 When Apple announced the new Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE last week, it made a big deal about the fact that you should be able to now send a message or make a phone call right from your wrist even when you don't have your phone. In fact, the company showed a woman on a surfboard in the middle of the ocean getting a phone call on her Apple Watch Series 3. So we decided to put it to the test. Before we head out surfing, let's run through some of the basics first. By now you've probably noticed that this new Series 3 Apple Watch pretty much looks the same as old Apple Watches, but there are a few differences. The crown of the watch now has a red dot on it, which is supposed to differentiate LTE versions of the Apple Watch from non-cellular versions, for whatever reason. The Series 3 watch also has an antenna built directly into its display. It has a faster processor, which Apple claims makes the watch 70% faster. And of course, it has the electronic SIM for LTE. The base price of the Series 3 watch with LTE is $399. There is a non-LTE version of the Series 3 watch, and that costs just $329, so it is a little bit less. And then there's the Series 1 watch, which doesn't have LTE or GPS, and that's $249. But if you opt for the Series 3 watch with LTE, you're going to have to factor in a monthly cell connection fee, which is going to cost you an extra $10 per month. For people who do decide to pay for that, the real value is probably going to come from those rare instances when you want to run out for a coffee or go for a jog without your phone, and you just really want the option to call or text message someone if you need to. But based on my personal experience, I'm still not convinced I need to upgrade from last year's Apple Watch Series 2. And this is partly because the watch's connectivity without the phone didn't work all that well for me, whether I was in a coffee shop, going for a walk in my neighborhood, or out in the middle of the ocean. Well, it doesn't look like I have service out here. Hey Siri, call... It turns out that having an LTE equipped smartwatch in the middle of the ocean isn't really all it's cracked up to be. I was able to call Verge videographer Viren Pavic one time from my wrist. Oh wait, it's actually ringing now. I either had no service or I only had one bar of service. It didn't always work that well. I tried using Siri, that didn't work all that well. Siri's not working out here. I have one bar. So yeah, I mean, I guess it's good in case you really need it, but it wasn't super reliable. Okay, let's talk about battery life since that's really what's going to be impacted the most by having LTE in a smartwatch. I've had a really mixed experience with the Siri's 3 and that's partly because the first review unit I had, there was something wrong with it. Siri wasn't working. It wasn't always connecting to LTE when it was supposed to and the battery was draining really quickly. I mean, it was dismal. So Apple sent me a second review unit and that one I think has been working more like it's supposed to. If you're not using LTE, you can probably expect to get a day to a day and a half out of the watch per charge, just like you would with another Apple watch. Once you start using LTE, you will experience drainage though. We've been out here shooting for a few hours now and around noon, I hit the 30% mark on the watch, which isn't terrible, but once again, not as good if you're not using LTE. I can probably get a few more hours out of it at this point, but I'm definitely going to have to charge it again today. Sorry for the interruption, but we have an update. During the production of this video, Apple released an official statement addressing some of the connectivity issues with Apple Watch Series 3. Here's what they had to say. We have discovered that when Apple Watch Series 3 joins unauthenticated Wi-Fi networks without connectivity, it may at times prevent the watch from using cellular. The company also said it is working on a fix that will be issued in a future software update. So that sort of explains some of the issues I've been having trying to get the watch to connect to LTE, but we still don't know exactly when this new software release is going to be put out or how exactly it's going to fix things. Okay, back to our regularly scheduled review. So if you're like me and you're not 100% sold on the idea of LTE in the watch, then you're going to want to know about the software updates because these are the things that are going to roll out to all Apple Watches and change the experience for everybody, not just people who buy the newest hardware. I will say this, Apple has consistently made software updates to the Apple Watch over the past few years that have really made it a lot easier to use this tiny touch screen, and this year is no exception. There are some new watch faces, like a Toy Story watch face and a kaleidoscope watch face. The most significant of these is a dynamic Siri watch face, which changes to show you things like calendar appointments and stuff that pops up in your wallet. In fact, Siri even talks back to you on the Apple Watch Series 3. The app dock has also been redesigned again. Now when you press on the side button, the app dock is vertically oriented, which means you can not only swipe through it, but you can use the crown to scroll through it. And it's a little easier on the eyes, although it does feel like you're seeing less at a glance if that's possible. Honestly, one of my favorite updates is that the keys on the unlock screen are a lot bigger. It's the little things. Not surprisingly, some of the software updates are around health and fitness tracking, since health and fitness tracking is a big reason why people buy and use something like an Apple Watch. Now, when you go to start a workout, it goes to open goal by default, rather than making you go through the process of choose distance or time or calories burned just to start a workout. And if you happen to use one of those other metrics regularly, then it will default to that instead. When you finish a workout now, the watch just shows you a done button that you can tap, rather than showing you save or discard, because I get the sense a lot of people will probably accidentally discarding their workouts after they were done. There are new swimming features. It breaks it down to what kind of stroke you used when you were swimming laps. There's a barometric altimeter now, which people who do elevation sports like skiing or snowboarding or hiking will appreciate. And there's now a multi-sport mode, so you can stop one workout and immediately start another. But the biggest changes are undoubtedly around heart rate sensing. Now, with watch OS 4, the watch will show you things like your resting heart rate. And if you opt into it, it will also show you spikes in your heart rate when you're not working out, which could signal some type of irregularity or issue. All of this is part of a larger effort to offer more value through the existing hardware and software that Apple has, because honestly, wearables only have so much value. And the companies that make them know this. So they have to keep adding in more software features to make it just work better. So should you buy the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE for $400 plus that $10 per month fee? It really depends on how much you're willing to pay for what I think is a very rare convenience of having LTE on your wrist without your phone around. Personally, I'm not buying it. I mean, I just didn't find it to be all that convenient. It drained the battery life. And I even had some instances, like out in the ocean today, where it didn't always work. But if you really like the idea of having it for running quick errands without your phone, going out for a run, or having it in case of emergencies, then that makes sense. But for me, I'll stick to other wearables. Nope.