Apple Watch SE: release date, price, features and rumours
by Shabana ArifApple is set to announce a new cheaper Apple Watch – which may be named the Apple Watch SE – along with the Apple Watch Series 6 at the next Apple Event this week, helping to add more products to a keynote that may have felt more empty than usual with iPhone 12 release having been pushed back to October.
• Apple Event September 2020: how to watch
Usually, Apple unveils a new Watch model at the top of the range, and then leaves previous models on-sale at a cheaper price to give buyers more price options. You get the latest features if you spend more, or you can save with a slightly older model. This is the first time Apple has ever introduced a separate model to be a low-price entry, mimicking its approach with the iPhone SE compared to top-end iPhones.
Twitter leaker Komiya has claimed that the wearable will retain the older design of the still-on-sale Apple Watch Series 3, but its innards will house the S6 processor and W4 wireless chip expected to be present in the Apple Watch 6, and a step-up from the Apple Watch 5's S5 and W3 chip. But they also claim it won't come until next year, and that looks incorrect now.
Regular leaker Jon Prosser also confirms a cheaper Watch, but says it is indeed coming this week, and says it will be the newer design used since the Apple Watch Series 4. He also offers more detail on the feature differences between the Watch SE and the Watch 6, including no always-on display, and no ECG. Prosser later corrected the sizes in the tweet below, noting that the sizes would be 40mm and 44mm, matching the Apple Watch Series 5 sizes.
Apple Watch SE: release date
It looks like the Apple Watch SE will be announced on September 15th, with an on-sale date expected to be a couple of weeks after than, based on Apple's usual release schedule. Whether it will go on-sale on the same day as the Apple Watch Series 6 remains to be seen – in recent years, Apple has released its iPhone in different weeks, even for models announced at the same time. It did this with the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, as well as the iPhone X and iPhone 8 the year before.
Apple Watch SE: price
If the price is the same as the Apple Watch 3, starting at £199/ $199, that would be an incredibly hard product for other smartwatch makers to beat – it would have a great screen, excellent fitness features, health tech such as fall detection, a jazzy design, fast performance, and the best smartphone integration of any wearable (as long as you have an iPhone too, of course).