The Galaxy Watch Ultra adds much-needed premium flair to Wear OS - but there are caveats
Samsung’s first true rugged, premium smartwatch has its fair share of unhelpful quirks, but it is undeniably an entry that Wear OS has been crying out for. The design may be comically derivative, but it still functions perfectly well in use and adds a splash of much-needed personality to the platform. Providing you can come to terms with the size, clunky navigation and mildly inconsistent battery life, this is a great upgrade on the typical smartwatch experience.
Pros
- Solid build and fun design
- Excellent HR and GPS tracking
- Cracking display
- Sleep tracking is very detailed
Cons
- Insane rotating bezel miss
- Battery life feels inconsistent
- Samsung phone required for some features
- Looks ridiculous on smaller wrists
If imitation, as they say, is the sincerest form of flattery, we suspect that plenty of folks at Apple Park were pretty rosy-cheeked when Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Watch Ultra at Unpacked earlier this month.
Arriving as the top dog in the Galaxy Watch and Wear OS lineup, Samsung hasn’t been very shy about where it’s drawn inspiration from for this all-new, $650/£599 premium smartwatch.
It shares the same name as the Apple Watch Ultra, but there’s more; single-hand gesture control, band stylings, an orange action button, titanium body with sapphire crystal display and rear, along with a host of more base-level specs and features.
Here’s the thing, though: for as questionable as it is to copy another company’s homework to this extent, copying the good stuff does generally work. The key issue for the Galaxy Watch Ultra isn’t whether or not it’s a good smartwatch – it is.
The problem here is that Samsung got so sucked into creating an Android version of the Apple Watch Ultra that it forgot to add the things that could have made it the best smartwatch of 2024.
Here’s our extended review.
Design and display
A lot has been made about the design here being drawn from Apple – and rightfully so, given that the similarities are so stark. The wearables OGs among us, however, will also remember that Samsung trotted out something very similar to the Ultra with the 2017 Samsung Gear Sport.
Whether you think the ‘squircle’, cushioned case of the Sport has been reimagined here, or you believe this is just a ChatGPT version of the Apple Watch Ultra probably depends on which ecosystem you fall into. What’s more important is that – at least in terms of look and function – it’s a design that really works.
At 60g and 47mm, it’s absolutely not a smartwatch designed for those with smaller wrists (as shown below), but the Ultra represents a much-needed streak of personality to the Wear OS ranks – and that stand-out shape and next-level build quality ensures there’s a clear distinction between itself and the rest of the latest Galaxy Watch devices.
We’ve tested tons of lighter Wear OS watches with stainless steel cases that aren’t conducive to arm movements in workouts or comfortable 24/7 wear, but the titanium build of the Ultra ensures Samsung has negotiated both of these wearability issues successfully.
The only quality control issue we encountered was sweat clinging to the watch’s rear, resulting in an odd sticking noise – even after as little as a 15-minute warm-up on the indoor bike.
The 1.5-inch, Super AMOLED is also comfortably the best display we’ve ever tested on an Android watch. At a peak brightness of 2,000 nits, it’s amazingly clear even in direct sunlight – only hampered, really, by the smudgy nature of the sapphire crystal glass covering.
This, interestingly, is also a direct consequence of arguably the biggest issue with the Galaxy Watch Ultra: navigation.
The reason that dazzling display gets so blurry is due to the fact you have to interact with it constantly. Samsung may have kept up with the current trend and added a fancy, mappable quick button here, but it’s also missed an open goal by opting against a rotating bezel like we’ve seen in so many of its watches down the years.
Instead of having a way to easily scroll through the endless Tiles on this Wear OS 5 skin, it’s a chore. That new ‘Quick Button’ does a handy job (though still not something we were exactly pining for), but it’s far less useful than a regular digital crown would have been – something that could have also made up for the lack of functional bezel.
The Ultra is crying out for one of the two side buttons – ‘Back’ or ‘Home’ – to sit on the other side. But, in the end, there’s enough good and different here to recommend the Ultra to smartwatch enthusiasts who want a bit more pizzazz on the wrist.
One UI 6 Watch and smart features
Along with the rest of Samsung’s seventh-gen cohort, the Ultra is the first watch to receive the full benefits of the new Wear OS 5 update.
That sounds exciting, but, such is the solid nature of Google’s software platform these days, this has actually meant very little in the last two years. After all, third-party app support is thriving, battery efficiency has made a serious leap in the last year, and there are rarely performance jitters.
Instead, the more notable changes come from Samsung’s own One UI 6 Watch skin – even if, again, the upgrades aren’t anything too dramatic this time around.
Samsung made a big fuss about Galaxy AI when it was announced in January, but this doesn’t feel like a very AI-driven smartwatch experience – even with a powerful 3nm chip packed inside.
