Reviewers have found that Apple’s latest wearables deliver better health tracking and battery life, while Apple’s highly promoted, and highly controversial, Audio Intelligence features largely remain untested.

Reviews of Apple’s newest wearables have begun rolling in ahead of Friday, September 18’s release date. Here’s what reviewers across the web thought of September’s two new Apple Watch models.

Apple Watch Series 12

This year, the Apple Watch Series 12 adds the S11 chip, redesigned health sensors, and more frequent heart-rate and HRV measurements. Ceramic models also return in pearl white and night blue alongside updated aluminum and titanium finishes.

Siri Recap produces short summaries of conversations

New features include Readiness, Sound Recognition, Live Rewind, and Siri Recap, with several relying on Audio Intelligence. The Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399 and became available for preorder on September 9; it will ship to customers and arrive in-store on September 18.

CNET – Better health tracking without a bigger bill

Vanessa Hand Orellana hailed the Apple Watch Series 12’s improved health sensors, longer battery life, and faster S11 processor. She also welcomed its unchanged $399 starting price and subscription-free health features.

Audio Intelligence raised privacy concerns, particularly when conversations involve people unaware the Apple Watch Series 12 may be listening. Orellana also encountered inaccurate Sound Recognition alerts and received incorrect information while testing Siri AI.

The Apple Watch Series 12 lasted about 30 hours during testing, beating her Apple Watch Series 11. Orellana found its heart-rate tracking closely matched a Polar H10 chest strap during a three-mile run.

Engadget – Small changes make hands-free use more practical

Expanded gesture controls stood out during Cherlynn Low’s week with the Apple Watch Series 12. Low found single-tap recognition reliable and said it made hands-free navigation considerably more useful.

Readiness failed to produce a score despite Low wearing the Apple Watch Series 12 for seven nights. She also found the redesigned app grid occasionally added steps when it failed to predict the desired app.

The new health sensors delivered heart-rate readings within two beats per minute of Low’s Fitbit Air. A 12-minute charge also increased the Apple Watch Series 12’s battery from 51% to 79%.

The Verge – Faster health tracking collides with unfinished AI

Victoria Song found the Apple Watch Series 12’s redesigned sensors delivered heart-rate readings close to a Polar H10 chest strap. Song also praised faster charging and improved one-handed gesture controls.

Several major health and Audio Intelligence features were unavailable during Song’s review period. She also noted privacy concerns may persist despite Apple’s safeguards for ambient listening features.

Readiness differs from many competitors by updating throughout the day as activity and recovery change. Song received a seven after completing the required seven nights of sleep tracking.

Apple Watch Ultra 4

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 pairs the new S11 chip with improved health sensors and up to 50 hours of battery life. The familiar titanium design also gains more frequent heart-rate tracking and updated step tracking.

The Apple Watch Ultra 4

New software features include Readiness, expanded health metrics, and Audio Intelligence features such as Live Rewind and Siri Recap. The Apple Watch Ultra 4 also works with the redesigned Health app coming with iOS 27.

Pricing starts at $799, and it’s available in black and natural titanium. Preorders opened on September 9, with orders arriving and in-store sales going live on September 18.

TechRadar – More endurance behind a familiar design

Jacob Krol praised the fourth-generation Apple Watch Ultra’s larger battery, faster charging, and expanded health tracking. He also highlighted more frequent heart-rate and HRV measurements as useful additions for workouts.

He acknowledged that the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is visually similar to its predecessor, with unchanged colors and no major redesign. Krol also withheld judgment on Readiness and upcoming AI features because both require additional testing.

Apple promises up to 50 hours of normal use, aided by a five-percent larger battery. The Apple Watch Ultra 4 also keeps its $799 starting price despite the internal changes.

Mashable – Longer battery is the biggest boon

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 lasted roughly three days between charges during Stan Schroeder’s testing. Schroeder also praised its more frequent heart-rate monitoring and detailed health data.

He criticized the lack of new watch faces and found the frequently flashing heart-rate sensors annoying. He also raised privacy concerns about upcoming Audio Intelligence features listening to nearby conversations.

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 recorded slightly fewer steps than Schroeder’s Apple Watch Series 11. Its Music Recognition feature also identified every song Schroeder tested, including obscure YouTube remixes.

