I don’t consider the Apple Watch Ultra 2 to objectively be the best Apple Watch, but it is my new favorite. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the Apple Watch is the best smartwatch for iPhones; there are several tiers, from the entry-level Apple Watch SE and up. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is for fitness lovers, who will make use of the larger, more rugged design.
The Apple Watch Series 9 is just as premium, and more stylish if you get the stainless steel model. It’s all about what the best means to you.
For me, I just went from a stainless steel Apple Watch Series 7 to the Apple Watch Ultra 2, and I am not looking back. The big screen means more complications on the watch face, and the titanium build means that it’s lighter than it should be for its size. I also get a full two days of battery life from it, so I’ve actually been tracking my sleep instead of leaving my watch on the charger overnight.
I’ve been an Apple Watch user since the original, owning that and the Series 2, Series 4, Series 5, Series 7, and now Ultra 2. It’s an accessory that’s a staple to my daily life. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 takes it to the next level.
About this review: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 was purchased by Rich Woods for personal use.
Apple Watch Ultra 2
Great for fitness
$780 $799 Save $19
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the latest top-tier smartwatch from Apple, powered by the S9 chipset and featuring a super-bright display.
- Heart Rate Monitor
- Yes
- Battery Life
- Up to 36 hours
- Operating System
- watchOS 10
- Onboard GPS
- Yes
- Case Material
- Titanium
- Case size
- 49mm
- Colors
- Natural
- CPU
- Apple S9
- Storage
- 64GB
- Health sensors
- Blood oxygen sensor, electrical heart sensor, third-generation optical heart sensor, temperature sensor high-g accelerometer, high dynamic range gyroscope
- Strap size
- 3 available straps
- Weight
- 61.4g
- Brightness
- 3000 nits
- Water resistance
- 100m
- Over two days of battery life
- Larger screen is useful
- Apple Watch is best for iPhones
- Apple Fitness+ is amazing
- Bulky and heavy
- Not as pretty as stainless steel
Apple Watch Ultra 2: Price and availability
Announced at Apple’s September event alongside the iPhone 15 series, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is available now for $799. Unlike the regular Apple Watch, there’s only one configuration. It comes with a titanium chassis, a 49mm screen size, and 4G LTE connectivity.
The Apple Watch Series 9 is the other new entry to the pack, and that’s also available now. It comes in aluminum and stainless steel frames, which start at $399 and $699, respectively, and it comes in two sizes, 41mm and 45mm. 4G LTE is optional on the aluminum one.
Design and display
It’s big, but it’s also titanium
If you’ve never used an Apple Watch before, this product isn’t for you. The company has three tiers of the product, four if you count aluminum and stainless steel as two. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the biggest, and it’s the one that looks radically different from the rest. The casing is made out of titanium, which is strong but also light enough to offset some of the extra weight caused by the larger chassis and battery.
It weighs in at 61.4g, which isn’t a big difference if you came from the stainless steel 45mm model, which is 51.5g. The aluminum models are significantly lighter, at around 39g for the 45mm variant.
Still, it doesn’t seem to feel heavy in day-to-day usage, although to be fair, I’ve always been a stainless steel loyalist. It does feel big at times, and as you can guess, it feels very big to wear to sleep.
That brings me to what feels like the biggest design change from a standard Apple Watch: the housing around the side button and Digital Crown. Neither button is completely flush with the housing, but it does a great job of making it harder to press by accident. Depending on how you wear your Apple Watch, those buttons are probably facing toward your hand, so when doing something like push-ups, you don’t have to worry about pressing the button, given bulkier chassis.
The housing around the buttons is a smart way of making sure they don’t accidentally get pressed.
There’s also an Action button on the other side, which is orange. Side rant: It’s annoying that Apple has decided on orange as the accent color for the Apple Watch Ultra series. Not everyone likes that color.
The Action button is customizable; I use it to launch the Workout app. Unlike the new Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro series, you just have to press the button rather than hold it, and there’s no alternative functionality available, such as a double-press.
