Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra Review
We finally have an Android Apple Watch Ultra
It was only a matter of time until Samsung matched their tech rival in the premium smartwatch market. The Galaxy Watch Ultra is not only huge in a physical sense, but it also packs in the most technology Samsung has ever put into a watch. That also means that this watch comes with the highest price tag out of all of Samsung’s wearables. Months later, I continue to wear this thing on my wrist religiously and found myself quite happy with it.
Purchase Price: $649.99
Effortless Change
Samsung’s new proprietary watch band connector makes changing bands so easyLook and Feel
I’ve been dying for an Android version of an Apple Watch Ultra since that product first came out. There’s something absolutely alluring about a premium smartwatch from one of the top tech companies in the world. So let's talk about looks first and foremost. The Ultra is made out of titanium and is meant to be a durable companion in an active environment. That means it’s got to be sturdy and able to withstand a few hits from tables or doors. The display itself is made from sapphire crystal. Those are all of the marketing terms we’re looking for in a premium smartwatch so Samsung does have that covered.
When I initially saw the press images of the watch from the announcement event, I wasn’t sold on the look. The touchscreen itself is in a traditional Galaxy Watch round format, but it’s placed on top of a squarish body. If you look at it from the top down, the Watch Ultra appears to have a huge bezel compared to lower Galaxy Watch trims. It’s as if Samsung wanted to make an Apple Watch Ultra clone but didn’t want the reputation of copying their competitors, yet still somehow ended up with an Apple-esque roundish square appearance. If you’re someone who is acquainted with seeing the Apple Watch Ultra (which has been out for a couple of years), then the Galaxy Watch Ultra does appear a bit funky.
Fortunately, I wasn’t bothered by the similarities to the Apple design as I do find that watch to be attractive. What I am somewhat disappointed with Samsung is how they were intent on keeping a round watchface, yet removed their signature rotating bezel controls on the Ultra. What’s the point of the round watch face on a square body if there’s no special function coming from it? While you can still use your finger to rotate around the rim of the display to simulate the functionality of the rotating bezel, it’s not nearly as effective or satisfying to operate in this manner. The color contrasts of the Quick Button and the hour markers do give the design some aesthetic points that apply to the sporty feel of the Ultra. Still, it just feels like there were conflicting design choices here on Samsung’s Ultra that refuses to define a clear direction in which the designers wanted to take this product line.
From a durability standpoint, I wear the watch without a case or screen protector and have accidentally banged it against a door or wall as I’m walking. The titanium casing feels expensive and durable, but I’ve already gathered some indentations on the body from everyday usage. While the Ultra is on the larger side at 47mm, it surprisingly felt comfortable on my smaller wrist. I didn’t have wrist fatigue wearing this for essentially 23 hours a day.
Performance
As far as performance goes, the Ultra is as snappy as smartwatches get thanks to an Exynos W1000 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage for apps. The animations moving from one tile to another on Samsung’s One UI 6.0 skinned over Wear OS 5.0 makes the entire wearable experience feel refined. I don’t think anyone will ever get annoyed operating this watch as it is now. There’s just not a lot out there that’s a better smartwatch experience.
The interface layout is consistent with other Samsung or Android smartwatches. Swiping from the top down will bring out the quick settings menu. Swiping from the left will show the push notifications from the apps. Swiping from the bottom up will bring up the application drawer. And finally swiping from the right will cycle through the rest of the information tiles that can be customized to the user’s liking.
I have my health related tiles and the body battery information as my front tiles for easy access, but there’s plenty of opportunities to include things like weather, calculator, and essentially everything you possibly need at a glance. I was excited to see even a water consumption tile on here! That was something I sorely missed leaving the Garmin infrastructure to review Fitbit products last year. Overall, Samsung’s wearable UI design is well refined now after so many iterations and products that I can earnestly recommend it to every single type of user.
