After struggling with my new series 5 I returned it for a refund and moved back to a series 2, here’s how I’ve gotten on.

The most surprising thing about moving back to the series 2 was how good that model still is and offers great value for money in 2019.

First off there’s no watchOS 6 yet, it’s coming later on in the year. This isn’t a big deal. My iPhone is on the latest public iOS 13 release and my watch pairs perfectly. It’s on watchOS 5.3.2 currently and to be honest I’m not missing anything so far.

Coming from a stainless steel series 4 I’m pretty happy going back to a lighter aluminium model. The most obvious difference is the smaller screen, which to be honest I’m fine with. I’ve got the Nike edition and I’m happy settling on the Nike watch face over the Apple ones. I should say I only use my watch to check any messages, my activity progress and most obviously the time. The smaller screen hasn’t changed the way I interact with my watch at all. I do find that raise to wake is less reliable than the series 4 I had, this is a little annoying but I can live with it.

Battery wise I’ve lost 30% in about 10 hours with my light use, it’s amazing. I’m not going to rant about my series 5 experience because Apple should fix the issues over time but it’s nice not having to think about charging.

I have to say that my original plan of using it as a stop gap may not hold true. Unless something happens to this one I can see me just keeping my series 2 going for another year.