Using a Series 3 Ceramic Edition Apple Watch is like driving a weekend car.
I use my White Ceramic Series 3 occasionally, and it is a joy to look at that thing. Sure it’s an old Apple Watch, but it has that pearlescent white finish that just contrasts well with the black screen and colorful watch faces.
It is the most “Apple-like” color.
Band compatibility is also great with a white watch. Most color combos would work in my opinion, except for the Natural and Gold Stainless Steel, and Natural Titanium bands. Black Steel and Black Titanium would look amazing.
There’s a lot of work involved though in getting this watch up to speed even for just the weekend. I mentioned earlier that it takes about 9 minutes to boot and have the watch connect to my device, but in reality, it takes about 20-30 minutes for the watch to sync all the messages, weather information, email, etc., to my watch from the past week of living.
I was quite surprised last Saturday when I wore it, and my Messages counter on the watch went from “No new messages,” to 40 new messages, down to 22, and then eventually to “No new messages.”
It really is a device you need to be patient with unless you use it every day.
It’s like an old, weekend car you want to enjoy for a few days, but then you’re glad it’s over by Sunday afternoon because the car is nice and fun, but also a bit cumbersome, makes a few rattles, is missing many creature comforts, needs to be warmed up before you throw it around, and takes premium gas.
Apple found a good balance with this watch by stopping the updates at watchOS 8. I know people like to complain that new updates have slowed down their Apple devices and that’s probably true for the Series 3 on watchOS 8, but you can never please anyone, and you have to find that perfect balance where you can update a device with more features, while keeping it as zippy as possible.
If I wear the Series 3 for weeks on end (which I did earlier), then it doesn’t have to do a massive sync of all the data, and it runs just fine. Just don’t let it run out of battery for the love of God.
Once again, it is absolutely illogical to buy a Ceramic Edition Series 3 for productivity reasons. You’re buying this watch for nostalgia and aesthetics, and you’re trying to experience luxury at a discount. You can do the same with the Stainless Steel models, which were beautiful.
I’ll use Adam Savage’s analogy (also fitting for my line of work), and say that the Series 3 Ceramic and Stainless Steel models are like a gateway drug into experiencing Apple’s premium watches at a steep discount.