sapphire

[chengengaun]

New here (first post). I just upgradded to the series 7 ss silver. A large part of this was for the sapphire face as my previous apple watch got scuffed pretty badly. Had it for a week so far and it seems much more scratch resistant. It even has a different finger feel to me at least. However, whenever i try to look online for information regarding the long term durability of the sapphire face I only come across articles or videos of the s0 or s1 sapphire being "scratch prone". What are some of your experiences with scratches over the long term of the sapphire face? I couldn't be happier with it for this first week.

Welcome to the forums! To echo others, the sapphire crystal of my S0 SS and S5 ceramic are still flawless. I used them for payment and they came into contact with payment terminals all the time. However, sapphire crystal is quite brittle; I had the misfortune of breaking the S0 crystal by landing it face down from 1m (3 ft). As long as you don’t drop it the crystal watch it should do fine!

 

[deeddawg]

Same here, I use it almost exclusively for all payments because of how convenient it is

Likewise here in the southeast US. The majority of my purchases are done using ApplePay from my watch. There are holdouts such as Walmart & HomeDepot, and few table-service restaurants support contactless payments, but otherwise most places I frequent support ApplePay. Publix, TraderJoes, Aldi, Lidl, Costco, Walgreens, most quick-serve/counter-serve restaurants, etc. Even fuel pumps - long holdouts - are moving to NFC at last.

 

[Howard2k]

It amazed me when I was on a road trip to the US a couple of years ago and how far behind the adoption of digital banking. I remember just using my debit card for tap at one particular store and the cashier said "Wait, what did you do?" 😀

Obviously many Americans do use tap and do use Apple Pay etc., but the adoption rate certainly did feel slower than in other countries.

Not knocking the Americans, it was a fantastic road trip and they were a great bunch.

 

[deeddawg]

It amazed me when I was on a road trip to the US a couple of years ago and how far behind the adoption of digital banking. I remember just using my debit card for tap at one particular store and the cashier said "Wait, what did you do?" 😀

Obviously many Americans do use tap and do use Apple Pay etc., but the adoption rate certainly did feel slower than in other countries.

Not knocking the Americans, it was a fantastic road trip and they were a great bunch.

Warning - Tangent...

As I understand it, the difference stems from two bits of history. First is apparently the US was earlier to widely deploy credit card terminals creating a substantial pre-EMV infrastructure that worked pretty well. Most all terminals had phone service and phoned-home for real-time authorization of every card swipe transaction. Relatively secure system where the card issuers could quickly flag reported-stolen cards or flag unusual buying patterns and limit the costs of credit card fraud.

Elsewhere, apparently transactions were more often batched at the end of the day - reportedly due to higher costs for phone service and calls. So the delay in authorization led to much higher costs from fraud since the crooks could charge stuff all day and were long gone before the terminals phoned-home. EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) was developed to combat this by providing a degree of local authentication in lieu of real-time authorization with the bank.

Thus in the US the banks/merchants kept deploying the existing card-swipe infrastructure since it worked well enough, and Europe/elsewhere deployed EMV since it was needed for the local authentication.

Then NFC gets developed - and due to its relation to EMV it's easier to deploy across the much more widespread EMV infrastructure and can't be deployed across card-swipe infrastructure. This puts NFC / contactless into consumers hands many years ahead of the US, leading to it being far more commonplace.

US is catching up though since the card processors shifted liability for fraud to incent merchants to replace their infrastructure with EMV capable readers and issuers issued chip cards. Many places have also added NFC to this as well, though consumers are slower to adopt the "tap" action as it's both new and not yet universal. We can thank certain large retailers who haven't enabled/deployed NFC - some because they want you to use their own in-house QR code based payment system (Walmart/Sams, Kroger) and others who just don't for some reason (HomeDepot).

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[JPIndustrie]

I've had SS since my first Apple Watch. I decided to go with AL this time around because a. they finally have my favorite color (dark green) and b. I'm honestly a bit tired of the same either shiny SS or DLC coated 'gray shades' - boring. Also I've had the supposed scratch and crack resistant sapphire scratch and crack just like that. Figured I'd pocket the extra $300 this time around.

