Apple Watch SE review: excellent smartwatch at an attractive price offering same performance as the Series 4 but no always-on display and it does not have ECG
Dan Seifert / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's new budget watch is a deliberate un-bundling: as The Verge's review and Engadget's earlier hands-on both note, it packages Series 4-era performance without the two features that defined the flagships since then — the always-on display Apple introduced with the Series 5 and the ECG that debuted in the Series 4.
The cut-down spec sheet is what lets the SE hit an attractive price while the flagship line keeps those features as its premium wedge. Five years on, Tom's Guide's SE 3 review shows the trade-off persisted: even at $249 with an always-on display and 5G, the SE line still ships without ECG.
First-order effects
- Buyers get Series 4-class performance at a lower price point, but must accept no always-on display and no ECG — the exact features Apple's flagship reviews treated as the headline upgrades.
Second-order effects
- The SE sharpens Apple's internal price ladder: the ECG and always-on screen become paid upgrades rather than baseline expectations, letting Apple serve price-sensitive buyers without discounting the flagship.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — and the SE 3's continued lack of ECG suggests it does — advanced health sensing stays a permanent tier differentiator in smartwatches, with budget models frozen out of medical-adjacent features regardless of their raw performance.
The trend: Smartwatch lines are splitting into performance-cheap budget tiers and health-sensor-premium flagships, with features like ECG functioning as durable price segmentation rather than trickling down.