The bottom of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is made out of ceramic, and that’s where you can attach the wireless charging puck. And yes, it’s the same wireless charger that Apple has used with every Apple Watch it’s ever made, contrary to Google, which changed up the charging mechanism on the Pixel Watch 2. Wireless charging is superior as well. I’ve used a lot of watches and fitness bands that have pin charging, and if you’re active and sweat, those pins get dirty, and you’ll find yourself having to clean them from time to time. Apple Watch doesn’t have that problem.
I do love the bigger screen, which is now brighter with this generation. Peak brightness is 3000 nits, according to Apple and something I absolutely did not test. It also gets all the way down to 1 nit, and what’s neat is that the new Modular Ultra watch face comes with a night mode, turning the content red in dim lighting. Modular Ultra is definitely my favorite watch face, for what it’s worth, thanks to the fact that it supports up to seven complications.
Apple Fitness+
It changes everything, at least for me
I’ve been a subscriber to Apple Fitness+ since the day it launched in December 2020, and I am not exaggerating when I say that it has changed my life. I’ve always been interested in ways to supplement a fitness tracker with something actionable.
Apple Fitness+ is not the only solution for guided workouts. Huawei built guided workouts into its Watch Fit series, although that’s just step-by-step stuff. A proper competitor to Apple Fitness+ is Peloton, a service I also use once in a while when I find myself sporting a Wear OS watch. Still, I always pick Apple Fitness+, and it’s what keeps me tied to Apple’s mobile products.
The first Fitness+ workout I did back in 2020 was a 30-minute walking treadmill workout. I figured, I walk all over the place, and it shouldn’t be a problem. I was ready to give up after 15 minutes. It was right around that 15-minute mark that the Fitness+ trainer pointed out how huge it is to take on a 30-minute workout, so I powered through it.
Fast-forward to today. I justified the $800 expense of an Apple Watch Ultra 2 because Apple Fitness+ has made such a difference in my life. I find those guided workouts to be super motivational. I have my favorite trainers that I use for treadmill, strength, core, Pilates, yoga, HIIT, and even guided meditations.
The price of an Apple Watch Ultra 2 was worth it to me because Apple Fitness+ had already made such a meaningful difference in my life.
I run pretty regularly now, something I never thought I’d be able to do in my entire life after being a smoker for about 25 years. I keep finding that I can push my body to do things it’s never been able to do before, and I credit that success to Apple Fitness+.
Back in April this year, my doctor told me that I have a fatty liver. You can Google this if you want (I sure did), but the only treatment is weight loss. Once again, I turned to Apple Fitness+ for training. I was 215 pounds, and three months later, I was 175 pounds.
To be clear, most of that weight loss comes from a much more balanced diet than I was used to. There was a lot that went into losing weight that’s beyond the scope of this article. Fitness was just one aspect of it.
But I didn’t just lose weight. I’m healthier. My resting heart rate went from 70BPM in March 2023 to 49BPM in August. I sleep better at night, every night. I don’t easily get too cold or too hot when I go out anymore (it gets a little weird when everyone around you is complaining about extreme temperatures, and you’re comfortable).
I attribute all of this to Apple Fitness+. I went from being a lazy ex-smoker that quite literally thought that it wasn’t possible to do any kind of extreme physical activity to being someone that can run a 10K.
This goes nicely with the Apple Watch Ultra 2, of course, as it’s designed to be the most rugged product in the lineup. With its bigger screen and lighter titanium chassis, it’s easy to view more data while still being comfortable to carry.
However, one thing to keep in mind is that the data being tracked is the same as it is on an Apple Watch Series 9. It’s just that this product is designed to be used in more extreme activities.
Apple Fitness+
Fitness+ provides Apple users with a wide variety of guided workouts, including Strength, HIIT, Yoga, Core, and more. The company adds new videos weekly, and the service works on Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.
