners once the Awards are over.
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