Apple Watch Ultra 2 Review (2025)

Without question, this is the smallest Apple Watch upgrade I’ve personally experienced (the upgrade from Series 7 to 8 was also small, but I never bought a Series 8).

There are a few upgrades here that I’ll knock out soon, and then I’ll discuss my experience with the new double tap feature, which is the only reason I got this instead of my original Ultra.

The Apple Ultra Watch 2 is our go-to recommendation for fitness enthusiasts seeking long battery life and strong connectivity in the Apple Watch.

This is elevated by the user-friendly Apple Health app that efficiently manages exercise, sleep, and daily heart rate data.

The watch’s stylish design complements its vibrant display and large 49mm case. However, the latest iteration offered minimal progress, making upgrading from the Apple Watch Ultra 1 largely unnecessary.

Despite Apple’s emphasis on ruggedness, its core strength remains in its smartwatch capabilities. Compare it to the other top watches in our lineup of GPS watches.

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Apple Watch Ultra 2 Review (2025)

The original Apple Watch Ultra watch was the most radical redesign Apple has ever attempted.

It was a completely new thing, a huge innovation, one that was celebrated, and the best Apple Watch we’d ever seen. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is also great, because it’s mostly the same watch.

It has the brightest screen (Apple’s brightest, in fact), but Apple’s new S9 SiP chip and watchOS 10 operating system are the ones that bring the most changes.

The S9 chip, like the Apple Watch Series 9, allows for a choice of new features such as the impressive hands-free double-tap control.

This new innovative gesture allows you to start workouts, dismiss timers, answer calls, and more, all hands-free.

A slew of other features, including Siri, no longer required connectivity to the cloud, while a couple of changes in the Depth app were notable for changes.

It has also enhanced its eco credentials, with recycled materials inside and outside the watch. The new bands also share this ethos, with an increased emphasis on the sustainability of new design developments.

However, when it comes to the core mission of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 – an Apple Watch to take with you into the wilderness and under the sea – very little has changed.

There were no battery life extensions, new workout functionality, or navigation innovations that you couldn’t even get on the original Ultra thanks to watchOS 10.

A definite contender for our best smartwatch guide – but it’s falling on the same cycle of small annual updates as the standard Apple Watch model.

Pricing and Availability

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is available now. Compared to the Apple Watch Series 9, your buying journey is pretty straightforward: while the Apple Watch Series 9 is stuck with a whole host of choices (what color? What size? What band? GPS or cellular?) Just have a Single Apple Watch Ultra 2 to choose from.

You get one size, 49mm, and one colour: it’s standard titanium, despite rumors we might see a black or midnight version.

It packs LTE cellular connectivity as standard. The only meaningful choice you’ll need to make when purchasing is which band it comes with, but we’ll get to that in more detail in the design section below.

If the $799/￡799/AU$1,399 price tag for the Watch Ultra 2 is too high or you don’t need the extra adventure-focused features, you can certainly look at the Apple Watch 9 range instead.

It’s at the same price point as the original Ultra, so there’s no big depreciation markup here.

It’s an expensive device, but with its premium titanium construction, LTE connectivity, and advanced features you won’t find outside the Ultra Series, it’s not terrible from a value perspective – many premium Garmin The cost of the designed 2018 devices is about the same, or lower. For similar adventures.

Design

Like the Series 9 at first glance, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is more or less the same as its predecessor.

Both share the same solid titanium body, a protruding casing housing the digital crown and side buttons, and the now iconic orange action button. The microphone and speaker placement also matches the original.

The key differences to watch regarding screens and bands. First off, the screen is even more beautiful than in the first version, capable of putting out an impressive 3,000 knots of brightness at full blast.

It’s Apple’s most beautiful screen yet, the refresh rate is like water falling on a duck’s back, and it’s Apple at its peak. This is probably the best smartwatch screen I’ve seen in person from a purely technical perspective.

This world-beating screen has been brought to life with a new customizable ultra-exclusive watch face, displaying the seconds ticking away around the screen in a very clever fashion.

Meanwhile, your favorite complications – for example the movement rings, weather widgets, temperature, and compass settings – can be mixed and matched to showcase themselves on the watch face.

It’s a smart alternative to the Wayfinder Watch face from last year, and looks particularly good in night mode – although, if I had to make a choice right now, the Wayfinder still looks better.

However, that’s about all we can say from a software design standpoint, as most of the new features here are part of watchOS 10, which is also available on other Apple Watches.

It’s a shame there’s nothing new or unique about what you can do with the action buttons in watchOS 10 and Ultra 2: it’s still programmable, capable of mapping different functions, but this time There are no interesting new features using buttons.

The bands are driven by the same environmentally friendly message that dominated this year’s Apple releases.

Like the original, there are three straps available for the Ultra 2: Alpine, with G-hook fastening, with nylon trail strap, and with Fluoro-Elastomer Ocean Band for diving.

I got the trail strap to face it and the design was tweaked a bit, with a more rounded top and a nicer head. Like the Series 9’s Sport Loop, the nylon band is now made with some recycled wool.

The Alpine and Trailband packaging feature green leaf circles, indicating they’re part of Apple’s carbon-neutrality scheme, and this will also be revealed online. The watch’s titanium casing is also made from 95% recycled titanium, an impressive number if nothing else.

Features

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 still has the same standout adventuring features as its predecessor, such as next-level GPS tracking, using the action button to sound a warning siren for help, Stability in high and low temperatures, and the Ocean+ app, which turns the watch into a working dive computer.

If you want to check that one out, we had a real dive instructor test the Apple Watch Ultra to see how it went.