There’s a Quick Button flanked between a Home, and Back button on the right frame of the Ultra. All three of these control buttons are programmable in one manner or another, but the Quick Button is the one that Samsung highlights as a gateway into Samsung Health. That’s what I have mine set to launch with a short press.
Health
That segments us into the Samsung Health functionality and the way the Ultra logs activities. Samsung does have a large library of physical activities that log data, many of which begin tracking automatically. Through an array of sensors like a built-in accelerometer, blood oxygen monitor, a heart rate sensor, and a temperature sensor, the Ultra is positioned well to accurately track physical activities.
I had the Ultra on my wrist during strength training and found that logging my reps and sets to be slightly a nuisance to record. It wasn’t necessarily intrusive, but having a voice guiding someone to proceed through their sets may work better for some over others depending on their training regime.
For the most part, the overall tracking capabilities seem to operate well within the boundaries of what is acceptable. Occasionally I found some inaccuracies with my step count that probably had correlation with other physical activities my watch hand was currently doing. However, even the biggest pedometer discrepancies are within a tolerable range of error when compared to other modern pedometers I currently utilize. At the end of the day, I did find the Galaxy Ultra to be trustworthy enough to rely on for valid numbers. One would hope that would be the case for a premium health tracking option at this price tag.
Battery
Battery longevity that bridges the gap between a fitness band and a full blown smartwatch seems to still be the bane of many people’s purchase decisions. The Samsung Watch Ultra may carry an Ultra name, but that doesn’t mean it’s a plus in the battery life department. With the always-on display turned on, I averaged about 2 days and some change off one charge. That’s not too bad by smartwatch comps, but that’s also not the top of the range longevity that you would hope a high priced smartwatch could reach.
For all of the refinement in user experience that Samsung has given the Galaxy Watch Ultra, it doesn’t necessarily outdo watches by Garmin which runs laps (figuratively) around the Ultra in survival. Keep in mind that in order to fully utilize the body battery measurements, the user should be wearing the Ultra to sleep with them. A good night’s rest will knock out about 20% of the battery life.
That means that while my watch was able to push more than 50 hours off one charge, it wasn’t a linear path for battery management. Realistically the Watch Ultra with everything functioning as intended will fit into my lifestyle for less than two days. I have to charge the watch while I shower and before I fall asleep in order to track my sleeping habits. If I don’t charge it prior to that night’s sleep session, my watch will be nearing 0% in the middle of my work day. I don’t carry the magnetic charging puck with me as I typically leave it plugged by my nightstand. The watch is useless if it powers off and dies in the middle of the day. As such, no one truly runs their battery life numbers to the max in real life usage. So while the Watch Ultra can technically almost make it to 3 days on paper, it realistically will safely get through only two.
App Support
The biggest separator between a legitimate smartwatch and less useful ones rest solely on app support. The benefits of Samsung’s infrastructure correlate to the usefulness of the watch because of its ties to Google and the Android Play Store. There are plenty of beneficial mainstream apps that are controllable through the Ultra.
What sadly doesn’t apply to the Ultra are third-party watch faces. As of publishing of this article, apps like Facer which change the watch face and allows users to customize the appearance of their watch, are no longer compatible with Samsung’s newest product. That might have less to do with Samsung’s software capabilities and more of a Google policy change from my understanding. Still, from the customizability standpoint, this new generation of Android smartwatches will be significantly different than the older ones.
For the most part, I’m left with using the OEM watch faces provided by Samsung. They’re surprisingly decent to look at and aesthetically pleasing. The amount of flexibility for customizing the information on the home screen is a major benefit for wearers who want to easily access their health information. I do think Samsung has done a good job at cleanly providing you with the information you want to see at a glance.
final thoughts
The Galaxy Watch Ultra is without a doubt the closest in user experience to an Apple Watch that is compatible with Android phones. I don’t think it’s the best fitness tracker, or the most useful smartwatch ever made, but it is nonetheless a terrific smartwatch that buyers seeking a premium timepiece in the smartwatch space can appreciate.
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