TBH though Apple Watches are like 911s or Lamborghinis; only the true connoisseurs really know what kind of AW you're wearing (so really , around 3% of the population). To the normal person nobody knows the difference between a $175k GT3RS vs a $70k used 997 , same goes for Apple Watch. 😛

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

TBH though Apple Watches are like 911s or Lamborghinis; only the true connoisseurs really know what kind of AW you're wearing (so really , around 3% of the population). To the normal person nobody knows the difference between a $175k GT3RS vs a $70k used 997 , same goes for Apple Watch. 😛

This is so true. Unless somebody has studied the Apple Watch range, they aren’t going to know what Apple Watch you are wearing. To the vast majority of people an Apple Watch is an Apple Watch. Even I know the difference and I don’t look at any particular models as more exclusive than others because for me the functionality is the most important aspect. When I used to wear a nice mechanical watch, virtually nobody noticed. Things will never change.

 

[haruhiko]

Having said that, when you no longer care about what the other people think about you, like whether they notice what Watch you’re wearing, you will be finally true to yourself.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Having said that, when you no longer care about what the other people think about you, like whether they notice what Watch you’re wearing, you will be finally true to yourself.

That goes without saying I would hope. It’s sadly a trait that is common on here though. Whatever section you go into you’ll find tech snobbery. It’s always ‘the Pro’ is the best and everything else is rubbished or if you don’t own a stainless steel device you are going to see it wrecked. It often makes participating in the many sections here rather tedious at times.

 

[xraydoc]

Was just wondering how other people faired with a saphire crystal over the long term.

I've had two previous Apple watches with sapphire crystals. Both crystals were completely scratch-free when I upgraded them, even though the stainless cases had lots of micro abrasions. I'm now on my third.

I did wear a space gray aluminum S3 for two years, however, which held up remarkably well. In two years it only collected a subtle scuff in the corner of the crystal that is pretty hard to see unless under proper lighting. Meanwhile, my wife's S6 aluminum has a couple fine scratches on the flat of the face, though fairly invisible when not looking for them.

The sapphire is more prone to cracking with impacts, however. That's the trade-off for being more scratch resistant.

 

[dmillar74]

New here (first post). I just upgradded to the series 7 ss silver. A large part of this was for the sapphire face as my previous apple watch got scuffed pretty badly. Had it for a week so far and it seems much more scratch resistant. It even has a different finger feel to me at least. However, whenever i try to look online for information regarding the long term durability of the sapphire face I only come across articles or videos of the s0 or s1 sapphire being "scratch prone". What are some of your experiences with scratches over the long term of the sapphire face? I couldn't be happier with it for this first week.

I’ve had SS series 1, Series 3 and 5. All of the sapphire screens took a beating and still looked great. My wife had an aluminum first gen and scratched the glass pretty quickly. I got her a series 3, years ago, with the sapphire screen and she never scratched it. She is really rough on her watch too! I will always do the stainless with sapphire.

 

[PaladinGuy]

People who’ve never worn watches are the ones that I think are most confused about this. Those who have always worn nice watches understand the benefits of sapphire more and the trade-offs. Harder equals more scratch resistant but less shatter resistant. Softer equals less. Scratch resistant and less likely to shatter.

 

[haruhiko]

People who’ve never worn watches are the ones that I think are most confused about this. Those who have always worn nice watches understand the benefits of sapphire more and the trade-offs. Harder equals more scratch resistant but less shatter resistant. Softer equals less. Scratch resistant and less likely to shatter.

The sapphire crystal of my Rolex never get scratched. Although I don’t wear it anymore now 🥲.

 

[44267547]

Apple's sapphire is not the same quality as the sapphire used on more expensive watches.

This is a non-practical video, because it doesn’t align with what consumers would face on a daily basis with the display. He is right though, the level of sapphire grade Apple is using is definitely not on par from some high-end Swiss watches for example. But in terms of every day physical encounters, the Sapphire display is more than capable on the Apple Watch. After owning [7+] Apple watches at this point, none of them had scratches on the sapphire display. So I might be paying more for Apple for such a small quality feature that doesn’t matter to other consumers, but it does to me.

Me personally. It was the Ion-X glass that was garbage quality on the ‘Sport’ version that provoked me to upgrade to the stainless.