The Depth app, which differs from Ocean+ in that it’s Apple’s in-house dive function, allows you to now more easily access the log of previous dives on the watch.

It also supports free diving, although I’m unlikely to give that a serious look before reviewing the watch in its entirety.

The original Ultra’s aggressive, infrared-vision night mode was switched on manually with a digital crown, but now activates automatically thanks to an ambient light sensor under the screen.

That’s for adventure gear, but in terms of other new features, the double-tap gesture is the big winner here.

Although it’s not available until October and I wasn’t able to test it out on the Apple Watch Ultra 2, I was able to have a go with this feature on the Apple Watch Series 9, which is the same uses an array of chipsets and sensors.

For those not in the know, by lifting the watch like you’re checking the time and pinching your fingers twice, you can activate whatever widget or app you have open at any given time.

If you have an exercise loaded, you can start or end it, for example. I’ve tried answering a phone call, dismissing a timer, and scrolling through the new watchOS 10 widget stack using the feature, and it’s very impressive and easy to use with just a touch and to stand up.

It could easily be a useless gimmick, but Apple has made it a feature that you should probably use daily.

Other innovations include the use of the S9’s own ultra-wideband technology to improve the performance of Find devices.

If you use an iPhone 15 that also has ultra-wide band enabled, you can not only see your phone’s trajectory, but also how far away it is from you within feet.

My live demonstration was great, but of course, at the moment it’s predicated on you having access to both new devices.

The ultra-wideband can also be used to control music on your Apple HomePod if you’re nearby, which is useful, I suppose – but it’s not a watch for sitting at home. This is a watch for the great outdoors, and I would have liked to see something more modern here.

Nonetheless, with so many outstanding features of last year's Ultra and previous Apple Watches, it's hard to mark the Apple Watch down too much for being "more of the same."

Performance

Since filing my hands-on review of the Ultra 2, which was based on just a few hours of smartwatch use, I’ve been testing it more thoroughly, wearing it on several runs, Taking it through its paces during strength training workouts, sleeping and otherwise, paired with an iPhone 13 that iOS 17 running.

As in my Apple Watch Series 9 . Review, I won’t go too much into the changes brought about by watchOS 10, other than to say that I’m a little disappointed that the new functionality for the action button hasn’t really evolved.

Instead, I want to focus on what the watch does well, which is what you tasked it with. It’s big, it’s hardy and it lasts longer than a standard Apple Watch.

If it weren’t for the size and weight of this watch, I’d say sleep tracking is a viable feature, but not everyone wants to wear this choker throughout the night.

It tracks my sleep well, and offers an accurate breakdown of my sleep trends, but it can’t replace Fitbit and Garmin devices with useful guidance with their readiness scores.

Activity tracking is a real pleasure. Speedwalks are automatically logged on my activity and movement rings, and the rings themselves are an easy way to see, at a glance, whether I’m hitting my goals for that day.

The Apple Watch’s workout modes can be set so you can start a workout with the action button, which is great for runners and skiers wearing gloves, or someone with sweaty hands who uses a touchscreen Not favorable, but the real joy for me is using Strength Training workout profiles to help myself relax and work with my Let create customized exercises on segments.

You can switch sections with the press of an action button, so no more wiping your touchscreen with sweaty fingers.

This is the first smartwatch I’ve worn that I find genuinely useful in a gym environment; With others, strength training feels like an afterthought.

Running is also a pleasure, with the watch retaining the innovation of even more accurate GPS and watchOS 9’s running power than last year’s.

Switching the ambient light sensor to night mode automatically, a change from last year, is particularly effective for avoiding glare in your eyes during winter evening jogs.

Luminous screens are also a good option, although in my experience I haven’t needed more than 2,000 knots from the watch to help me see myself clearly, even when the direct sun’s Even the light.

The battery life works out to be as good as 36 hours or so, and that includes a 45-minute run. If you’re coming from a standard Apple watch it will be a joy to use, but the two-day charge is still a significant difference compared to some sportier Garmins, which the Ultra shares a lot of DNA with.

The battery still has too little life to take on multi-day camping or trail events, unless you put the watch in low-power mode.

The watch’s S9 chip, the main change facilitated by Double Tap and the new Find Devices feature, is fantastic. I’ve tried Apple Offices, but at the time of writing they aren’t available to use, and are due to come on the Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch 9 later in the year.

The Improved Find Devices feature using ultra-wideband frequencies is extremely accurate and intuitive, and although it’s only available when combined with the iPhone 15 series, it feels like future-proofing.

Double Tap, on the other hand, has the potential to change the way you use your Apple Watch right now.

This simple gesture becomes very useful when you’re somewhere you can’t touch your watch, whether it’s cooking, working out at the gym, or something like skiing.

Just like the action button, the multiple applications of the feature (even enabling it at the same complexity as the main action) keep it very useful, and it was fast and responsive during my initial tests.

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Conclusion

My only real hesitation with the Ultra Line is that the chunky design doesn’t appeal to me, at least not at first. Maybe it’s something you get more used to over time.

If you are buying an Ultra 2 for extreme outdoor activities, perfect for you you will love this watch. It was made for you.

If you’re considering the Ultra Line just to get a better Apple Watch, then I think you’ll still be happy, mostly because of the improved battery life, which is phenomenal.

The display is only slightly larger so you can only take advantage of it in a few situations, such as using a modular Ultra watch face, but even a small improvement is an improvement.

Similarly, the action button is a nice addition, although so far I don’t use it much. Some other improvements to the Ultra, such as a faster processor and dual taps, are also available with the Series 9.

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