Battery life
Sleep tracking almost makes sense
Apple is promising 36 hours of battery life, or 72 hours in “Low Power Mode.” These numbers are exactly double what the company is promising for the Apple Watch Series 9. Unsurprisingly, Apple is underpromising here. I used the Apple Watch Ultra 2 quite a bit, and I was never forced to charge it after 36 hours. At worst, I had to when I got close to 48 hours.
The battery life is to good that it changes how I use my watch.
I always charged it after 48 hours at the most, because sleep-tracking won’t work unless you have over 30% battery. There were indeed times when I had 20% or so left, but I’m reviewing a product, which means I’m sleep-tracking, which means I’m charging it up before bed.
I’d say the average battery life would land closer to 60 hours, and again, it was never less than 48 hours.
As for what I used it for to get the battery life that I did, it was mostly exercise with Apple Fitness+. Here’s a sample timeline that I logged:
- 11:22 p.m. (100%) — Took watch off charger, wore it to sleep
- 7:30 a.m. (92%) — Woke up
- 4:42 p.m. (75%) — Started workout
- 6:12 p.m. (70%) — Left gym
- 8:54 a.m. (48%) — Woke up
- 7:44 p.m. (26%) — Started workout
- 9:01 p.m. (22%) -—Left gym
- 11:00 p.m. (18%) — Placed on charger before bed
Personally, I’ve never been much for sleep-tracking, especially when it comes to Apple Watch, because I’ve always charged the watch at night. Now that a solid two days of battery life is realistic, it at least starts to make sense.
Double-tap
Thanks, I hate it
Now available with watchOS 10.1 and something that Apple spent a lot of time on during its keynote, double-tap lets you control bits of your Apple Watch Series 9 or Apple Watch Ultra 2 by tapping your fingers together twice. You can do it to pause or skip music, to cycle through Smart Stack widgets, interact with notifications, and more.
That’s pretty much all I know. I’ve been testing this since it’s been in beta, and waiting to file this review for the final update, to make sure I wasn’t missing anything big.
Frankly, it seems useless. It doesn’t seem to work particularly well either. It actually reminded me a bit of 3D Touch, when that launched with the iPhone 6s. It was like, here’s the new way you’ll be interacting with your phones, and then it never actually felt natural to do. It also didn’t help that you didn’t know what would pop up when you used 3D Touch, similar to how you don’t know what a double-tap will interact with. I was hoping that it would allow me to cycle through pages in the Workout app while running, but that doesn’t work. It just isn’t intuitive.
Should you buy the Apple Watch Ultra 2?
You should buy an Apple Watch Ultra 2 if:
- You’re extremely active
- You want something designed for being active, even if it sacrifices style
- You want a bigger and brighter screen for your Apple Watch
You should NOT buy an Apple Watch Ultra 2 if:
- You’re buying your first smartwatch
- You have small wrists
- You’re looking for style
The Apple Watch is the best smartwatch on the market, but the Apple Watch Ultra 2 isn’t necessarily the best Apple Watch. It’s definitely the biggest and the most fitness-oriented, but if you’re not using the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for its more rugged capabilities, or making use of the larger screen, you might be better off with the stainless steel Apple Watch Series 9. If you’re on a budget, you can check out the aluminum one. All of these products pretty much do the same thing, but smartwatches are extremely personal. What’s best for me might not be what’s best for you. For Rich Woods in 2023 who lost 40 pounds, it’s the Apple Watch Ultra 2. For Rich Woods in 2022 who wasn’t quite as active, it was a stainless steel Apple Watch.
Apple Watch Ultra 2
$780 $799 Save $19
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the latest top-tier smartwatch from Apple, powered by the S9 chipset and featuring a super-bright display.
Apple Fitness+
Fitness+ provides Apple users with a wide variety of guided workouts, including Strength, HIIT, Yoga, Core, and more. The company adds new videos weekly, and the service works on Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.
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