A few years ago, Apple showed its new watch for extreme sports. Of course, the Ultra is also suitable for ordinary people who wanted at least a bigger battery than the regular Watch. In contrast to its competitor, Samsung has released its watch — Samsung Watch Ultra. Today, in our review, we will understand whether it is worth buying for ordinary people who only want to go in for sports occasionally.
Content
| Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra | |
| Display | 1.5 inches, 480×480 pixels, 327ppi, Super AMOLED |
| Processor | Exynos W1000, 5-core (1×4) |
| Graphics adapter | Mali G68 |
| Memory | 2/32 GB |
| Modules and systems | 4G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, GPS (L1+L5), GLONASS, Galileo |
| OS | Android Wear OS 5, One UI Watch 6 |
| Protection | YES, IP68 |
| Battery | 590 mAh, 10 W charging |
| Body | Glass front and rear, titanium alloy sides |
| Dimensions | 47.4 x 47.4 x 12.1 mm |
| Weight | 60.5 grams |
The Samsung Watch Ultra comes in a rectangular black box with a clock pattern on the case.
Inside we see the device itself, the manual, the warranty, and a cable with magnetic charging and a USB Type-C connector.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra — is a round watch with a titanium case and a sapphire-ceramic cover. The dark design with orange elements hints at a sporty character. It looks interesting and unusual and can be confused with the main competitor.
On the front panel we see a round touchscreen with a non-rotating bezel protruding from it. On the left side are a speaker, a barometer, and a microphone. On the right side are three buttons for controlling the watch. At the bottom is the BioActive Sensor and a magnetic charging port.
The watch comes in only one size — 47 mm. It measures 47.4 x 47.1 x 12.1 mm and weighs 60.5 grams. Thanks to the IP68 standard and military certification MIL-STD-810H, the watch is protected against water (it can be submerged to a depth of 100 meters or 10 ATM for 10 minutes), scratches, drops, and shocks.
The set comes with a branded orange Marine Band strap, the size of which is 120-180 mm.
The review presents the Titanium Gray color version, the name of which does not correspond to the color scheme. Only the sides of the case are gray, but they are much darker. There are also Titanium Silver and Titanium White. All devices look interesting, but for a lesser degree of vulgarity, it is better to take the last two options.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra has a 1.5-inch color Super AMOLED touchscreen with a resolution of 480×480 pixels. The pixel density is 327 ppi. In all cases, there is a protective sapphire crystal on top. There is an Always-On Display function.
The screen is bright, and the images on it are detailed and pixel-free. That is, you can read even the smallest text without any problems.
The watch is easy to operate via the touch screen, and the additional three buttons enhance the user experience. The top key allows you to open the main dial (Home), while the bottom key is the familiar back key. The middle orange key is responsible for quickly launching a pre-recorded physical workout or other action. For example, launching a flashlight.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra has 32 GB of internal storage, which can be loaded with maps, screenshots, and songs. The device has App Store support, so you can download many programs or custom watch faces. Of course, you can listen to music through the built-in speaker. But its main purpose is to answer a call and hear the person on the other line.
Among the useful features are a light sensor, NFC module, gyroscope, barometer, and accelerometer. Unfortunately, the watch display takes over the flashlight function. The screen backlight should be enough for climbing stairs in the dark.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra supports GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO and BDS. Separately, I would like to note the combination of two frequency bands L1 and L5 for GPS, which increases the accuracy of the device’s location. The watch can guide the user along a GPS track, and it has a compass and altimeter.
The device has a separate LTE module. Thanks to it, you can add ESIM card data to the watch, so you can have separate Internet access on it.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra runs on Android Wear OS 5 with the One UI Watch 5 graphical shell. If you have already dealt with Samsung smartwatches, you won’t encounter any special problems. At the beginning of use, there are many usage tips to help you get started.
The device has many applications installed by default. For example, to avoid taking out your smartphone to calculate discounts in a store, you can run a calculator on the watch. There are no ads in the operating system.
The main «desktop» Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is the watch face, which can be selected and customized by yourself. Swiping from top to bottom activates the device control panel, where you can find settings, turn on/off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or the flashlight. Swiping from bottom to top opens the list of installed applications. Swipe from right to left to launch sports functions, while from left to right — the window with the latest notifications.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra connects to devices via the built-in Bluetooth 5.3 module and works with the proprietary Samsung Wearable application (Google Play).
