Apple Watch Ultra Review

Apple Watch Ultra certainly lives up to its moniker, and will undoubtedly be hard to exclude from our list of the best smartwatches. After all, it represents the most dramatic update ever to Apple’s smartwatch lineup, and it does so with a completely different design, a bigger display and more sensors than found on Apple Watch Series 8. The resulting smartwatch has deep capabilities aimed at lovers of the extreme—sports, activities and environments.

Watch Ultra clearly shares some feature and design DNA with the Apple Watch Series 8, which itself this year gained a bigger display and added a new temperature sensor. But the Watch Ultra is a very different model, starting with the detail that it is the only Apple Watch model sold solely with cellular connectivity. That inclusion alone helps explain Watch Ultra’s higher price tag.

This model’s always-connected status speaks volumes to how it can be used: All the time, in places where you might not want to also carry your phone. The cellular advantage is clear, notes Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategies. While all smartwatches have varying levels of smartphone integration, “watches equipped with a cellular connection operate almost entirely independently of your phone. However, even cellular watches depend on a smartphone for setup and initial configuration.” This last point limits Watch Ultra’s audience to iPhone users.

It’s also the first Apple Watch that only comes in a titanium finish, designed to make the bigger unit more manageable in terms of its weight.

With its titanium finish, rugged design and activity-focused features, the Watch Ultra appeals to fans of extreme sports and outdoor adventures. But you don’t need to be a sports fan if you simply want the most advanced smartwatch Apple makes, with the longest battery life and biggest display. Is the Apple Watch Ultra the right smartwatch for you? Read on.

Apple Watch Ultra: Technical Specifications

Price: $799 |Case size: 49mm | Processor: Apple S8 64-bit dual-core | Display: 410 x 510 pixels, LTPO OLED always-on screen, 2,000-nit maximum brightness | Connectivity: GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3, LTE cellular | Storage: 32GB | Water resistance: Up to 100 meters | Battery: Up to 36 hours (60 hours in low power) | Dimensions: 1.9 x 1.7 x 0.6 inches | Weight: 2.2 ounces

Best for

• Extreme sports athletes who need advanced sensors
• Adventurers and travelers who need pinpoint GPS accuracy
• Keeping connected on long days (or weekends)

Skip if

• You have smaller wrists (it’s pretty big)
• An $800 purchase isn’t a drop in the bucket
• You don’t need cellular connectivity

Apple Watch Ultra Design: Thick And Chunky

Watch Ultra is the chunkiest Apple Watch yet, a notable change in direction for a company which prides itself on small and sleek. Its rectangular display with curved edges is about the only thing which echoes the existing Watch Series 8 design.

Successive Watches have made the rotating side button (known as ”Digital Crown” in Apple parlance) completely flush with the casing, Watch Ultra bolsters the button so it stands proud once again. The button’s larger size makes it easier to press through thick gloves, for instance, and it has a new titanium guard wrapping to help prevent accidental interactions. The grooves on the crown have also changed to make them coarser—again making it easier to rotate even when you’re wearing, say, ski gloves.

On the opposite side of the casing sits a big new button, called the Action button. Unmistakable in its size and shape, the button is large enough to locate with gloves on and stands out visually thanks to its international orange coloring.

You can customize this button so one quick press launches the Workout app or turns on the flashlight. Press twice and you’ll achieve a different end, such as starting a workout rather than just launching the Workout app. Not all apps work with the button but a good variety do, including Stopwatch, Shortcut, Dive and Backtrack.

When I put the Watch Ultra on my wrist, I could tell immediately that the 49-millimeter titanium casing was noticeably larger than the base models. Sure, Watch Ultra is light for its larger size, but at 2.2 ounces, it’s heavier than the 45-millimeter stainless steel Apple Watch Series 8 (1.8 ounces), and weighs more than twice the smaller Apple Watch SE (1 ounce).

Watch Ultra also has a choice of three sturdy straps, each designed for intense activities. Alpine Loop is made for outdoor adventures and has a G-Hook loop for secure closure. Trail Loop targets athletes and hikers, and has an easy pull-tab adjustment. The chunky Ocean Band can be worn over a wet suit and is optimized for swimmers and recreational divers. If you want alternatives, you can also use bands designed for 42-millimeter, 44-millimeter and 45-millimeter Apple Watches on the Watch Ultra’s case.

In use, I really liked the design of Watch Ultra and found it easy to navigate with the Digital Crown. The Watch Ultra may be too much watch for normal day-to-day use. And some users will balk at its size, while the extra weight may make night-time wearing challenging. Similarly, Apple Watch traditionalists may find the new design too different, with the deeper case and the protuberance to protect the Digital Crown less elegant than Apple’s original.

