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Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra review: How does this rugged smartwatch perform?
Summary
The Galaxy Watch Ultra is a good fit for outdoorsy users but most of its best features are reserved for Samsung smartphones
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch series has long been an easy go-to for folks with Android phones. But the more serious adventurers and athletes – the ones who swim, run, and hike - had only the likes of Garmin and Suunto.
That changes with the Galaxy Watch Ultra ( ₹59,999): Samsung’s first ruggedized, beast of a smartwatch.
For something that’s named the Watch Ultra, it’s hard not to compare it with the other category-defining Watch Ultra. There are many subtle (and some quite direct) nods to the competition, right from similar watch band styles to the customizable single-function quick button on the side and even similar gesture controls.
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After having used the Galaxy Watch Ultra, the suggestions (and all the memes) of it being a clone are greatly exaggerated.
Instead, it’s one of the most unique Wear OS wearables launched in recent times. Unique, and likely polarizing, with the circular display and bezel atop the squircle-shaped chassis, it has a look that doesn’t conform to smartwatch convention. With a 47mm titanium case, it’s expectedly large and unexpectedly lightweight. I’ve even found it comfortable enough for sleep tracking. You’ll certainly want to try one on for size.
Over the weeks of use, the high-end look has grown on me, and the Titanium Gray color is quite the looker (there’s a silver and a white as well).
Controls are familiar with the Home and Back buttons, and the quick button can be set to perform one from a set of predefined actions, but I really did miss the physically rotating bezel (a la the Watch 6 Classic) or crown. Sure, you can use the ‘touch bezel’ with the excellent haptic motor feedback, but it’s not the real thing.
The flip side is that it’s one less moving part, which gives the Watch Ultra its added ruggedness, including MIL-STD 810H military standard durability and operating ranges of -20°C and 55°C, up to an altitude of 9,000 meters. The 10ATM/100m deep IP68 dust-water resistance is an upgrade, though it’s oddly not recommended for high-pressure water activities and diving.
Slapping it on and going about my regular, non-adventurous day, the 3000 nits bright, 1.5-inch sapphire glass protected screen is excellent for the sunny outdoors.
Setup is a breeze, except you need to contend with three apps – Samsung Wearable (for pairing), Health (for activity data) and Health Monitor (for ECG data). Wear OS 5 runs snappily on the new Exynos W1000 chip. Apps open quickly and there is no lag when navigating the interface or interacting with some of Samsung’s new data-rich watch faces.
Notably, the new chip helps deliver respectable battery life. Even with the always-on display enabled and a full day’s worth of phone notifications coupled with plenty of activity and sleep tracking, one saw the Galaxy Watch Ultra last close to 48 hours on one charge. You can push it further with a power saving mode, but when it does come down to charging the watch, the bundled wireless charger takes nearly two hours to top it up completely.
Sensors wise, this thing is loaded, with a new BioActive (or bioelectrical impedance analysis sensor for assessing BMI, lean muscle mass etc) sensor, blood pressure and ECG sensors, temperature sensors and dual frequency GPS (for more accurate outdoor tracking, particularly in dense urban jungles), aside from built-in LTE connectivity. Safety features abound, with fall detection and a loud 86db siren if you’re stuck in the wilderness or a bad neighborhood.
Activity is tracked on three key goals – your motion/activity, time and calories burned. There’s an exhaustive list of exercises (including hiking, swimming, treadmills, ellipticals) and a new multi-sport mode for folks who regularly attempt triathlons.
Exercise tracking is on point as well, lining up near identical numbers with both the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and an older Garmin I had on hand. Make sure you pick the exercise when you start, since the automatic workout tracking is a bit of a hit and miss.
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Sleep tracking is great too, with detailed insights on sleep stages, restfulness, blood oxygen levels, heart rate variability, and skin temperature. If you wear it while sleeping often enough, the watch also calculates a personalized AGEs index to gauge metabolic health.
All of this comes together in your daily Energy Score, which uses sleep data and previous day activity levels to give you a score on a 1 to 100 scale, indicating your readiness for the day, and save for the odd day, this was a fairly accurate measure of how I felt starting my day. In the spirit of AI everything, the energy score is powered by Galaxy AI, as is the smart reply feature while responding to your messages.
But Samsung has reserved some of the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s best features for Samsung phones – ECG monitoring, irregular heart rate notifications are only available on the Health Monitor app, which is exclusive to Samsung devices. Other features like remote camera shutters and Do Not Disturb syncing also work with only Samsung devices.
In and of itself, the Galaxy Watch Ultra is in a class of its own. Even as it feels like it’s following in the footsteps of Apple’s homonymic alternative, I don’t expect outdoorsy WearOS-loving users, or even regular folks looking for a big, bold wearable for their wrists, caring much about that. Just be sure you really need the added ‘Ultra’ features to justify paying the higher asking price.
Tushar Kanwar, a tech columnist and commentator, posts @2shar.
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