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Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: One minute review
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 might look much the same as last year’s Galaxy Watch Ultra, but it feels very different to wear thanks to Samsung’s efficiency savings. A 12% slimmer titanium body and a lighter band (that remains the same size) mean the watch weighs less as an overall package and has better lockdown onto your wrist, so it doesn’t move around as much during strenuous exercise.
It’s got a new chipset under the hood: the AI-capable Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear Elite, which, Samsung says, offers 32% faster CPU and 19% faster GPU performance compared to last year’s model. It’s launching with three new bands, new wellness features like Vital and Heart Health, and all the usual smartwatch goodies like notifications, call accept/reject, digital wallet and third-party app support. The Ultra comes with LTE capabilities as standard to add the watch to your phone’s data plan, and new fitness tools tailor-made for adventurers, including trail running features with GPX routes, a Daily Cardio Load metric, mid-activity hydration alerts, professional-level diving certifications and — soon — a dedicated diving app.
Fortunately for them (but perhaps unfortunately for Samsung) adventurers find themselves spoiled for choice these days between the Apple Watch Ultra 3, the best Garmin watches, and challengers from brands such as Coros, Polar and Amazfit. The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 may be good in a vacuum, with excellent health and fitness features, but it’s fighting for space amid a crowd of exceptional wearables. Ultimately, it’s the best Galaxy Watch ever from a specs perspective, and does everything you expect a smartwatch to do (and several things you might not expect); but it’s also expensive, big and bulky. I do wonder how many Samsung users will opt for this over either the much cheaper Galaxy Watch9 or, at the other end of the scale, a chunky specialist tool such as the Garmin Fenix 8 if they’re really interested in wilderness exploration.
It’s fast, it’s accurate (albeit with some niggles — see the Performance section below for more details), it’s got the brightest screen of any smartwatch, on-device Gemini capabilities, and is packed with enough features to make any smartwatch aficionado happy. It’s a terrific gadget, and if you’re a Samsung user who wants the best native watch for your phone’s ecosystem, this is it. But if you’re buying it for trails and routes, Garmin does this better, and with far better battery endurance, albeit with a less robust AI-powered interface for all your communication features.
Watch On
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: Specifications
|
Component |
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 |
|
Price |
$699.99 / $649 |
|
Dimensions |
47mm: 47.4 x 47.1 x 10.7mm |
|
Weight |
61g |
|
Caze/bezel |
Titanium |
|
Display |
498 x 498 Super AMOLED |
|
Operating System |
One UI Watch 9 (Wear OS 7) |
|
Processor |
Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear Elite |
|
Memory |
2GB of RAM |
|
Storage |
64GB storage |
|
GPS |
(L1+L5 Dual Frequency GPS) |
|
Battery life |
Up to 60 hours with always-on display |
|
Connection |
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE |
|
Water resistance |
WR100 (diveproof) |
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: Price and availability
- $699.99 in the US
- £649 in the UK
- AU TBC
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 is priced at $699.99 / £649, with AU pricing TBC. This is actually a small increase of $50 / £50 in the UK over the launch price of the original Watch Ultra, likely due to the escalating price of electronics components.
While it’s still relatively competitively priced compared to the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and premium Garmins such as the Garmin Forerunner 970, it’s certainly on the higher end of the smartwatch price scale; but then again, this is a higher-end smartwatch.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: Design
- 12% slimmer, but still quite bulky
- Titanium squircle cushion
- Strap is 25% lighter
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 iterates on the titanium squircle case design we first saw on the original Ultra, which Samsung calls a ‘cushion’, and which has since become a staple of the entire Galaxy Watch range. Housed within this body is the circular display, which is, according to Samsung…
The cushion incorporates new innards, including a larger 800mAh battery and a new Snapdragon Wear Elite processor. Despite the upgrades, the chassis is actually 12% slimmer than the original Watch Ultra’s, which is really a blessing, as that watch was a real beast. The cushion shape looks bulbous, but while it’s still a big watch that’s unsuitable for small wrists, it’s now better suited to a slightly wider variety of wrists than 2024’s enormous cuboid.
Couple this with the bands being 25% lighter this year, and the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 has had a serious size and weight reduction, which makes it much better for staying locked on your wrist during strenuous exercise, where the previous model was prone to moving around.
The Ultra 2 has the Samsung Galaxy Watch series’ standard pair of side buttons, plus the programmable ‘Quick Button’ that only the premium watches get. This is set to opening ‘my exercises’ as standard, while a long press can activate the watch’s emergency siren, but you can assign a different function to this button to suit your needs. If you’ve used a Samsung watch before, the UI (One Watch UI, to be exact, based on Google’s Wear OS) is virtually unchanged, and for beginners it’s easy and intuitive to use.
The redesigned, AI-forward Samsung Health app is simple to use too, and even though much was made of its big makeover, it’s a far cry from Google Health’s chatbot-focused premium tier.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: Features
- All the smartwatch features you’d expect
- Parcel of new health metrics: Vitals, Vascular Load & more
- Diving and trail-running features
The Ultra 2 offers all the usual smartwatch features you’d expect from an LTE-enabled watch, so I won’t list them all here, but suffice to say you can use virtual wallets, accept calls, message, control or store music, use the screen as a viewfinder for a Samsung phone’s camera, and even use Google Gemini via the new, easier Raise-to-Talk feature. Gemini works across devices, so you can make a quick voice note in the moment, and have it transcribed and saved to Samsung Notes or Google Keep, to be viewed later on your phone, tablet or laptop.
