Apple Watch: review of the reviews

The first round of full Apple Watch reviews are out - and the general consensus is that while its purpose has yet to be fully realised, it's still a thing of beauty.

The Telegraph's Matt Warman said it was the best smartwatch he'd used, by far. "It’s the first where I’ve consciously really wanted to make sure I’m always wearing it and that the battery doesn’t run out," he said.

"That’s not, however, to say that even Apple fans with £299 burning a hole in their pocket should rush out and buy this first generation Watch. It’s beautifully designed and frequently rather useful - but history suggests version two or three will be even better.

Apps will notify you only of the most important things, if you permit them. The Watch is a filter for your phone, freeing you from the compulsive checking to see if anything new has happened."

WATCH: Matt Warman's hands-on Apple Watch review

Geoffrey A Fowler of the Wall Street Journal agrees. "With the Apple Watch, smartwatches finally make sense," he says. "The measure of their success shouldn’t be how well they suck you in, but how efficiently they help you get things done. Living on your arm is part of that efficiency—as a convenient display, but also a way to measure your heart rate or pay at a cash register. This is a big idea about how we use technology, the kind of idea we expect from Apple.

He calls the apps - or lack thereof - "the biggest disappointment of my Apple Watch experience". "Apple says more than 1,000 Watch apps have been submitted, but only about three dozen have been available to test," he said.

The Verge's Nilay Patel calls it "one of the most ambitious products I’ve ever seen; it wants to do and change so much about how we interact with technology. But that ambition robs it of focus."

One issue, he points out, is the time it takes apps to boot up, which Apple claims will be fixed through future software updates.

"Sometimes apps take forever to load, and sometimes third-party apps never really load at all. Sometimes it’s just unresponsive for a few seconds while it thinks and then it comes back," he said. "If the Watch is slow, I’m going to pull out my phone. But if I keep pulling out my phone, I’ll never use the Watch. So I have resolved to wait it out."

^{Matt Warman tries out the Apple Watch}

"If you’re tempted by a smartwatch, Apple’s is easily the best, with the most enjoyable interface, the most intriguing range of apps, immaculate build quality and a highly attractive design," wrote David Phelan for the Independent.

"Plenty of people who have chosen Apple because they want a great smartphone, elegant tablet or simple-to-use music player may nonetheless feel that their Swiss made timepiece does its job so sublimely that there’s no need to put digital tech on their wrist in its place.

"But using the Apple Watch makes its case compellingly. Its versatility is enormous – the range of apps available will doubtless be very wide, very quickly. This means that though nobody will want to use all of them, there will be a particular set of features which appeal to each user."

"The Apple Watch can certainly make you a worse dinner guest. But it can also make you a slightly better one. The difference is whether or not you’re willing to think about what really matters vs. what seems to matter," said Bloomberg's Joshua Topolsky.

"The watch is not life-changing. It is, however, excellent. Apple will sell millions of these devices, and many people will love and obsess over them. It is a wonderful component of a big ecosystem that the company has carefully built over many years. It is more seamless and simple than any of its counterparts in the marketplace. It is, without question, the best smartwatch in the world."

^{The menu screen}