Big, bulky and no longer special

For many years, Apple and Samsung offered a single class of wearables, but the advent of Ultra-branded phones led to Ultra-branded wearables. Two years ago, Apple started this trend with the Apple Watch Ultra, and last year with the Apple Watch Ultra 2. This year, Samsung joined the trend with the Galaxy Watch Ultra and offered many of the same features, but also became the first Ultra watch to offer sleep apnea monitoring in the US.

Ultra often means the best a company has to offer, but a few weeks ago Apple released the Apple Watch Series 10, which offers similar specs in a smaller, lighter body for half the price. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 still has some unique features, but a year later – and with more alternatives available – is the Apple Watch Ultra 2 still competitive? Let’s find out!

Apple Watch Ultra 2

8.5/10

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 delivers a fantastic smartwatch experience and improves it in every way. The screen can reach 3,000 nits in bright conditions, and the S9 SoC means it offers the best battery life of any Apple Watch. However, the Apple Watch Series 10 is thinner, lighter, half the price and has a larger screen, while Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Ultra offers similar features for Android owners.

Pros

Cons

Price, availability and specifications

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is 49mm in size, has cellular connectivity, and costs $799. That gets you an Apple Watch with a standard fabric band, but a titanium Milanese strap costs an additional $100. There are two color options: natural titanium or a new black color that matches the black version of the Apple Watch Series 10.

By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra starts at $650 with titanium construction and a range of colors, including a striking white colorway. There’s no new Apple Watch Ultra 3 this year, but is a new color enough to make the Apple Watch Ultra 2 a worthwhile purchase, especially given the competition?

Specifications

What’s good about the Apple Watch Ultra 2?

Built for workouts and long battery life

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 has four key features that help it stand out from the competition, including the Apple Watch Series 10. First, the screen, which is one of the brightest on a smartwatch with a peak brightness of 3,000 nits – although this is matched by Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Ultra.

The sapphire crystal front has proven to be particularly durable, and despite bumping the Apple Watch Ultra 2 against all sorts of surfaces, it still hasn’t cracked or scratched. The titanium casing around the screen has attracted some smudges, but the screen is incredibly durable. It has met its MIL-STD 810H certification and is one of the few wearables I’ve used that feels like it can handle anything life throws at it.

The 564mAh battery is still the best reason to buy an Apple Watch Ultra 2. Many of the best smartwatches last a full day, but you can’t expect them to last a second full day. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 bucks this trend, delivering between two and three days. It has the best battery life of any smartwatch offered by Apple, Samsung or Google, but it doesn’t compare to the OnePlus Watch 2 (which lasts several days longer).

If you train frequently, you know the struggle of relying on automatic workout detection or manually navigating to a workout app. The Apple Watch Ultra line adds the action button on the side, which offers quick access to start a workout, a new lap or a new circuit. It’s similar to the same button on a traditional stopwatch and is ideal if you value detailed data about your workouts.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is designed for more extreme workouts. Dual-band GPS (L1 and L5) offers more accurate GPS tracking than other Apple Watch models and is ideal for tracking runs accurately. I’m not a runner, but it’s also useful when cycling outdoors. There is even a WR100 certification, which means it can withstand pressures when diving up to 100 meters (or 10 bars). If deep-sea diving is your thing, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 will continue to perform at twice the depth of most watches, surpassing even the Galaxy Watch Ultra.

What’s bad about the Apple Watch Ultra 2?

Big and bulky with fewer benefits than before

When Apple launched the Watch Ultra line, it was considered a momentous occasion. The model had the largest screen on an Apple Watch, the best battery life and a new action button that made accessing workouts faster. If the screen on previous Apple Watches was too small for you, the Apple Watch Ultra line makes sense. However, with the launch of the Apple Watch Series 10, Apple’s most expensive wearable has lost some of that luster.

I love the Apple Watch Ultra 2, but after using the Apple Watch Series 10 for the past two weeks, I’ve decided to sell my Ultra 2. There’s a simple reason for that: it’s no longer the biggest display. And while it still has the best battery life, it takes a lot longer to charge and is a lot bulkier than the newer Apple Watch.

For many users, the Apple Watch Ultra 2’s larger screen made the extra size worth it, but the Apple Watch Series 10 has a larger screen in a thinner body. The Ultra 2 weighs 61 g and measures 14.4 mm thick, while the Series 10 weighs just under 42 g and measures 9.7 mm thick. This makes a noticeable difference in everyday use, and if you’re only interested in the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for a larger screen, the Series 10 is a much better buy.

One of my main complaints about the size of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is how often I inadvertently press the action button when flexing my wrist. The additional weight also leaves more marks and marks on my wrist than most watches. The thicker construction is still incompatible with some of my favorite Apple Watch chargers, like the Anker Cube, designed for thinner watches.

How the Apple Watch Ultra 2 compares

It arrived first, but the competition caught up

The Apple Watch Ultra 2’s closest competitor is Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Ultra. Released two years after Apple, it combines the best of the Apple Watch lineup with the best of Samsung’s extensive watch history, while matching Apple’s Ultra for most of its durability and external features. The result is one of the best Android smartwatches you can buy.

The Galaxy Watch Ultra runs on the latest Wear OS 5 platform and offers excellent battery life. It lets you track multiple workouts – ideal for marathon or triathlon competitors – while adding several health features to Samsung Health. The new Energy Score uses AI to quantify your preparedness for the day, while Insights uses AI to provide a deeper understanding of your health.

The Galaxy Watch Ultra is the first FDA-approved smartwatch to detect sleep apnea, although Apple rolled it out on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch Series 10 as part of its latest WatchOS 11 update. Samsung offers better tracking of sleep, while the Pixel Watch 3 offers better heart tracking, but the Apple Watch Ultra 2 remains the more complete smartwatch experience.

Should you buy it?

My biggest concern with the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is that unless you need specific features that help it stand out, there’s little reason to buy it. Even for iPhone users, there are far more reasons not to buy it than there are to buy it, especially given the big improvements in the Apple Watch Series 10.

The latter is thinner, lighter and larger. It charges faster, offers almost all of the same features – except a few specific watch faces, the action button, and better durability – and is half the price. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 offers much better battery life, but it takes less than an hour to charge the Apple Watch Series 10, and you can buy two of them for the same price as the Apple Watch Ultra 2.

This is the Apple Watch Ultra 2’s biggest problem: it’s no longer the best watch for most iPhone users, and even a gorgeous new black color can’t help add to its allure. Meanwhile, Android users needn’t feel as envious, with the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra offering a similar feature set, and the OnePlus Watch 2 crushing both on battery life.

Apple Watch Ultra 2

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the most feature-packed Apple Watch you can buy today. It has the best battery life, the thickest construction, and is designed for all conditions. It was the most special Apple Watch ever made, but it now faces competition from Wear OS rivals and even the Apple Watch 10. For most users, the Watch Ultra 2 will be overkill.

Nirave is a creator, evangelist and founder of House of Tech. A heart attack at age 33 inspired him to publish the Newsletter Impact of Technologywhich covers the impact of technology on mental, physical and emotional health. For more, follow him at Instagram, Twitterand LinkedIn.