Apple Watch Ultra Display: Big And Bright

If you want the biggest display on an Apple Watch, look no further than Watch Ultra. But Watch Ultra’s display story isn’t just about its size. Where other Apple Watch displays use curved glass or sapphire crystal, the Watch Ultra display is completely flat. Although it doesn’t mimic the cliff-edge designs of the iPhone 12 and later, the flat display is modeled exactly like the phones, minus the phones’ camera cut-out.

At 2,000 nits, the Watch Ultra is twice the brightness of Watch Series 8, so you can read the watch face in the brightest sunlight. The 7% bigger display also means you get more room to display data onscreen. The Workout app shows up to six lines of metrics, for instance.

Apple Watch Ultra Features: Sensors Galore

The Watch Ultra’s guts are the same as the Watch Series 8, with the same Apple chip inside. It’s certainly fast—everything about the Watch is happily responsive—but the Watch Series 8 and Watch SE both have the same performance.

Like Watch Series 8, Watch Ultra has a temperature sensor and improved sleep monitoring. When you’re sleeping, it measures your temperature every five seconds so after five nights, it can spot trends in your sleeping temperature and sleep stages. It also has cycle tracking, fall detection and crash detection, where it will use the available cellular connection to contact emergency services and share your exact location.

Unsurprisingly, Watch Ultra has a few unique tricks up its sleeve. For starters, it carries EN13319 diving certification and has a new Depth app, which measures how deep divers go in the water. The watch also supports the Oceanic+ app ($80 annual subscription) to turn it into a capable dive computer. These are useful additions for those so inclined and can record your dives down as far as 40 meters. It can also warn you when you reach your maximum depth, tell you if the water is too cold or if your ascent is too fast.

Like the other watches in Apple’s lineup, Watch Ultra has emergency calling and emergency SOS. But unlike the others, Watch Ultra adds a siren. If you get stuck somewhere, you can activate the siren and it will grow noisier over time to attract searchers’ attention. Watch Ultra has dual speakers and three beamforming mics, both improvements over the standard Watch Series 8.

Watch Ultra also adds better GPS navigation. With a dual-frequency (L1 and L5) GPS, this watch is made for accurately navigating areas where GPS gets spotty, including the skyscraper canyons of cities. The Compass app is redesigned on Watches with watchOS 9 to add multiple views, Backtrack and waypoints to make navigation easier than ever.

Apple Watch Ultra Battery Life: All Day Performance

The battery is 76% bigger than on Watch Series 8, and according to Apple can push its life to 36 hours of use, double the time on other current Watch models. Since Apple’s calculations are done assuming 18 hours is a full day (with the rest of the day being sleep), Watch Ultra is expected to last two days of use between charges. This estimate matched my experience: I found the Watch Ultra did last me almost two days between charges in the normal use mode. You can possibly go up to 60 hours using the new low power mode which turns off the always-on display, among other things. In my testing, the 60-hour estimate felt about right. The bottom line: Watch Ultra has extremely good battery life.

Apple Watch Ultra Verdict: A Splurge For Non-Sporties

No questioning the facts: Apple Watch Ultra is big and beautiful, with impressive battery life and a bright display. And it has a bevy of new features unique to to this premium tier, including the depth gauge for divers. Plus, it has all the marquee features found in Watch Series 8, including crash detection and the temperature sensor for cycle and sleep tracking.

But it really is much bigger than previous Apple Watch models. So much so—and this is something I say regularly about max-sized iPhones—you really need to try it out for size in person before you buy. Whether the Apple Watch Ultra works for you is going to be a very personal decision, one dependent on how the larger watch fits on your wrist—and how you feel about Watch Ultra’s design breaks from Apple’s established norms.

You may be pleasantly surprised: Watch Ultra’s weight is much less than you might expect from its size. And the display is spectacular with superb brightness and lots more real estate, which in turn makes all activities easier to navigate and consume. Battery life is also extremely good. It’s enough to glide you through the better part of two full days without a worry, and it can get you through a weekend hiking trip on low power mode with no additional charging.

Apple Watch Ultra offers the biggest upgrade Apple has ever introduced. It won’t be for everyone, but for those who like the look and the size—and don’t mind its sky-high price—it’s a real showstopper.

Apple Watch Ultra: Should You Upgrade?

Watch Ultra is not just for sports junkies. There’s a lot to recommend it even for those who simply like the idea of a bigger, more capable Watch that lasts longer. But if you don’t like the larger size, or don’t plan to use the cellular connectivity which comes standard on Watch Ultra, then you should consider the Apple Watch Series 8, which will do most things for most people.