Apple Watch Ultra Series 2 Assessment: A Smartwatch That Stirs the Market Without Causing a Tsunami

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Key Takeaways

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 offers minor improvements over the original version, such as a faster chip and brighter screen, but it is difficult to differentiate between the two.
Current owners of the original Ultra may want to skip this upgrade, but iPhone owners without an Ultra looking for a large watch screen and long battery life should consider it.
The Ultra 2 has a bright display, long battery life, plenty of storage, and a helpful UWB 2 chip for iPhone 15 owners. The double-tap gesture is still to be determined.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 improves the original version in a few minor ways, but it doesn’t rock the boat for what it means to be a premium, rugged smartwatch. In fact, the ripples from this new watch are so subtle that even with a faster processing chip and a brighter screen, the Ultra 2 is hard to distinguish from last year’s model.

After using the original Ultra for the past year, I can safely say current owners should skip this upgrade. On the other hand, iPhone owners who don’t have an Ultra and are ready for the largest watch screen and the longest battery life should absolutely consider purchasing the Apple Watch Ultra 2.

Apple Watch Ultra 2

8/ 10

The most rugged and capable Apple Watch pushes the limits again. The Ultra 2 features the all-new S9 SiP, a magical new way to use your watch without touching the screen, and the brightest Apple display ever.

Heart Rate Monitor

Yes

Battery Life

36 hours rated, up to 72 hours

Operating System

watchOS 10

Onboard GPS

Yes

CPU

Storage

64GB

Connectivity

Wi-Fi and cellular

Mobile payments

Apple Pay

Workout detection

Yes

Screen size

49mm

Brightness

3,000 nits

Water resistance

100M

Fast charging

Yes

Water sensors

Depth and temperature

Body material

Titanium

Pros

Bright display
Long battery life
Plenty of storage
UWB 2 chip is helpful for iPhone 15 owners

Cons

No visible differences from first Ultra
Double-tap gesture TBD

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$799 at Apple $799 at Best Buy $771 at Amazon

The Design and Fit of the Apple Watch Ultra 2

Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek

You’re in luck if you liked the design of the original Ultra. The only color choice for the Ultra 2 is still natural titanium. The orange Action button is still present, too, along with the orange ring around the digital crown. Even underneath the watch, no markings indicate it’s the Ultra 2—that information is only found in software settings.

All of that simply means that anyone who waited out the first version or is now ready to upgrade an old Apple Watch can jump in without feeling like they missed anything.

While physical size is a personal preference, I still maintain that I think the Ultra’s (now Ultra 2) 49mm size should be useable by nearly all adults. You may not care for how it looks, but it should be fine to wear if you want its rugged or athletic features.

For this review, I picked the new Alpine Loop , which Apple states is a carbon-neutral band. It looked a little different in the pictures to me, but wearing the band felt almost identical to last year’s Alpine Loop band. The band has been fine, but it did soak up sweat and water and was hard to dry quickly. So I would recommend the rubber Ocean Band for running, swimming, or use during a shower.

What’s Actually New With the Ultra 2?

Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 not only looks the same as the first generation, it mostly functions the same, too. Here are the brand new features of the Ultra 2, compared to the original model.

64GB of storage (compared to 32GB before)
3,000 nits of brightness (compared to 2,000 nits previously)
S9 chip (versus the S8 chip)
Double Tap gesture
On-device Siri for health and fitness data
Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip (compared to the U1)

That combined list of new specs is more impressive in theory than in reality. Unless storage was a constant problem, I don’t think there’s a single feature that is a must-have over last year’s Ultra. Again, newcomers to the Ultra 2 will have just heaps of new abilities compared to whichever watch they previously used.

A few notes about the new features that I did experience as a year-over-year upgrader. The improved brightness was surprisingly less impactful than I imagined it would be. Going from 2,000 to 3,000 nits of brightness will probably make a difference in some circumstances, but I didn’t notice any of them.

Despite the S9 having 30% faster processing and double the neural cores (from two to four), I didn’t feel the speed in most day-to-day operations. The Apple Watch software has been tuned pretty well to never feel slow. Summoning Siri on-device for local watch tasks like setting a timer or starting a workout did seem to work a touch faster, which the new processing power enables.

The processing power will enable the double-tap gesture, but that has not been released yet. It’s coming by the end of 2023 and should be super useful, but I’m not sure if it can provide enough value to upgrade from the first Ultra watch.

Battery life is listed at the same 36 hours the original Ultra had. Based on my initial experiences, I fully expect that to hold true, if not increase ever so slightly. Amazing battery life is a major factor keeping me using an Ultra model.

Running With an Ultra 2

My fitness activity of choice is running. I’ve put over 1,000 miles on the original Apple Watch Ultra this past year. I’ve had the chance to put double digital miles on the Ultra 2 so far, and it performed like the last one.

I streamed Apple Music playlists while out on the road. I listened to podcasts using the Overcast app while running. I used the default Workouts app to track my runs. The watch hardware handled all those things without an issue.

I’m not crazy about the redesigned Workouts screens in watchOS 10, but that’s a software thing I’ll need to deal with rather than being Ultra 2 hardware-related.

watchOS 10 on Ultra 2

With the Apple Watch Ultra 2 comes a new watch face called Modular Ultra. It packs a lot of information onto the big screen. The Modular Ultra watch face has been great, but it’s not unique to the Ultra 2. First-generation owners get it, too. One more reason why upgrading almost certainly isn’t worth the cost.

Ultimately, watchOS 10 has worked fine on the Ultra 2. It spans all the way back to Series 5 owners and does a decent job of working on all those different watches.

Price and Availability

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is available now for $799 . All models have cellular connectivity, 64GB of storage, and a titanium frame. The choice comes down to picking one of three default Ultra 2 bands.

Should You Buy the Apple Watch Ultra 2?

Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the smartwatch to buy for adventurous iPhone owners. It’s the best Apple Watch in a lot of ways, not least of which is because of its outstanding battery life. If the large 49mm size doesn’t scare you away—which it shouldn’t—then this is the only smartwatch to consider.

The Apple Watch Ultra seemed to be extremely popular. I saw people wearing them all the time. It makes sense that Apple wants to give its premium, high-end smartwatch another year to fully blossom and see how far it can go before the company needs to really update it. The Ultra 2 isn’t for incessant upgraders but is a great choice for newcomers.

Apple Watch Ultra 2

8/ 10

Heart Rate Monitor

Yes

Battery Life

36 hours rated, up to 72 hours

Operating System

watchOS 10

Onboard GPS

Yes

CPU

Storage

64GB

Connectivity

Wi-Fi and cellular

Mobile payments

Apple Pay

Workout detection

Yes

Screen size

49mm

Brightness

3,000 nits

Water resistance

100M

Fast charging

Yes

Water sensors

Depth and temperature

Body material

Titanium

Expand

$799 at Apple $799 at Best Buy $771 at Amazon

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Apple Watch Ultra Series 2 Assessment: A Smartwatch That Stirs the Market Without Causing a Tsunami