Tom’s Guide – Heart-rate tracking gets an endurance test

The redesigned heart-rate sensor was the standout change for Jane McGuire after testing it during a 22-mile run. McGuire found its readings closely matched a chest strap, while improved battery life got two days on a full charge.

As others have noted, the Apple Watch Ultra 4 retains the same screen, dimensions, and overall design as its predecessor. McGuire also wanted a smaller size option for petite wrists and a built-in LED flashlight.

McGuire found Readiness useful for understanding recovery, although travel disrupted her initial seven-night baseline. She also questioned Siri Recap’s privacy implications and whether she would use its background recording.

Vals AI, a completely independent evaluator, tested OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra by throwing it into Minecraft and allowing it to its own tools for 141 hours with only ordinary computer controls: screen, mouse, and keyboard. No fancy game-modifying plug-ins were employed. Thousands of people tuned in to the Twitch stream to watch how it performed. Which wasn’t surprising given that the first, shorter attempt had already created a Nether portal in two and a half hours, long before the game had ever been released. Finally, Astra was the first system Vals had witnessed approach a Nether Castle.

Progress moved at a steady pace, much like a house of cards built by a human builder. Then Astra emerged and began building a semi-automated blaze farm. It just got up and walked away, then returned with six flame rods in hand. That wasn’t all; it also located a warped forest, where it killed almost half a dozen Endermen and snagged three Ender Pearls, a haul required to reach “The End.” It was all carefully stowed in a box next to the bed, but as usual, a game bug occurred, and a Creeper soon appeared and destroyed everything.

BOOM! That single Creeper completely destroyed the chest and bed all at once. Vals later characterized it as the most costly Creeper they’d ever seen, but this was all part of a test to see how things would turn out. Later, if you’re playing the game and select keepInventory, any player items you might lose when you die will be saved. Of course, having a bed full of goods stowed away in an unprotected box right near to the spawn site is simply unbeatable. Later, on a particularly dreary in-game day, Astra saw the box was empty.

The action log began taking notes from itself. Some sentences were nearly entirely in capitals, such as this one: ALWAYS CARRY CRITICAL ITEMS WHEN YOU CAN USE keepInventory; you’ll never store them in an unsecured chest again. Another read: You can and will make mistakes and drop things. As Astra traveled through the landscape, some green stalks in the distance received a warning, followed by a correction: “The green objects ahead were sugarcane, not another Creeper!” Later, as nite fell and it needed to forage for food, Astra simply kept beating herself up for minor mistakes. Pigs transformed into “dark pink pixels that needed to be eaten.” And after one disastrous tool use, they soon regretted it: “Slabs were chosen incorrectly, and 15 seconds of pondering killed us.” Speaking of which, people in the discussion were all shouting for it to pick up the pace, but Astra simply plodded through the potato rows.

For hours after Creeper blew everything up, Astra did nothing but continue growing potatoes. Blaze work was out of the question, as there were no more Ender pearls to be found and no plans to rebuild the base. Potato plots are safe, repeatable, and close. That loop is what a lot of people recognized, which is why the clip spread so fast. Vals described the model as frustrated and ultimately defeated.
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HTC is taking another swing at making AI glasses feel like something people might actually want to wear. The company has announced that its VIVE Eagle smart glasses are now available to order across North America, Europe and Australia, expanding availability beyond the markets where the glasses initially launched. Starting at $499 in the US, £429 in the UK and €469 in Europe, the VIVE Eagle combines a familiar pair of frames with a camera, open-ear speakers and a handful of AI tricks.

The VIVE Eagle is doing quite a lot for a pair of glasses

The wider rollout comes at an interesting time for smart glasses, with companies increasingly trying to make AI something that sits quietly on the face rather than demanding another screen. HTC’s approach is pretty straightforward: make the glasses look like, well, glasses, then let the technology do its thing in the background. There are Square and Pantos frame designs, multiple colours and finishes, plus ZEISS lens options.

The hardware includes a 12MP ultra-wide camera for photos and stabilised 3K video, while directional open-ear speakers handle music, calls and AI responses without sealing off the ears. The glasses work with VIVE AI, which can tap into Google Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, allowing users to ask questions, take notes, translate what they see, and interact with AI without reaching for a phone. HTC also supports photo-based and live translation features, making the camera more useful than simply being a tiny action camera stuck to the side of the face.

