Apple made waves when it announced the beautifully massive, feature-packed Apple Watch Ultra on Wednesday, and many of our other tech sites gave in to the hype. The edge (opens in new tab) claims $800 watch could make Garmin obsolete as a company while Digital Trends (opens in new tab) threw Samsung and the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro into overdrive, saying Apple gave it a template for a “true adventure smartwatch.”
Given all this hyperbolic zeal, I want to take a more nuanced approach here. Because on the one hand, I actually agree that Apple did what I did with the Ultra searched Samsung is working with the Pro to add more exclusive “rugged” features aimed at outdoor enthusiasts.
Barring Apple superfans who want the most expensive device in each category, this $800 “adventure watch” might not strike a chord with its target audience. Because despite Apple’s best efforts, it still has the same core issues as Samsung’s Pro watch.
The Apple Watch Ultra is aimed much better at “pros” than the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, but it’s not without its drawbacks.
In my Galaxy Watch 5 Pro review, I complained that Samsung didn’t bundle enough new features that would actually do “pros” justice, aside from a three-day battery that drops closer to two with active GPS use. The extra battery is practical but doesn’t measure up to other fitness smartwatches, and in every other respect Samsung Health is definitely geared more towards casual exercisers than serious exercisers.
Aside from some GPX maps and a trackback function, the “Pro” doesn’t have any sensors, software or hardware perks that the cheaper Galaxy Watch 5 doesn’t have, including a 1.4-inch display on the 44mm model.
Compare that to the Apple Watch Ultra. Aside from a much more massive display with twice the brightness (2,000 nits) for outdoor visibility, the Apple Watch Ultra gets an additional action button for shortcuts like instant workout starts, dual-frequency GPS, watch faces that show six metrics at once, custom workouts with a pacer, that keeps you on course, a detailed compass app, a power saving mode and a number of other advantages.
At first glance, the Apple Watch Ultra seemed tailor-made to solve all my grievances with the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro and to woo serious hikers and athletes.
Samsung’s watch reserves its shortcuts for traditional tools like Google Assistant and Google Wallet with no extra buttons and relies mostly on its touchscreen. The Ultra’s dedicated button and digital crown give you much better tactile control on the go. Outside of the Coros Pace 2, too few running watches use crowns in my opinion.
Apple’s massive square display shows more information on the run, while on the Pro you have to swipe to see other metrics alongside pace and distance.
Custom workouts and dual-frequency GPS make the Apple Watch Ultra worth considering for serious athletes.
Dual-frequency GPS is one of my favorite perks of the Garmin Forerunner 255 and the brand’s pricier models, which use multiple satellite signals to determine location and reduce false alarms. Garmin can also connect to two GNSS systems like GPS at the same time and GLONASS, so it might still give slightly more accurate results, but not by much.
While the Pro has trackback functionality, it’s pretty darn simple; You simply go from point A to B and then are guided back to A. The compass on the Apple Watch Ultra allows you to place multiple waypoints with custom symbols and instead trace back to specific points, such as a road. B. Trail markers all the way back to your car.
Finally, Apple has put a lot more effort into catering to runners with watchOS 9, while Samsung seems to have given up since its Galaxy Watch 2 Active days. Aside from already measuring stride length, ground contact time, vertical oscillation, and mileage, Apple Watches earlier this year also added Pacers: you enter a target distance and pace, giving you alerts if you’re going too far or move below your target pace – similar to Garmin’s PacePro. Compare that to Samsung and its Running Coach, which only has a few set steps and distances for walking, jogging, and running that you can’t change.
So yeah, while I consider the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro the second best Android smartwatch behind the base Galaxy Watch 5, the Apple Watch Ultra looks far superior as an adventure watch – as it should, considering it’s a whopping $350 -dollar will cost more.
But despite the fact that my mouth metaphorically started drooling during the Ultra livestream reveal, it was my time with the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro that brought me back to earth.
Your Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch encourages you to get up and stretch when you’ve been idle for too long and close your daily activity rings. And Apple/Samsung Health tells you how well you’re sleeping, calories burned, and even niche running data like your shape quality. But what it habit tell you what to do with that data.
The biggest advantage of any Garmin watch or Fitbit with Premium is that it gives you guided coaching or recommended daily runs based on your current VO2max and historical training data. When you run a marathon, you get immediate feedback to take it easy for a week. But with the Apple Watch Ultra or GW5 Pro, it tells you the next day to get your lazy ass up and close those rings! It doesn’t have the same contextual information to warn you if you’re overtraining as Garmin would based on your Body Battery score.
It’s possible that Apple is pushing its own internal algorithms to provide this information. But I wonder if that data will be locked behind an Apple Fitness+ paywall, much like Fitbit Premium data. Right now, all of its data is completely free, but if it decided to “coach” runners with data, I could see Apple deciding to bundle that coaching with its current at-home workout coaching.
We measure battery life in months. Not hours. #Enduro2 pic.twitter.com/OcTLdpvHV6September 8, 2022
Let’s say you buy the Garmin Fenix 7, the brand’s most popular adventure watch, for $100 less than the Apple Watch Ultra. This watch gives you a workout readiness score and a recommended recovery time based on your sleep and recent workouts; a personalized daily workout; a real-time endurance widget that estimates how much energy your body has left; the aforementioned Pacepro; and downloadable multicolor maps for each continent.
Also, as Garmin cheekily noted in its post-Apple event tweet, its watches last at a scale that Apple Watches can’t match, even if they’re massive. Apple estimates (opens in new tab) that the battery lasts 36 hours with regular use, 60 hours in sleep mode or just 12 hours with continuous GPS tracking. Buy a Fenix 7 and it will last 18 days or 57 GPS hours – or up to 136 hours in Garmin’s proprietary power saving mode.
I had slightly fewer issues when testing the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro – it lasts an estimated 20 hours of GPS, or 80 hours total without requiring a power saving mode, making it more reliable. But 2-3 days is always the limit for a fully “smart” lifestyle watch, and you have to make the watch uncomfortably heavy and thick to pull it off.
For serious athletes who go on multi-day hikes, the chance of your watch dying in the middle of nowhere is just too risky.
And if you assume that the Apple Watch Ultra actually lasts 12 hours, keep in mind that Apple’s estimates in a lab may not match your real-world usage. Since Garmin’s dual-frequency GPS setting cuts the Forerunner 255’s battery life from 30 hours to 16 hours, using this tool on the Ultra will likely only last 7 hours – just like the basic Apple Watch Series 8.
For many serious athletes who go on multi-day hikes, the chance of your watch dying in the middle of nowhere is just too risky. And without some algorithm-generated widget data to warn you if you’re pushing too hard, you could hurt yourself (or not know your own limits).
So while the Apple Watch Ultra lives up to its name far better than the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, I still don’t know if it’s going to be sold outside of Apple’s current customer base. Brands like Garmin, Polar, Coros and Fitbit won’t lose out her Customer base for the Ultra just barely.
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