Instead, Galaxy AI exists solely in personalized wellness tips (for Samsung phones only) and the new Energy Score (more on this later) – both of which debuted in similar forms on other wearables years ago.
The other biggie coming in One UI 6 Watch – FDA-approved sleep apnea detection – also wasn’t something we could test, given the feature is still awaiting the green light in the UK.
While Google’s suite of services and smart feature stalwarts like LTE and contactless payments ensure this is a thoroughly smart experience, it’s also true that there’s nothing here that really excels past Apple’s watchOS, where insights are delivered with clearer context and the same novel features already exist.
There are also fewer head-scratching quirks on watchOS. For example, on the Ultra, we found that a phone connection is essential to view anything remotely in-depth on the watch. We left our phone at home on a couple of big outdoor ride tests and couldn’t actually review any data until we got back and synced, while our phone battery running out during a night’s sleep meant we couldn’t immediately view our sleep score or any sleep stages.
It’s not a dealbreaker, obviously, but it is still enough to confuse and annoy.
So while we wouldn’t necessarily criticize Samsung for adding things like the ‘Double Pinch’ gesture control – an inarguably very funny rebadging of Apple’s Double Tap released last year – we do wish there was more substance to One Watch UI 6 (and the features Samsung is catching up on) to make the Ultra stand out.
This is also compounded by non-Samsung phone users still having ECG and blood pressure monitoring features in the Health Monitor app fenced off.
With the Galaxy Ring also designed to work alongside the company’s watches, there’s never been a better time to be a Samsung phone owner. However, with this arrival and several core features requiring specific hardware, it remains a needlessly limiting ecosystem.
Activity tracking
While it may boast similar ruggedized specs to the Apple Watch Ultra, extreme sports and outdoor adventures aren’t really the core focus of Samsung’s effort.
Instead of trying to create a dive watch alternative, Samsung is instead – wisely, we think – choosing to buff up the profiles here of what you’ll find on something like the Galaxy Watch 7.
So, while the regular smartwatch is only rated for pool swimming, the Ultra’s 10ATM certification makes it a great fit for open water as a bonus.
Functional Threshold Power (FTP) for cyclists is finally on the wrist, too, with Samsung promising to use AI to make this otherwise difficult sustained effort a breezy, four-minute outdoor test.
However, spoiler alert: this is both relatively accurate and a total mess in its current form. If you do happen to find your power meter in the Samsung Health app, you’ll likely be treated to a spotty connection. Ours disconnected on two separate occasions when trying to get our initial FTP figure.
Plus, even once your wattage and power zones have been established, none of this data is displayed on your watch (or synced over to Strava), which feels like a huge miss.
We’ll try and pull together an explainer on this feature over the coming weeks, given we’ve spent hours trying to decipher how to get it working correctly for this review, but be aware that this is by no means as simple as Samsung made out during its lengthy explainer on stage.
The advanced running metrics are, at least, a bit more straightforward. Post-run, there are insights such as asymmetry (right/left balance), contact time, flight time, regularity, and verticality – all of which roughly matched up with our Garmin’s data.
Away from features, both the heart rate and dual-frequency GPS accuracy perform very well against the class-leading Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) in all three core disciplines.
Heart rate averages were always within 1BPM of the Garmin, and it only suffered one maximum HR spike throughout testing (and even this was brief enough to affect the average to any significant degree).
The story with the GPS is similar. Generally, it tended to lag around 50 meters (0.03 miles) behind the Garmin for every 10km tracked – easily within a healthy range of discrepancy, and impressive considering the price difference.
The GPS tracking worm does perhaps show how this occurs, too, with Garmin’s line incredibly tight on corners (as shown) while Samsung’s tends to track in straighter lines.
If Samsung can iron out some of the kinks in the software, the Ultra is very recommendable as a workout partner and sports watch alternative. We’re not sure anybody needs a separate exercise profile for bicep curls, though, as Samsung would have you believe.
Health and sleep tracking
With a fresh lick of paint, an updated BioActive sensor, and a few new insights thrown into the Samsung Health app, the Ultra promises to be a veritable monitoring powerhouse on paper.
The two new flashy additions are ‘Energy Score’ (previously launched as My Vitality Score) and the AGEs Index, with existing features like body composition analysis, blood oxygen, cycle tracking, and all-day stress monitoring joined by Samsung phone exclusives (ECG and blood pressure monitoring).
Generally, we’d say that the health tracking experience offers great breadth that isn’t necessarily matched in accuracy. No metric is drastically out of sync with our baselines from Oura Gen 3, Whoop 4.0, or the aforementioned Garmin, but some quirks hold the Ultra back from being in the elite bracket of health monitors.
Body composition analysis, for example, is still inconsistent. Some readings will show body fat percentage at 17%, for example, while another reading taken immediately will tag this at 20%. For reference, our Withings Body Scan and Fitbit Aria 2 smart scales have us at around 14.5-15%, and not once did the Ultra get into this range.