This app is responsible for customizing the user interface: choosing watch faces, exercises, etc. So if you would rather not customize everything I described above on your smartphone screen, and not on the small display of your watch — use Wearable. It’s not hard to figure it out.
You can see all your health and fitness activities on the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra by swiping from right to left. There are many functions there, such as running, walking, swimming, exercising on an exercise bike, and more. The same menu also contains the ECG and heart rate.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra also adds a special orange button for a separate and quick start of exercises. First, you select the necessary sports, and then start one of them, the stopwatch and calorie loss counter start to go.
All the results of your activities or training are recorded in the Samsung Heath app (Google Play). This is a common app that helps you keep track of the statistics that your smartphone and watch collect about you. It shows you the results for different periods of time (day, week, month) and your workouts in them. However, some menus are not intuitively hidden. For example, I was able to find out what distance I covered yesterday. But I tried to find it a week later and failed.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is equipped with a 590 mAh battery. It supports 10 W charging. A full charge will take about 3-3.5 hours with a 20 W power supply or from a USB laptop. I couldn’t understand why it took so long until I plugged it into a voltmeter — the device accepts only 2-2.5 watts. Most likely, you need to buy an original Samsung power supply.
The declared battery life without AOD is up to 80 hours, and with Always-on-Display — enabled up to 60 hours. In my case, the watch lasted five days without AOD. Still, I didn’t wear it all the time (2 hours outside) and didn’t specifically connect it to my smartphone (Bluetooth was on). I used it as a separate device.
First, I need to tell you how I feel about the smartwatch class. I understand who needs them and I understand their purpose. But not in my application case. I don’t go in for sports and don’t use body weight calculators, etc. The distance traveled per day is perfectly calculated by the smartphone. And I can see the time on it.
Back in school, when digitalization as such did not exist, one wristwatch or phone per class of 20-30 people was the norm. And back then, yes, I needed them because I was the «timekeeper» of the class and told them how much time was left until the end of the class.
As time went on, more than 10 years have passed since I have not needed any watches. As you can imagine, I have no problem spending time taking my smartphone out of my pocket, which has become an All-In-One device. However, it should be noted that thanks to the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, I remembered those distant nostalgic times.
What can I say about the device itself? Overall, I enjoyed using it. I didn’t encounter any bugs. Yes, some things look a bit strange at first. For example, screenshots are taken using two keys (Back + Home). But the question is, where are they saved? Yes, the screenshots are stored on the watch and smartphone, which were transferred via Bluetooth.
Of course, I tried to connect the watch to my iPhone. Although they were paired, the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra did not display the connection to the smartphone. For obvious reasons, when I connected the Samsung S25, everything was displayed as it should be. However, when an incoming call came to the iPhone, the Watch Ultra showed the phone number and gave a vibration in the hand.
It was interesting to check the difference in the calculation of the distance traveled. The iPhone 15 shows 2.2 km, the Watch Ultra (I saw the data only in Samsung Health) — 1.6 km. To check the distance, I’ll use Google Maps and the built-in distance meter. It shows that the distance traveled is 1.8 km. Result: both showed wrong, but the watch was closer to the result.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra has a kind of theft protection. When you try to connect the watch to another smartphone, it offers to completely delete the data from it. Although both smartphones used the same Google account, when I reconnected via Bluetooth, I pressed delete and erased all the data on them. I hope that if you use the same Samsung account on both smartphones, the watch will not decide to delete everything. Be careful in this case.
What about the main orange button for launching sports modes? Some people really need it, but I put a flashlight on it. If you have to go somewhere without light around, the screen flashlight will definitely come in handy.
I tried to download the iOS version to my smartphone. I was unable to log in to my Samsung account using a Google ID. Why? The password code was incorrect, followed by a verification block via email. Even though I wrote the correct password, it took only three requests to block me.
The price of the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is UAH 24499. Not a bad price for a multifunctional watch with high specifications and made of quality materials. Especially against the background of the next contender.
The main competitor was mentioned at the beginning of the review — the Apple Watch Ultra 2nd generation for UAH 44799. Apple offers similar functionality, but the price is much higher. A competitor for a similar price is the Apple Watch 10 (UAH 21399). But the quality of materials and functionality is lower.
If you want a cheaper Ultra, but realize that you don’t want to overpay for extreme features or LTE, choose the Samsung Galaxy Watch7. Their price is 14999 UAH in 44 mm version.
A few months ago on review was a watch from the world famous Garmin brand — Fenix 8 (UAH 38999). Their price is much higher, but their autonomy is much higher.
