I’ve always said that smartwatches are smartwatches are smartwatches. Now, don’t get me wrong—they’re useful additions to a digital ecosystem (smartphone + watch + earbuds + laptop for some people), but that’s just it. Smartwatches complement a smartphone’s practicality, but all of them function more or less the same: alert for notifications, fitness tracking, health tracking, sleep tracking, and maybe some allow for cashless payments.
So, to me, smartwatches are one of the few tech devices where aesthetics matter more than performance. Mostly because once you’ve seen one smartwatch, you’ve seen it all; secondly because watches are first and foremost a fashion accessory, so you want it to look nice.
The Samsung Galaxy Ultra both succeeds and fails in this regard. It’s not the sleekest smartwatch around—probably one of the bulkiest, to be honest—but it’s also weirdly nice-looking in a rugged way. Just hear me out.
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Jennifer chevron_right
Table of Contents
Design & Build
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is clearly made for the outdoors. It’s completely different from Samsung’s regular Galaxy Watches design-wise, with a round watch face housed in a squarish “case”, so it’s both round and square at the same time. Like I said, weirdly nice-looking.
If I thought that the Galaxy Watch6 Classic last year was bulky, it really doesn’t hold a candle to the Galaxy Watch Ultra. It’s one of the heaviest and bulkiest smartwatches I’ve seen and looks absolutely ridiculous on me. Granted, it would probably look better on someone with more muscles in their wrist, but here we are.
Disappointingly, the physical rotating bezel has been overlooked again this year. It’s not present on the Galaxy Watch Ultra or the Galaxy Watch7, which was also launched at the same time. There is the ever-present touch bezel, but it’s a bit irritating to use, as it’s hard to stop “rotating” without actual tactile feedback. Honestly, it’s finicky at best and more of a gimmick than an actually useful feature.
Then again, the Galaxy Watch Ultra now has three buttons. The top and bottom buttons are your typical smartwatch buttons, serving as the back/power buttons and home buttons respectively. The special button, though, the one that makes the Galaxy Watch Ultra an Ultra, is the one in the middle.
This button is named the Quick Button (because Action Button is already taken, I guess), and is highly customizable to make the Galaxy Watch Ultra even more practical. You can assign various functions to the button for quick access, including launching a workout, activating the flashlight, or triggering the safety siren. This is possibly my favourite feature on the Galaxy Watch Ultra, as it provides a quick way to access what I need without having to fumble with the touchscreens.
Display
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra boasts a 1.5-inch display, which is pretty large for a smartwatch. Incidentally, it has the same type of screen as the Galaxy Watch7: Super AMOLED, Sapphire Crystal, 480x480px, and up to 3,000 nits of brightness, which is all on par for a watch made for the extreme outdoors.
We didn’t exactly put the Galaxy Watch Ultra through the wringer, but does seem very durable just based on the heft alone. We’ve also dropped it a few times for content’s sake—the screen is perfectly fine, with no visible scratches that we can tell.
I do like the vibrant-ness and responsiveness of the touchscreen. The touch response is quick and relatively accurate, even when the screen is slightly wet.
Performance & Features
For all that I said about aesthetics, the Galaxy Watch Ultra is still a pretty robust smartwatch with plenty of Samsung’s tiptop wearable technology. Powered by the same 3-nanometer processor found in the Galaxy Watch7, it includes heart rate, ECG, blood oxygen readings, and body composition analysis, providing a lot more health data than most other smartwatches out there on the market.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra is packed with features aimed at fitness enthusiasts. It includes the latest health-tracking metrics, such as Multisport tile and Functional Threshold Power (FTP) biking metrics. Most significantly, the Galaxy Watch Ultra now comes with Galaxy AI. First seen on the flagship Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy AI provides more actionable data, including Energy Score, Advanced Sleep Tracking, and Wellness Tips.
The first three are not particularly hard to understand, and are pretty useful too: Energy Score analyses your daily activities including activity levels, sleep quality, and other health metrics to measure your overall energy levels throughout the day and give you a score,
Sleep tracking is sleep tracking, and provides deeper insight into your sleep pattern, though I found wearing the Galaxy Watch Ultra to sleep actually made my sleep worse because I kept feeling the bulk on my wrist. I had to take it off in the middle of the night for fear of giving myself a black eye, so unfortunately, I wasn’t able to test the sleep-tracking feature thoroughly.
The gesture control is another new addition that I found really great. Basically, you can perform simple controls on the Galaxy Watch Ultra using hand gestures without touching the watch, such as playing/pausing music by double pinching your middle finger and thumb, or scrolling through notifications by flicking your wrist.
One thing to note is that the Galaxy Watch Ultra, like most of Samsung’s new wearables, are not compatible with iOS devices. I had no issue with connecting the smartwatch with my HONOR Magic V2, though a lot of the more advanced features, like ECG readings, sleep apnea detection, and irregular heart rhythm notifications are only available if you’re connected to Samsung Galaxy devices.
Battery
Battery life is one area where the Galaxy Watch Ultra excels. With up to 100 hours of battery life in Power Saving mode and around 48 hours with continuous GPS tracking, it lasts quite long compared to its predecessors or even the Galaxy Watch7.
That said, it doesn’t really last the weekend, unfortunately, especially if you’re actively using the watch, so you can’t just leave your charger at home for your hiking trip either (speaking from experience).
If you’re into rugged outdoor adventures and need a smartwatch that can keep up, the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is a solid choice. Yes, it’s bulky, but it’s also packed with features that make it a great smartwatch for the adventurous.
Then again, if you’re looking for something more subtle and sleek, the Galaxy Watch Ultra might be a little too much. You might want to consider its brother the Galaxy Watch7 instead, which packs the same display and processor, albeit with a smaller battery life and without the ultra-durable case.