Privacy is another big part of the pitch. A visible LED indicates when the camera is recording, while HTC says photos and videos are stored locally and protected with encryption. The glasses weigh roughly 49 grams with lenses, carry an IP54 rating, and offer up to 4.5 hours of continuous music playback. A 10-minute magnetic charge can get the battery from 1 to 50 percent, which should help when the glasses inevitably run low at the least convenient moment.

The bigger idea behind VIVE Eagle is arguably more interesting than any individual feature. HTC isn’t trying to turn the glasses into another phone strapped to a face. Instead, they’re designed to handle small, useful tasks while keeping the user’s hands and attention free. Take a photo, translate something, ask a question, listen to music, or take a call, all without pulling out a phone. Whether that is enough to make AI glasses a genuinely everyday gadget remains to be seen, but with VIVE Eagle now reaching more markets, HTC is at least giving the idea a much bigger runway.

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Why we recommend it

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Price context & historical value

Should you buy it?

Dozens of Redmi Note Pro phones have come out over the past decade, and people absolutely love them. After all, these phones pack decent performance and cameras, all while not costing an arm and a leg. The AI-driven RAM price surge has hit this value proposition the hardest, and there’s nothing we can do about it. After introducing the regular Redmi Note 17 last month, the Chinese smartphone maker is back with its Pro model: the Redmi Note 17 Pro. While you get the usuals like an AMOLED display and a mid-range 6s Gen 4 processor, there’s one party trick: the massive 9,000mAh silicon-carbon battery. Redmi says it can last more than two days on a single charge.

The Redmi Note 17 Pro starts at ₹36,999 in India. It’s been my secondary phone for the past two weeks, and I’ve taken it on several work trips, some even without a charger, just to test the limits. This review should help you decide whether it’s worth shelling out the money for or not.

Design & Build

If you saw the regular Redmi Note 17, then the Pro model will feel right at home. Redmi never takes a boring approach to phone design, and that’s certainly true here. It comes in three colors: Blue, Purple, and Stealth Black. I had the Purple variant, and it looks pretty fantastic. The back finish is matte, so it won’t get smudged up with your oily fingerprints. It looks astonishingly premium, without costing a fortune. For example, the back panel is plastic. I never would have guessed that before reading the press release.

The sides are also plastic, but that wasn’t a concern for me. Redmi rates it as drop-resistant from heights of up to 3 meters. While I can’t test that myself, they did invite The Great Khali on stage to throw the phone from his height. It survived without a scratch, so I’m not complaining. For those worried about the front glass, it’s protected by the Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which has proved plenty strong. Beyond throwing, you can also take the Note 17 Pro for a swim because of its IP66/IP68/IP69/IP69K certifications.

Given the massive battery, handling the Redmi Note 17 Pro is a tricky business. Don’t get me wrong, it’s 225 g, which is still lighter than the latest iPhone 18 Pro, but its 163.44 × 78.27 × 8.65mm dimensions are larger than many flagships. This made it difficult to use the phone with my relatively medium-sized hands. I could reach only about 60% of the screen with one hand.

At least, the buttons are easy to reach, and the front also houses the under-screen fingerprint sensor. It’s an optical unit, and it worked quite reliably during my testing, albeit with some struggle when my thumb was wet or dirty. Thankfully, Xiaomi hasn’t done away with the user-favorite IR Blaster, which can still be used to control appliances easily.

Display & Speakers

Xiaomi has always made great displays, and I can say the exact same thing about the Note 17 Pro. It features a big 6.83-inch 1.5K AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. Don’t forget the 12-bit colors, which are still missing on major flagships. All this translates into an excellent movie-watching experience, with vibrant, not oversaturated colors, sharpness that’s always on point, and real blacks. I used the phone to watch the latest Ted Lasso episode on a flight to Delhi, and it was fantastic.

Xiaomi claims a peak brightness of 3500 nits at 25% APL. In regular high brightness mode, it reaches 2,000 nits, which is great for a mid-ranger. I could comfortably read text and view content even under direct sunlight. The panel is also Dolby Vision + HDR10+ certified, so you can use that brightness in HDR content. The incorporation of 3840Hz PWM + DC dimming is a nice touch for people sensitive to OLED displays.

As for the stereo speakers, they can get really loud, so calls in crowded areas won’t be a concern. The clarity is mostly on point, though highs were given a lot more importance than I’d have liked. Still, it’s a fine system for YouTube videos.

