Price
There's no change here. Just like the Series 10, the Series 11 starts at $399 for the aluminum 42mm GPS-only model. The 46mm size adds $30 to the price, and cellular adds $100, for a total of $529 if you want the biggest version with 5G. If you want to get really fancy, the titanium Series 11 is $699 for 42mm and $749 for 46mm, both of which are only available with 5G.
Winner: Tie
Size
The physical size hasn't changed between the Series 10 and Series 11. The small size is 1.65 by 1.41 inches (42mm by 36mm, LW), while the bigger version is 1.81 by 1.53 inches (46mm by 39mm). Both and just 0.38 inches (9.7mm) thick, making them the thinnest Apple Watches ever.
They weigh nearly the same, too; the 46mm Series 11 weighs only a gram or two more than the 46mm Series 10, and the difference between the 42mm models is tenths of a gram. If you can tell the difference by touch, I would genuinely be impressed.
Winner: Tie
Processor
The two watches are the same here, too. They both use the Apple S10 chip, which also drives the Apple Watch SE 3 and Apple Watch Ultra 3.
Winner: Tie
Display
You might be seeing a pattern here. Both watches have always-on LTPO3 OLEDs with 2,000 nits of peak brightness. The 42mm models have 374-by-446 screens with 1.53 square inches (989 square millimeters) of display area, and the 46mm ones are 416 by 496 with 1.89 square inches (1,220mm^2).
Winner: Tie
Durability
Finally, the first difference! The aluminum Series 11 uses new Ion-X glass on its display, which Apple says is twice as resistant to scratches as the aluminum Series 10's glass. Otherwise, they're both water-resistant to 50 meters and IP6X dust-resistant, and the titanium versions of both watches use the same sapphire crystal instead of Ion-X glass.
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Winner: Series 11
Connectivity
Here's the biggest change between the two smartwatches. The Series 11 generation is the first to use 5G for its cellular models. The Series 10 only has LTE, which the newer watch also has. Both models still have Wi-Fi 4, but the Series 11 is dual-band while the Series 10 is 2.4GHz-only. Besides those changes, the wireless toolkits are identical between the watches: Bluetooth 5.3, L1 GPS, NFC for Apple Pay, and second-generation ultra-wideband for precise location tracking.
Winner: Series 11
Fitness and Health
Both the Series 11 and Series 10 are incredibly well-equipped devices for health and fitness. They both have heart rate monitoring, ECG, sleep tracking with sleep apnea notifications, and plenty of workout features. They both have blood oxygen monitoring, too, now that the feature has returned to Apple Watches. Apple unveiled hypertension notifications when it announced the Series 11, but it works using the optical heart sensor and will be enabled on the Series 10.
Winner: Tie
Battery Life
The Series 11 sees a pretty big boost over the Series 10, which is impressive considering that the older model already far exceeded its stated battery life. Apple says the Series 10 can last 18 hours and the Series 11 a full 24 hours with normal use. In our tests, they respectively kept going for 36 and 43 hours. That's a jump of seven hours based on how we test smartwatches, pushing the Series 11's effective battery life past even what Apple says the Apple Watch Ultra 3 can manage (42 hours, though Apple likely seriously lowballed that number, too, considering they said the Ultra 2 could last 36 hours and we measured 55 hours).
Winner: Series 11
Should You Replace Your Series 10?
There's no question that the Series 11 is a better watch than the Series 10, with better battery life. It doesn't change much besides that and the new 5G and dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity, though. The improved battery and cellular connectivity make the Series 11 a potentially worthwhile upgrade, but if you have a GPS-only Series 10 and are satisfied with its battery life, the newer watch probably doesn't have enough to offer.
On the other hand, if you're still wearing an Apple Watch Series 9 or older, now's a good time to upgrade to a slimmer and much better-equipped model.