 

[haruhiko]

This is a non-practical video, because it doesn’t align with what consumers would face on a daily basis with the display. He is right though, the level of sapphire grade Apple is using is definitely not on par from some high-end Swiss watches for example. But in terms of every day physical encounters, the Sapphire display is more than capable on the Apple Watch. After owning [7+] Apple watches at this point, none of them had scratches on the sapphire display. So I might be paying more for Apple for such a small quality feature that doesn’t matter to other consumers, but it does to me.

Me personally. It was the Ion-X glass that was garbage quality on the ‘Sport’ version that provoked me to upgrade to the stainless.

The Ion-X Glass is really bad. Any slight touch on anything will give it a scratch mark. It’s that bad.

 

[xraydoc]

This is a non-practical video, because it doesn’t align with what consumers would face on a daily basis with the display. He is right though, the level of sapphire grade Apple is using is definitely not on par from some high-end Swiss watches for example. But in terms of every day physical encounters, the Sapphire display is more than capable on the Apple Watch. After owning [7+] Apple watches at this point, none of them had scratches on the sapphire display. So I might be paying more for Apple for such a small quality feature that doesn’t matter to other consumers, but it does to me.

Me personally. It was the Ion-X glass that was garbage quality on the ‘Sport’ version that provoked me to upgrade to the stainless.

Apple's sapphire may not be up to the level of a $10,000 Omega, but it's more than sufficient for an $800 watch. Out of my three stainless/sapphire watches (S0, S5, S7), all are scratch-free on the crystal.

The Ion-X glass isn't terrible IMHO. It's definitely not up to the level of the sapphire, but it's leaps and bounds better than what you'll find on a Fit Bit or other fitness tracker. My wife wore an S3 daily for three years until I bought her an S6 when they first came out, and her S3 had a few barely-there scratches. After a year of daily wear and workouts, her S6 has one hairline, nearly invisible scratch.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

The Ion-X Glass is really bad. Any slight touch on anything will give it a scratch mark. It’s that bad.

It’s interesting that some of us have worn watches with this glass for the last 5 years and not had that experience though. Dodgy batches perhaps? Poor quality control when checking the mechanical properties of the screens? I don’t have the answers to those but I do know the Ion-X Glass on my Series 2 and Series 5 has been plenty durable enough for everyday wear and resisted scratches very well.

Currently my Series 5 has been on my wrist pretty much every day for the past 2 years and not a single hairline scratch that can be seen with the naked eye.I am pretty sure if the glass scratched with a slight touch, I would have at least one by now or in reality there would be several hundred thousand scratches.

 

[haruhiko]

It’s interesting that some of us have worn watches with this glass for the last 5 years and not had that experience though. Dodgy batches perhaps? Poor quality control when checking the mechanical properties of the screens? I don’t have the answers to those but I do know the Ion-X Glass on my Series 2 and Series 5 has been plenty durable enough for everyday wear and resisted scratches very well.

This is sarcasm but that scratch mark across the screen diagonally on my aluminium S6 was really an eyesore.

 

[applestein]

It’s interesting that some of us have worn watches with this glass for the last 5 years and not had that experience though. Dodgy batches perhaps? Poor quality control when checking the mechanical properties of the screens? I don’t have the answers to those but I do know the Ion-X Glass on my Series 2 and Series 5 has been plenty durable enough for everyday wear and resisted scratches very well.

Currently my Series 5 has been on my wrist pretty much every day for the past 2 years and not a single hairline scratch that can be seen with the naked eye.I am pretty sure if the glass scratched with a slight touch, I would have at least one by now or in reality there would be several hundred thousand scratches.

Love your watch Band by the way. But yes that is interesting. While i didn't abuse my watch, I didn't baby it either. I work in a construction supply store as well, so while i don't beat it up, it's possible that I just am around grittier dust or materials fairly freaquently. With my s7 ss silver, i have case scrstches in the same area as my s6 aluminum blue, but the sapphire is flawless. considering I have the case scratches already, I'm probably just not as carful with the watch as I'd like to believe. I can at least polish the ss.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Love your watch Band by the way. But yes that is interesting. While i didn't abuse my watch, I didn't baby it either. I work in a construction supply store as well, so while i don't beat it up, it's possible that I just am around grittier dust or materials fairly freaquently. With my s7 ss silver, i have case scrstches in the same area as my s6 aluminum blue, but the sapphire is flawless. considering I have the case scratches already, I'm probably just not as carful with the watch as I'd like to believe. I can at least polish the ss.