Performance & Software

The Redmi Note 17 Pro runs on the last-gen Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 processor, with the Adreno 810 GPU. My review unit also came with 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB UFS 3.1 storage. Keep in mind that the 128GB version has UFS 2.2 storage, so its performance will be slightly worse. I found the Note 17 Pro to be a competent everyday performer. Opening and closing multiple apps, doomscrolling Reels, and reading articles in Chrome was never a problem. I didn’t notice any slowdowns or any hiccups, which is always nice. The best part? The animations were much better than the regular Note 17.

Xiaomi’s HyperOS, built on Android 16, runs the show here. And if you know what you’re getting into, it’s plenty good. The design is a bit iOS-inspired, but I don’t mind it. It’s super functional, and I discover new features buried in the settings menu every day. You can also customize the phone extensively, using a series of themes and lock screen templates. However, there’s another side to this story: bloatware. I counted roughly 15 pre-installed apps I never signed up for. Fortunately, you can delete them all, which is a saving grace. Xiaomi’s promise of three years of major Android updates is another nice touch.

For this review, I also ran a series of benchmarks. In Geekbench 7, the Note 17 Pro scored 861 points in the single-core and 2,575 in the multi-core test. In AnTuTu, the phone scored 878,321 points. This means that regular tasks will run fine, but don’t expect flagship-grade gaming performance. Speaking of gaming, I ran Genshin Impact and BGMI. The latter worked pretty well on Smooth + Extreme settings, delivering roughly 60 FPS, with minimal frame drops. I did see several frame drops with Genshin Impact on low/medium settings, so keep that in mind.

Battery Life & Charging

Unsurprisingly, the Note 17 Pro’s biggest highlight is its 9,000 mAh silicon-carbon battery. For some context, that’s almost double the capacity of the new iPhone 18 Pro series. The results speak for themselves. On a typical workday, that is, doomscrolling reels, going through articles, watching a couple of YouTube videos, taking camera samples, and a little BGMI session, I ended the day with more than 50% charge remaining. Those are insane numbers considering my daily driver, the Find X8, usually needs a charge by the evening with a similar routine. The Note 17 Pro’s battery life gives you a sense of relief I never thought we’d get from modern smartphones.

If that’s not enough, the Note 17 Pro charges at 67W using the included charger. It can top up the battery to full in just over an hour. You can also charge other devices, thanks to the 27W reverse charging support. This proved super helpful on a flight when my Find X8 was almost dead.

Cameras

It’s safe to say that Xiaomi isn’t pushing any boundaries with the Redmi Note 17 Pro’s camera system. It features a 50MP primary sensor with OIS support and an f/1.8 aperture. It’s coupled with an 8 MP ultrawide lens. Despite the middling setup, the primary sensor is quite capable. With it, I captured some good-looking photos in daytime, where the details were plenty, colors looked vibrant yet still natural, and even the HDR performance didn’t disappoint. Of course, it messes up the exposure sometimes, but I did like the textures of the shot. Redmi also gives you plenty of filters to play with the final look.

Given the lack of a telephoto sensor, the main lens also does portrait photography. At 2x, skin tones looked pretty natural in bright light, and the shallow depth of field looked natural. I wouldn’t recommend cropping beyond 2x, because after that the details start becoming fuzzy. Nighttime photos looked decent, given the limited hardware. However, you will notice noise creeping in, and colors won’t be that accurate. There’s also an ultrawide lens, but at 8MP, it fails to capture meaningful details in anything but perfect lighting. It’s good to have it, but nothing special.

On the other hand, the 32MP selfie shooter was quite good. The phone doesn’t apply much beautification, which is always nice. What’s not nice is the 1080p at 30 FPS video recording. This feels very limiting in 2026, especially since the 6s Gen 4 can record 1080p at 60 FPS.

Verdict

Starting at ₹36,999, the Redmi Note 17 Pro feels like a phone that understands its priorities. The design looks far more premium than its price suggests, the 120Hz AMOLED display is excellent for everything from Netflix to Instagram, and the Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 delivers consistently smooth everyday performance. More than anything else, the 9,000mAh battery is what makes the Redmi Note 17 Pro stand out. It’s genuinely liberating to leave home without even thinking about carrying a charger. Surprisingly, the compromises are fairly easy to live with. HyperOS still ships with too much bloatware, the ultrawide camera is forgettable, and 1080p 30 FPS video recording feels outdated in 2026.