top wearables for your wrist

With a detailed and bright display, fantastic connectivity with Apple’s bountiful fitness, lifestyle, and safety features, and a varied selection of faces, the mid-range Apple Watch 9 is more advanced than the Watch SE but half the price of the Watch Ultra.

Although the design is nearly identical to the Series 8 (and Series 7), performance is much better thanks to the S9 processor – based on the A16 bionic model in the iPhone 14. We also like the ‘Double Tap’ gesture that allows you to answer calls, view messages, and snooze an alarm without touching the display.

The biggest letdown is battery life, which averages 18 hours. But if you’re an iPhone owner, the Apple Watch Series 9 is one of the slickest smartwatches on the market and the best Apple Watch for most.

Read our Apple Watch Series 9 review.

The Galaxy Watch 6 is another smartwatch using Google OS, it stands out thanks to its Wear OS One UI 5 skin. It might not be a drastic improvement on its Galaxy Watch 5 predecessor, but it is hard to better something already quite impressive.

The rotating bezel lets you navigate through most of the features without leaving smudge marks on the screen. This is all the better as the display is one of its most impressive features, offering a peak brightness of 2,000 nits and a varied collection of clock faces. The battery life is less impressive, and daily charging is necessary. While Samsung suggests a life of up to 40 hours, or thirty with the Super AMOLED ‘always on’ display, we found it to be more like 20-25.

Like the Apple Watch 9, there are two case sizes, and you get access to excellent fitness monitoring, sleep tracking, navigation, and messaging features. There are some Galaxy-only features, including heart rhythm notifications and phone separation alerts, so we’d recommend this smartwatch with the best Samsung phones.

Overall, there’s little between the Samsung Galaxy Watch6 and Apple Watch Series 9 in terms of features, so it comes down to whether you’re an Android or an iPhone user – as there’s no iPhone support.

The Google Pixel Watch 2 is Google’s latest smartwatch arena, using its own Wear OS software to offer a lifestyle and fitness-enhancing wearable. It offers real-time location sharing, a check-in countdown to alert your loved ones if needed, and the option to add any medical ID information. If you often feel vulnerable during workouts or excursions, this smartwatch could alleviate some of those concerns.

It’s one of the sleeker devices out there, with a classic design that blends in with most outfits. The display is slightly smaller than others on this list, but the Pixel Watch 2 has improved some of the maligned features of its predecessor, offering 24 hours of juice with an ‘always on’ display’.

Google locks some of the more impressive fitness features and in-depth tracking behind the Fitbit Premium service. You get a six-month subscription on purchasing the device, but then the plan costs $9.99. Still, the Pixel Watch 2 makes the most sense if you’re after a cost-effective smartwatch to pair with the best Google Pixel phones.

Read our Google Pixel Watch 2 review.

The Xiaomi Watch 2 Pro is the natural fit if you have one of the best Xiaomi phones. It’s cheaper than the latest Google Pixel and Samsung smartwatches but now features Google Wear OS to give you Google apps like Maps and Pay directly on your wrist.

Xiaomi’s latest offering is simple to use while offering a full suite of fitness features you don’t need to pay for through a subscription service like Fitbit Premium. There are over 150 sports modes, plus heart rate, SpO₂, and sleep tracking, but tracking accuracy isn’t as good as the Apple, Galaxy, or Pixel watches.

The design is elegant, with an intelligently placed bezel to guard the glass against scratches and nicks. Our main complaint is that this wearable doesn’t link up well with Apple devices, and there are major connectivity issues with iOS. It’s also not available in the US, which makes it harder to recommend.

Read our Xiaomi Watch 2 Pro review.

Despite being in the smartwatch game for less than a decade and competing with some huge names like Google and Apple, Mobvoi has built a reputation for delivering solid smartwatches with decent build quality and performance – and the Mobvoi Ticwatch Pro 5 is no different.

The Ticwatch Pro 5 enjoys almost all the features we’ve come to expect from modern smartwatches, plus the addition of a few nifty extras. Its Wear OS offers access to all the essentials including Google Wallet, YouTube Music, Google Maps, Play Store, but its focus on fitness is where it truly shines.

Offering surprisingly accurate GPS tracking, you can rely on precise GNSS-based positioning, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost, even if you’ve got no cellular data signal. It boasts a wealth of features for gym-based workouts, too. TicExercise offers dedicated tracking for a range of activities from running and swimming to the ‘high travelling bear crawl’ (though we’re still not quite sure what that is).

The display is bright and easy to use, and the battery life is very solid – in fact, we found the advertised 80-hour battery life to be an underestimate. Additionally, its Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ chipset makes for a very smooth experience, allowing you to switch between apps and menus in no time at all.

The only real downsides with this little beauty are the steep price, and the fact that it isn’t compatible with iPhone or Google Assistant. However, if you’re an active person, then it’s certainly worth taking a look at our full Mobvoi Ticwatch Pro 5 review – and is definitely worth picking up if you can find it on sale.