Hey guys,
As I was browsing the Apple Watch page on Apple.com to order my wife a Series 1 Watch I was looking at buying her an additional band or 2 so that she could accessorize. My wife loves to match when she gets dressed as I am sure many women (and men) do. I ended up ordering her a Series 1 Rose Gold with Sand Pink Sport band at $269 which I thought was a fine price for what it was. Then I began looking at bands and I thought maybe they had gone down or something but wow was I surprised. Sport bands didn't surprise me at $49 a pop and I knew the price for the Milanese bands was $149 but leather bands for over $600 or the Nylon bands for $49? That is nuts. I love Apple and feel like they do over charge a bit but typically back it up with service or quality but I do not think ANY of their bands are worth $600 let alone a leather one, I don't care what name you put on it. The Hermes bands are the worst offenders to me and in my opinion are also the ugliest bands in the collection (aside from the Single Tour which is around $300 I think). I have seen bands on Amazon for $7-8 for the "Sport Bands" and while not quite up to Apple's quality they are still a good value. I think if Apple charged maybe $29 for both sport band types and maybe $49 for some of their leather options with the higher end bands being in the $100-$200 range they would sell so many more. I can't imagine they sell a ton of $600 Hermes options. Who here has bought the higher options? Do you feel like your purchase has been worth the money? What about Sport bands? Do you buy from Apple or do you buy from 3rd parties for less than half the cost? I am interested to know if it is worth it to get the $150 Milanese loop compared to Amazon's $15 options. For the record I had a $20 link bracelet from Amazon that looked very similar to the Apple version and worked very well for me and felt sturdy so I have a little experience with the cheaper bands.
As I was browsing the Apple Watch page on Apple.com to order my wife a Series 1 Watch I was looking at buying her an additional band or 2 so that she could accessorize. My wife loves to match when she gets dressed as I am sure many women (and men) do. I ended up ordering her a Series 1 Rose Gold with Sand Pink Sport band at $269 which I thought was a fine price for what it was. Then I began looking at bands and I thought maybe they had gone down or something but wow was I surprised. Sport bands didn't surprise me at $49 a pop and I knew the price for the Milanese bands was $149 but leather bands for over $600 or the Nylon bands for $49? That is nuts. I love Apple and feel like they do over charge a bit but typically back it up with service or quality but I do not think ANY of their bands are worth $600 let alone a leather one, I don't care what name you put on it. The Hermes bands are the worst offenders to me and in my opinion are also the ugliest bands in the collection (aside from the Single Tour which is around $300 I think). I have seen bands on Amazon for $7-8 for the "Sport Bands" and while not quite up to Apple's quality they are still a good value. I think if Apple charged maybe $29 for both sport band types and maybe $49 for some of their leather options with the higher end bands being in the $100-$200 range they would sell so many more. I can't imagine they sell a ton of $600 Hermes options. Who here has bought the higher options? Do you feel like your purchase has been worth the money? What about Sport bands? Do you buy from Apple or do you buy from 3rd parties for less than half the cost? I am interested to know if it is worth it to get the $150 Milanese loop compared to Amazon's $15 options. For the record I had a $20 link bracelet from Amazon that looked very similar to the Apple version and worked very well for me and felt sturdy so I have a little experience with the cheaper bands.