I think I’m subconsciously careful to be honest. I am mostly office based but do work a lot with steels and alloys when prototyping. I don’t bang the watch into hard things or put my arm in tight gaps and maybe I’ve been very lucky for the past 5 years or so. I just can’t justify paying an additional £220 ($295) more just for a sapphire screen and stainless case. For me that is overkill just to avoid a scratch or two. I don’t want a shiny watch either and prefer a discreet black so it’s not so obvious. I suppose there is no right answer to this thread because we all have different tastes.

 

[haruhiko]

I think I’m subconsciously careful to be honest. I am mostly office based but do work a lot with steels and alloys when prototyping. I don’t bang the watch into hard things or put my arm in tight gaps and maybe I’ve been very lucky for the past 5 years or so. I just can’t justify paying an additional £220 ($295) more just for a sapphire screen and stainless case. For me that is overkill just to avoid a scratch or two. I don’t want a shiny watch either and prefer a discreet black so it’s not so obvious. I suppose there is no right answer to this thread because we all have different tastes.

I used to think the same prior to S7, I always want the latest and greatest but I don’t want to spend too much money. But I started to feel tired of the black aluminium square already (together with the diagonal scratch on the glass) and I now went back to the SS, with the sapphire screen being the bonus. Pairing the SS Watch with a nice SS or leather band and the Watch feels much more premium and less techy instantly.

 

[deeddawg]

I used to think the same prior to S7, I always want the latest and greatest but I don’t want to spend too much money. But I started to feel tired of the black aluminium square already (together with the diagonal scratch on the glass) and I now went back to the SS, with the sapphire screen being the bonus. Pairing the SS Watch with a nice SS or leather band and the Watch feels much more premium and less techy instantly.

The link bracelet really dresses it up.

Bought my space black version a couple years ago from eBay seller chargerstore. If it’s not OEM then I can’t tell the difference, so…

See thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/discounts-sales-on-oem-bands.2219462/

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I used to think the same prior to S7, I always want the latest and greatest but I don’t want to spend too much money. But I started to feel tired of the black aluminium square already (together with the diagonal scratch on the glass) and I now went back to the SS, with the sapphire screen being the bonus. Pairing the SS Watch with a nice SS or leather band and the Watch feels much more premium and less techy instantly.

If that’s what you are after then great. I like the black aluminium and I hope my next watch is the same. I keep my watches for 3 years so it makes sense to me. I don’t think any smartwatches look particularly premium to be honest, they’re gadgets for displaying information, but maybe that’s just my perception.

 

[haruhiko]

If that’s what you are after then great. I like the black aluminium and I hope my next watch is the same. I keep my watches for 3 years so it makes sense to me. I don’t think any smartwatches look particularly premium to be honest, they’re gadgets for displaying information, but maybe that’s just my perception.

Actually some very expensive watches also don’t look particularly premium per se. We just know that they are premium because we know what are they. But what I meant premium was just in the context of Apple Watches. There is nothing wrong with aluminium versions (besides the vulnerable screen 😡)

 

[mavis]

I've owned several stainless steel Apple Watches over the years, and for the most part they've looked absolutely PERFECT when I sold them (after daily use for anywhere from 1-3 years). With the exception of my Series 3. After just a year of ownership, the sapphire had numerous scratches deep enough to be felt with a finger/fingernail (so not just 'scratches in the oleophobic coating' as so many people tried to tell me) ... That watch was only used for a year, and wasn't subjected to any unusual activities, but it looked awful by the time I sold it. Every other watch was absolutely perfect. I can post pics if anyone is interested.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Actually some very expensive watches also don’t look particularly premium per se. We just know that they are premium because we know what are they. But what I meant premium was just in the context of Apple Watches. There is nothing wrong with aluminium versions (besides the vulnerable screen )

Oh I realise that. I’ve been a member of WUS for many years and collected mechanical watches for most of my life. The watch enthusiast knows full well nine out of ten people couldn’t give a toss what watch you have, it’s about personal enjoyment above anything else.

Hopefully the aluminium watch eventually will get a tougher screen to satisfy those that need it. I know the watch is fine as beyond opinions on the screen and casing material, it’s the same watch. I think Mac Rumours is heavily occupied by people who perhaps buy the premium of everything which means those of us who buy mid tier watches, phones, iPads often see them rubbished as sub par.