Samsung watches have always had strong health credentials, and the Ultra 2 is no different. It retains more esoteric features like blood-pressure monitoring (which requires an inflatable cuff for regular calibration, then uses your biometrics to predict fluctuations) and body composition (which uses electrical signals to estimate your fat and muscle mass) alongside the usual heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, ECG scan functionality (which is medically certified, according to Samsung) and more. Running Coach, introduced last year, also makes a welcome return, along with its advanced analytics for runners.
New health features include Vitals, which looks at readings of five different heart-related metrics while you sleep and lets you know of any baseline deviations, a Daily Cardio Load score that estimates how much stress your exercise routine is putting your heart under, and Vascular Load, which measures stress and arterial stiffness.
Finally, new features have been added in the shape of two adventure-themed activity profiles. The watch is now a working dive computer — or will be when its companion app is released later this year in partnership with diving company Mares. The Apple Watch Ultra has a similar app, so I’m sure Samsung has been working overtime to catch up.
The Trail Running profile now includes the ability to save GPX routes into the workout activity itself, so you can follow turn-by-turn directions and see maps on your watch with a swipe of your finger. You can download routes yourself, or you have the option to save previous outdoor runs as a route to test yourself against later on, if you want to try to beat your own personal best. What you can’t do is create your own routes in-app, as you can in Garmin Connect for example.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: Performance
- Heart rate had some drift compared to Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Polar H10, but tightened up after 10-15 minutes of wear
- Watch is more comfortable to wear than its predecessor
- Accurate sleep tracking
I wore the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 for five days and four nights before writing this review, and I’ll update it when I’ve logged enough nights sleep for features like Vitals to calibrate with seven-day averages. I was dreading wearing the Ultra 2 to bed given its bulkiness and size, but the slimmer, lighter Watch Ultra 2 was surprisingly comfortable for all-day wear — although I’m a man of fairly average build, and those with slimmer wrists may still find it uncomfortable.
Battery life was as described, with the Ultra 2 lasting the as-described 60 hours with always-on display enabled before needing a charge. Sleep was estimated accurately, with the watch and app correctly identifying my wake-up times during the night, and generating numbers corresponding with my energy levels.
To test GPS and heart rate accuracy, I went on a 30-minute run with the Watch Ultra 2 on one wrist, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 on the other, and a Polar H10 electrical heart-rate monitor (the gold standard for wearable heart-rate accuracy) strapped to my chest.
I was initially quite surprised at the difference in heart-rate readings the Watch Ultra 2 recorded at the start of the workout compared to the other two devices, with the Samsung watch sometimes reading 20 beats per minute lower than the Apple and Polar devices. However, after 15 minutes of exercise, I found that the Ultra 2’s readings were closely matching those of the other devices, as you can see from the corresponding graphs and readings below / above.
Initial heart rate ‘drift’ is a known problem with many optical heart-rate sensors (used by all smartwatches) in comparison to electrical ones, although Apple seems to have ironed out much of the problem with its Ultra 3. Still, even if the Samsung Ultra 2 does show some deviation at the beginning of a workout, if you’re exercising for any length of time your results are likely to be broadly accurate. I repeated this test during an indoor HIIT workout, and the results were the same: accurate after a brief warm-up period.
I also tested Body Composition, which uses the same method as the best smart scales — an electrical pulse moving through fat, muscle and water at a variety of speeds. I tested this against an industrial scale at my local gym after my run, and the ticket the scale produced showed that I was at 19% body fat. The smartwatch estimated 9%, a huge difference. It wasn’t until I did the test again later that day, after hydrating and adjusting my technique by raising my arms, that the watch showed 16% — a much closer result, and within the range of deviation I’d expect from two different devices.
I also tested the Ultra 2’s water lock feature by dunking it in a glass of water — after all, I’ve been burned before by so-say dive-ready watches — and it worked just fine afterwards.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: Scorecard
|
Category |
Comment |
Score |
|
Value |
On a par with similar devices in its category. |
4/5 |
|
Design |
Bulky, but much improved over its predecessor, with an intuitive UI. |
4.5/5 |
|
Features |
Absolutely stacked. |
4.5/5 |
|
Performance |
Some health feature are fiddly to use, but generally very accurate. |
4/5 |
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: Should I buy?
Buy it if…
You’re a runner
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 is awash with terrific running features, and now trail runners are well catered for too.
You’re a Samsung phone user
Unsurprisingly, the Watch Ultra 2 works perfectly within the wider Samsung ecosystem.
You’re a Gemini user
Use AI for everything? Samsung’s Raise-to-Talk functionality and true on-watch Gemini makes using the smart assistant a doddle.
Don’t buy it if…
You need ultimate battery life
If you prioritize battery life and fitness features over connectivity, consider a Garmin or Coros watch.
You’re a casual exerciser and gym-goer
The Samsung Galaxy Watch9 is a much better-value fitness tracker for those who won’t use all the extra adventuring, diving, and safety features.
You’re an Apple user
The Watch Ultra 2 doesn’t work with Apple phones.
Also Consider…
How I tested
I wore the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 for the better part of a week, running the battery down and using it as my daily driver to accept and reject calls, check notifications and messages, use Gemini and control music. I tested it against devices such as the Apple Watch Ultra 3, the Polar H10 electrical heart rate monitor, and an industrial smart scale, and I dropped it into a glass of water to test its water lock feature.
First reviewed: July 2026
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