Apple Watch Series 7 vs. Withings ScanWatch

The 2021 Apple Watch Series 7 is the best smartwatch you can buy. It features a beautiful larger display that takes advantage of the newfound space by offering a few unique watch faces and a new QWERTY keyboard for composing messages. The Withings ScanWatch is the best hybrid smartwatch currently available. Though it lacks many Apple Watch features, it includes the most important ones under the health and fitness umbrella. This reason alone makes it a worthy competitor to Apple's more expensive option.

Apple Watch Series 7 vs. Withings ScanWatch: Let's break it down

Side-by-side, there's no denying which of these wearable devices is a full-featured smartwatch. The Apple Watch has often been called an iPhone for the wrist, and this makes perfect sense when you consider its long list of non-health and fitness features. Because the Apple Watch is a smartwatch, you're in control of its watch face, applications, and have full access to notifications, Siri, maps, and oh-so-much more. It's genuinely the best Apple Watch to date, and I would argue the best smartwatch overall.

And then there's the Withings ScanWatch. From a design standpoint, this wearable device looks just like a classic analog watch with physical hands for the hour and minutes. And then you see the tiny circular PMOLED screen at the top and another physical hand at the bottom. The former is where you can take a peek at the device's smart features, while the latter is where your daily step count is updated for a quick review. Let's see a breakdown of what these watches offer.

To compare these watches, we'll first look at the built-in options, then move on to the design and durability before discussing battery life. You will quickly find both watches offer similar features despite very different looks. And concern battery life, there's one huge winner.

Apple Watch Series 7 vs. Withings ScanWatch: Health and fitness features

Both of these watches offer excellent health and fitness features. On the health side, both provide automatic heart monitoring and sleep tracking. With the latter, Withings does a better job by providing a sleep score through its Health Mate app. Both also offer real-time and continuous blood oxygen monitoring (SpO2) and an ECG. There's also fall detection and emergency SOS; Apple Watch has them, the ScanWatch does not.

Both watches offer step tracking, workout modes, and automatic activity detection when it comes to fitness tracking. In addition, the ScanWatch supports Connected GPS, which means you need your iPhone to calculate distance, elevation, and path during workouts. Apple Watch does this on its own so that you can leave your phone at home.

The Apple wearable device is also the only one available with a Wi-Fi + Cellular connection, but that will cost you a monthly fee through your iPhone carrier. Although the ScanWatch doesn't have a built-in App Store, it easily connects with partner fitness apps such as Strava. Only Apple Watch, however, offers Apple Fitness+.

Although both watches show general fitness data in real-time, Apple Watch naturally does a more thorough job because of its larger all-digital display. However, both devices perform about the same from a tracking perspective, with critical metrics collected for analysis and historical viewing.

Apple Watch Series 7 vs. Withings ScanWatch: The apps

The ScanWatch doesn't have an App Store. This means you won't be able to download and use weather reports, maps, music, podcasts, games, or any of the countless other features that only native and third-party apps can provide. And yet, when you drill down and only compare the companion apps both the Apple Watch and ScanWatch provide, they are much closer in design and usefulness.

The ScanWatch is only the latest Withings product to interface with the company's always impressive Health Mate app for iPhone. It's here where you can see every metric collected and find an analysis on how you're doing in real-time. Add a Withings body scale, blood pressure cuff, or sleep tracking mats, and you'll get an even better look at how your health is looking.

With Apple Watch, you can take advantage of two native iPhone apps: Fitness and Apple Health. The former is where you'll find Apple Watch's signature three rings (stand, exercise, and move) and whatever awards you might have collected. You also start Apple Fitness+ sessions from this app. The Apple Health app, much like Withings' Health Mate, is where your historic fitness and health data is collected from both Apple Watch and the iPhone itself.

Like countless other apps, Health Mate and Apple Health work well together, allowing the former to send real-time data to the latter. This is a great benefit and firmly answers an important question on whether you need an Apple Watch to use the iPhone's health and fitness tools. The answer: you don't.

Apple Watch Series 7 vs. Withings ScanWatch: Style and models

Many select hybrid smartwatches over full-featured options is the look. Whether it's an Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch, or one of the many watches that use Wear OS, there's no mistaking these aren't traditional wearable devices. By contrast, the ScanWatch looks very much like the hundreds of other conventional analog watches on the market. Is one look better than the other? Absolutely not; it's entirely subjective.

The Apple Watch Series 7 is available in aluminum, stainless steel, and titanium, the latter being the strongest of the three. The Withings ScanWatch is only available in stainless steel. From a display standpoint, Apple says its latest wearable device offers the "most crack-resistant front crystal" to date. As such, it's certified IP6X dust-resistant and water-resistant to 50 meters. The aluminum Apple Watch models have Ion-X front glass, while the stainless steel and titanium models have sapphire front crystals. The Withings ScanWatch features a sapphire crystal and water resistance to 50 meters.

Moving beyond materials, the Apple Watch Series 7 is available in multiple colors, including midnight, starlight, green, blue, PRODUCT(RED), graphite, silver, gold, space black, and titanium. The ScanWatch only comes with a black or white face with a silver body.

Apple Watch Series 7 vs. Withings ScanWatch: Battery life and fast charging

Like other models, the Apple Watch Series 7 offers a lackluster 18 hours of battery life between charges. New this year, however, is fast charging which is 33% faster than the Apple Watch Series 6. Meanwhile, the hybrid ScanWatch can last up to 30 days between charges.

It also offers fast charging, which allows it to hit 80% after just one hour of charging with two hours needed to achieve a full charge. Obviously, there's no comparison here as smartwatches generally continue to lag hybrid models in terms of battery life.

Apple Watch Series 7 vs. Withings ScanWatch: Which should you buy?

If you're looking for the latest and greatest Apple Watch, the Series 7 is the choice for you. It's the one with the most features and styles. Plus, that bigger screen with an always-on display looks impressive on your wrist! To match the watch with your preferences, consider one of our favorite Watch bands.

If you don't like the look of the Apple Watch, want to spend less, couldn't care less about carrying around an iPhone on your wrist, but still want health and fitness tools, go with the Withings ScanWatch. Though there aren't many design choices, you can still mix things up by purchasing various bands in leather and other materials.