We’ve all been swept up in the madness of a sale, only to regret our purchase a few days later. Luckily for you, Tom’s Guide is the techie bestie by your side to point you away from the not-so-great deals, and towards the decent ones. One offer we’d avoid this Prime Day? Walmart’s sale on the Apple Watch Series 3.
Walmart has cut the price of the Apple Watch Series 3 to $149 from $199 (opens in new tab), but even with $50 off, it’s still not worth investing in. Why? With the release of the Apple Watch Series 8 and the new Apple Watch SE 2022, Apple discontinued the Apple Watch Series 3, meaning it’s not eligible for WatchOS 9, or any future watch updates.
While this might seem like a harsh move from Apple, the Apple Watch Series 3 was released in 2017, making it five years old now. This is generally the shelf life for smartwatches these days, and while the Apple Watch Series 3 can run WatchOS 8, its S3 chip doesn’t have the capabilities to support the newest update.
Of course, this doesn’t make the Apple Watch Series 3 immediately useless — $149 for an Apple Watch is a great price, but it does mean the watch will not get future security patches or other important improvements.
This Apple Watch Series 8 deal on Walmart is a much better idea.
The best deal this Amazon Prime Day has been on the Apple Watch Series 8 (41mm/GPS) is on sale for $349 at Amazon (opens in new tab). Walmart is matching that price (opens in new tab), giving you a new skin temperature sensor, low-power mode and crash detection for your safety. This is on top of best-in-class exercise tracking and a great always-on display.
If you’re on a tighter budget, we’d recommend holding off until Black Friday, when hopefully we’ll see deals on the Apple Watch SE 2022, which is still currently full price at $249 on Amazon (opens in new tab) and Walmart (opens in new tab).
While the Apple Watch SE 2022 might still be $100 more than the discounted Apple Watch Series 3, the watch has the same S8 chipset powering the Apple Watch Series 8 and the Apple Watch Ultra. For the price, it’s easy to call the Apple Watch SE the best Apple Watch value yet.
