Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Ultra is designed for outdoor and fitness enthusiasts, featuring a rugged titanium build and a bright AMOLED display. It competes with Apple’s Watch Ultra 2, offering multiple health and sports tracking features, including VO2 Max and sleep apnea detection. While its durability is impressive, it lacks some advanced functionalities found in dedicated sports watches and has limited battery life, averaging around two days under typical use.
Samsung has recently launched the Galaxy Watch Ultra, a smartwatch tailored for outdoor enthusiasts and fitness aficionados alike. With its rugged design, high-resolution display, and multifunctional capabilities, Samsung is looking to compete with the likes of Apple, particularly its Watch Ultra 2. But how does the Galaxy Watch Ultra fare in day-to-day usage? Our review dives into its pros and cons.
Galaxy Watch Ultra: A Distinctive Design
Samsung has revamped the design of its Galaxy Watch series, giving the new Ultra model a more robust appearance. Crafted from scratch-resistant titanium, the watch features a round dial fused with a rectangular base, creating a striking aesthetic, albeit at the cost of some screen real estate. The titanium case boasts an IP68 rating, making it waterproof up to 10 ATM (100 meters), and it meets ‘Military Grade’ standards. This durability allows it to withstand extreme temperatures, making it an excellent option for outdoor adventures like climbing and hiking. However, it’s worth noting that it has limited suitability for water sports; while it can handle swimming and snorkeling, it isn’t designed for diving or jet skiing. Here, the Apple Watch Ultra, with its WR100 certification, has the upper hand.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra is available only in a 47 mm size, which may not be ideal for those with smaller wrists. It comes in three color options—Titanium Gray, Silver, and White—and offers various strap choices like silicone, fabric, or rubber. The model we tested included a thicker, more durable silicone strap compared to other Galaxy models, which felt a bit unusual at first wear.
Equipped with a 480 x 480 pixel AMOLED display that reaches an impressive brightness of 3,000 nits, the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s screen performance is noteworthy. This brightness level surpasses that of the 44 mm Galaxy Watch 7, which maxes out at 2,000 nits. The display is safeguarded by scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass and features a night mode and always-on functionality, ensuring excellent visibility even in bright sunlight. Overall, the display is highly impressive, rivaling that of the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
Comparisons with the Apple Watch Ultra
The similarities between Samsung’s and Apple’s offerings are hard to overlook. The Galaxy Watch Ultra shares both a name and several features with the Apple Watch Ultra 2, including a rugged design, a bright display, a night mode with red lighting, an emergency siren, and an extended battery life compared to its standard counterpart. Furthermore, the watch includes a ‘Quick Button,’ an orange button positioned between its familiar controls, which serves as Samsung’s take on the Apple Watch Ultra’s action button. This Quick Button can be personalized for quick access to essential functions like workout initiation, waypoint marking, or flashlight use. Additionally, a long press on this button can emit an alarm sound reaching up to 85 dB, useful for emergencies.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra operates on the Exynos W1000 processor, featuring 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. It runs on Google’s Wear OS 5, enhanced by Samsung’s One UI 6, which introduces features like improved photo editing, translation capabilities, and customizable widgets. With a combination of a digital bezel, touchscreen, and three physical buttons, the watch ensures intuitive operation. Though Samsung’s Bixby is the default voice assistant, users can opt for Google Assistant as well.
Furthermore, the Galaxy Watch Ultra provides direct access to Google services such as Google Maps, the Play Store, and WhatsApp. You can reply to messages via dictation, quick responses, or a keyboard interface. It also allows for phone calls directly from the watch, thanks to clear audio from its speakers and microphone. With LTE functionality and an eSIM, the watch operates independently from a smartphone.
Sports and Health Features
When it comes to sports tracking, the Galaxy Watch Ultra ranks as ‘good’ but not exceptional. It supports numerous workout modes, both automatic and manual, with customizable heart rate targets for added guidance. It also tracks VO2 Max and advanced running metrics such as stride length and balance, along with other valuable features. Users can compare past performances by repeating routes while running or cycling.
For triathlon tracking, the multi-sport tile is a standout, and the watch can calculate maximum cycling power (Functional Threshold Power) when paired with a bike’s power meter, delivering actionable insights.
The smartwatch is equipped with an upgraded BioActive sensor featuring 13 LEDs, which enhances heart rate tracking and sleep monitoring. This improvement addresses the heart rate accuracy issues seen in earlier models. While comparisons with chest straps indicate progress, it still lacks the extensive training planning features and recovery suggestions found in dedicated sports watches like the Garmin Epix/Fenix series.
Additionally, the Galaxy Watch Ultra does not support ANT+, a wireless standard for device communication in the fitness realm, opting instead for Bluetooth connectivity. Consequently, it cannot share heart rate data with other fitness devices or bike computers.
Enhanced Health Monitoring with AI
In terms of health features, the Galaxy Watch Ultra shines with FDA approval for sleep apnea detection and a unique Advanced Glycation End Products (AGE) index that provides insights into metabolism. The Galaxy AI compiles fitness and sleep metrics into an overall energy score from 0 to 100, akin to Garmin’s ‘Body Battery.’ This AI feature offers personalized wellness advice to optimize the user’s health. It tracks various metrics, including sleep duration, blood oxygen levels, heart rate, breathing rate, skin temperature, and sleep stages. While ECG and blood pressure measurements are available, they require a Galaxy smartphone for functionality, and snore detection works only when the Samsung phone is nearby. Overall, the strengths and weaknesses seen in the Galaxy Watch 7 persist here as well.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra also includes a Bioactive sensor similar to the Galaxy Watch 7, capable of measuring health metrics such as blood pressure, ECG, and oxygen saturation. A dedicated test can analyze body composition, providing insights on bone mass, basal metabolic rate, BMI, body water, and body fat percentage. Although these measurements aren’t as precise as those from specialized scales, they offer valuable insights into personal health trends over time, especially when coupled with improved fitness routines or healthier eating habits.
Battery Life: Room for Improvement
Samsung claims the Galaxy Watch Ultra can last up to 60 hours without power-saving features and 100 hours in standard power-saving mode. However, during our testing, the 590 mAh battery managed around two days with moderate usage, always-on display settings, and typical training sessions, which, while better than some competitors, still leaves room for improvement.