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The company launched Apple Watch Series 9 at the recently held ‘Wonderlust’ event, which also witnessed the debut of iPhone 15 series and Apple Watch Ultra 2. The Watch Series 9 features 41mm and 45mm display screen variants, and Apple claimed it as their first carbon-neutral product. It succeeded last year’s Apple Watch Series 8 launched at the company’s ‘Far Out’ event. In terms of design, the wearables share similarities. However, Watch Series 9 has received significant upgrades over the Watch Series 8 in terms of specifications.
In order to understand the differences and similarities between the two wearables, we have compared Apple Watch Series 9 with its predecessor, the Watch Series 8.
Apple Watch Series 9 vs Apple Watch Series 8: Price in India
Apple offers the Apple Watch Series 9 in two display sizes — 41mm and 45mm — available in both aluminum and stainless steel builds. The 41mm dial size wearable in aluminum finish is priced at Rs. 41,900. Whereas, the stainless steal body for the same dial size costs Rs. 70,900.
The stainless steel body finish for the 45mm display is available at Rs. 75,900, while the aluminum finish is priced at Rs. 44,900. Customers can choose from Midnight, Pink, (Product) Red, Starlight, and Silver color options for the aluminum body of the Watch Series 9. Meanwhile, the stainless steel look is available in Gold, Graphite, and Silver variants.
On the other hand, Apple Watch Series 8 GPS was released in India at the starting price of Rs. 45,900, while the Apple Watch Series 8 Cellular costed Rs. 55,900. It also came in 41mm and 45mm case sizes, offering a choice between Gold, Graphite, Midnight, Red, Silver, and Starlight color variants.
Apple Watch Series 9 vs Apple Watch Series 8: Specifications
Last year, Apple launched the Apple Watch Series 8 in GPS and cellular options. It runs on an S8 SiP with a 64-bit dual-core processor, and incorporates a W3 wireless chip and a first-generation Ultra Wideband chip. Meanwhile, Apple claims that the Apple Watch Series 9 is 60 percent faster than its predecessor. It comes equipped with the new Apple S9 SiP process with a second-generation Ultra Wideband (UWB) chip.
Both smartwatches feature an Always-On Retina LTPO OLED display with up to 2,000 nits brightness.
Both the Watch Series 8 and Watch Series 9 assert up to 18 hours of usage on a single charge, with the option to extend it to 36 hours using the low power mode.
The Watch Series 9 comes with a “Double Tap” gesture that lets users do various actions including answering or ending a call, stoping a timer, or snooze alarm. Users can also integrate it with HomePod. In further specifications, the smartwatch gets cycling and hiking features, new watch faces and mental health support 2, over the Watch Series 8 which offer SpO2 tracking, heart rate monitoring, atrial fibrillation (AFib) detection, and ECG monitoring.
The Apple Watch Series 9 operates on watchOS 10, whereas Apple introduced the Apple Watch Series 8 with watchOS 9. In terms of storage, the latest model offers 64GB storage, while Watch Series 8 is available with 32GB storage capacity.
