Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra2 review

I should be clear about the sleep apnea feature, too. Samsung says it is intended to flag signs in people who have not already been diagnosed, so I wouldn’t use it to keep tabs on my mild case. It was the ordinary sleep records, and how practical the watch was to wear night after night, that mattered to me this time.

Then there’s the battery. Yes, the Ultra2 has a larger capacity but there is a catch here, though: Samsung rates both the old Ultra and Ultra2 for up to 60 hours with the always-on display enabled, or 80 hours with it off. Why? The proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the display. You see, the Ultra2’s larger battery size is completely cancelled out by a much brighter display and more demanding hardware.

This new hardware is none other than the Snapdragon Wear Elite, which is a major change from Samsung’s Exynos W1000. Storage has also doubled from 32GB to 64GB. Moving between Samsung Health, notifications and workout screens felt responsive during my time with the Ultra2, but I wouldn’t call it a night-and-day performance change – admittedly though, I don’t have the original Ultra with me for a side by side comparison. 

What I can say is that the Ultra2’s size worked much better for me when I went running and cycling than it did in bed. On a run, the large, bright display made it easy to check the figures I cared about at a glance, and I appreciated having physical buttons instead of relying entirely on the touchscreen. I looked at the watch less while cycling, but still wanted a record of the ride alongside my runs in Samsung Health. There are more specialised tools here, including Trail Run tracking and support for compatible cycling sensors. I didn’t use those extras, and I suspect that will be true for a fair number of people considering the Ultra2.

The new Vitals feature brought me back to why I’d worn the watch to bed in the first place. It sits within Samsung Health and compares five measurements taken overnight — including heart rate, breathing rate, skin temperature and blood oxygen — against a personal baseline. It needs at least seven nights of sleep data before it can do that, so my two weeks with the Ultra2 gave it time to build a picture. I find the approach more interesting than being handed another isolated score each morning. The point is to notice when something is unusually different for you, although I’d treat any alert as a prompt to pay attention, not an explanation of what caused it. Vitals is also available on the regular Watch9, something worth remembering when it comes to the Ultra2’s value – which I will dive deeper into below.

Final thoughts

The Galaxy Watch Ultra2 costs S$988 in Singapore, and I think you need to know what you want from it before spending that much. Don’t get me wrong, it is a well-equipped watch, and the thinner case, larger battery and brighter display make it a more appealing version of 2024’s Ultra. Its running and cycling features give you plenty to explore beyond basic workout logging. But I suspect many people, myself included, will use only part of what Samsung has put into it. There’s nothing wrong with that if you love the watch and can afford it; it just makes the value harder to argue on features alone.

The regular Galaxy Watch9 makes that decision more interesting. A 44mm Watch9 costs S$568 for the standard model or S$668 with LTE, so even the LTE version is S$320 less than the Ultra2. It shares a number of the health features, as well as the new processor and dual-frequency GPS. If sleep tracking and everyday exercise are your priorities, that is a considerable saving, and its smaller, lighter design may be easier to live with at night. I’ll have more to say about how the non-Ultra Watch9 fares in my review, which will be published soon.

For now, I think the Ultra2 makes the most sense for someone who has an extreme sporty lifestyle: a tough, smartwatch with a large display, and a bigger battery. I enjoyed using it for my runs and rides, and I found its sleep records worth using. But because of the existence of the standard Watch9, I’m less convinced that those uses alone would persuade me to pay the Ultra premium.