The Ultra’s overnight blood oxygen reading, too, was the only one of four wearable test devices to show sub-95% (and sub-90%) measurements consistently.
And at a time when the likes of Whoop and Oura are also pioneering new and inventive ways to present stress monitoring to users, this feels a bit of an afterthought on the Ultra. You’ll have to manually toggle this to track all day, for a start, and you won’t receive any kind of prompts or feedback to help you grasp the effects of your day.
AGEs Index
That updated BioActive sensor on the Ultra will see a cornucopia of LEDs shining on your wrist – red, green, blue, yellow, and violet – all in pursuit of tracking something called advanced glycation end products (AGEs).
Samsung says these are strongly influenced by your diet and lifestyle, with AGEs providing a window into your overall metabolic health – and, though not explicitly mentioned, these are often used as a risk marker for diabetes and strokes in blood tests.
The problem here is that the readings are incredibly vague.
You’re left to assume that a higher figure (a figure that’s not explicitly defined) is worse, and no readily available feedback is there to help you work on getting this figure trending in a better direction – or explaining how long such a process might take.
It’s a good idea, but it needs plenty of refinement before it’s anything close to half useful.
Energy Score
One trend I’m glad to see Samsung jump on is the daily readiness-style scores, which take a ton of otherwise extraneous data points from your recent tracking (sleeping averages, previous day activity, overnight HRV, etc.) and pressure cook them into a more digestible metric.
At Wareable, we still think Whoop is the gold standard for matching our personal readiness ‘feel’ on stuff like this, but it’s also true that each brand’s interpretation is slightly different here.
Garmin, for example, puts plenty of weight into your training load and emphasizes your readiness to get back out and exercise, while Samsung appears to lean much more into your sleep to deliver this score, as we’ve seen with Oura.
Given I have pretty consistent sleep, I haven’t found it to be overly sensitive or interesting to look at – with almost every score hovering between 75-80/100 – but this is, at least, much more thought out than the AGEs Index.
There are clear scoring markers, personalized feedback, breakdowns of factors, and graphs of sleeping averages – all of which help you feel Samsung has quality-tested this one to a decent extent.
Sleep monitoring
Samsung has built up a good pedigree in sleep tracking over the last couple of generations, and it’s one of the bright spots of the Ultra.
Asleep/wake times were always within 5-10 minutes of our other test devices, meaning the resulting feedback was all reliable, and there are graphs on skin temperature, breathing rates, snoring (if you have your phone nearby), and sleep stages – as well as sleep coaching – if you want to dive deep and improve sleep.
I think Samsung could go further by incorporating Galaxy AI in future updates, but the sleep tracking is both comprehensive and accurate – and, unlike other platforms, you don’t have to pay extra to see it all.
With its groundbreaking sleep apnea detection on offer in certain locations, too, sleep tracking on the Ultra is right up there in terms of features.
Battery life
While it’s tempting to judge the Ultra’s battery life against ‘proper’ sports watches from Garmin and company, it’s important to remember this is essentially just a supercharged smartwatch. Thus, you’re simply looking at above-average staying power, not elite.
The charging equation is fairly straightforward with the Ultra: you’ll be charging it every other day unless you hammer the GPS tracking for a few hours, in which case it will need a top-up.
This is pretty much what we found with the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro a couple of years back, which features the same 590mAh battery unit as the Ultra.
While that’s all above board, we’ve still found the Ultra a pretty unpredictable watch battery to predict. Despite testing under the same settings throughout many cycles – such as having the always-on display enabled and features like all-day stress tracking toggled on – the life has ranged from 35-55 hours.
We would typically attribute fluctuations like this to heavy GPS tracking or cellular use, but that’s not the case here. One 30-minute outdoor ride, for example, only sapped 2% of battery, while an hour-long one on the same route took 12%.
It’s the same during sleep. Most nights with Bedtime Mode enabled see the battery drain around 25%, though only 15% has disappeared on a couple of occasions.
Again, this often doesn’t massively change how you use the Ultra – you’re always thinking of when your next charge will happen with smartwatches like this – but it is frustrating that you’re not able to predict the drain with confidence.
And slow-ish charging – generally taking over an hour to trickle from 10% to 100% – means it’s not a case of just chucking it on for 10-15 minutes and being good to go for a full day/night of sleep tracking. Doing that will generally only get you an extra 10%.
We often see battery drain irregularities like this get ironed out with software updates, but we’ll keep an eye on this in further testing over the coming few months to double-check.
We should also note that the redesigned BioActive sensor means the Ultra isn’t capable of reverse charging from your Samsung phone, which, while not a feature I put much stock into, is a bit of a shame to lose from a novelty perspective.
You can, though, still plug the Ultra’s charger into your phone if you’re really desperate.
