Hoo boy. It’s been a season of delays and dashed hopes, from the Apple iPhone 16e to the Google Pixel 9a to TikTok’s on-again-off-again ban. The OnePlus Watch 3’s delay was moderately entertaining, though: a typo. OnePlus misspelled the word “made” and caused a two-month delay for their flagship smartwatch while they sorted it out.
Well, wait no longer. After blowing past its original February 18, 2025 release date, the OnePlus Watch 3 is finally on sale. Just not for its originally planned $330 price. If you want it now, it’ll cost you $500. Wonder why. It couldn’t have anything to do with the enormous tariffs placed on China, where the watch originates, now could it?
one year newer, one step nicer
It was only last March when the OnePlus Watch 2 went on sale. One of, if not the, major new features takes a cue from the Apple Watch: It’s a rotating bezel that you can press and rotate to navigate through app screens and menus.
It was consumer pressure for a rotating bezel, which the OnePlus Watch 2 lacked, that led to OnePlus adding it to the Watch 3, Celina Shi, Chief Marketing Officer for OnePlus Europe, told TechRadar in an exclusive interview.
The OnePlus Watch 3’s already stellar battery life got a boost to a maximum of 120 hours of battery life between charges not on lower power mode, which seriously bests the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra’s 100 hours (in power saving mode) and Apple Watch Series 10’s 36 hours (in low power mode) of battery life.
We don’t have a figure as to how long the Watch 3’s battery will last when set to a power saving mode, but seeing as how customers and press have reported that in low power mode, the OnePlus Watch 2 would last for three or four days, I expect similarly outstanding battery performance from the OnePlus Watch 3.
Rounding out major new changes is the sapphire crystal face that replaces the mineral glass. Sapphire crystal is noticeably more scratch-resistant.
With all these spiffy features, though, and a 145% tariff on Chinese goods at this moment—Trump’s “master plan” changes by the minute, and his advisors don’t know anything more than we do—have to make you stop and think: is it worth it?
OnePlus hasn’t come out and said whether or not the price increase was due to the tariff, so until they pipe up we won’t know for sure how much it influenced the massive price hike.
I don’t yet know. Other smartwatches made in China will be hit with the same market-shifting tariffs, so this is a rapid reorientation of the smartwatch segment that I’m still trying to wrap my head around.
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