Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Apple Watch Ultra 2 Review: Brightness Boost”.
If the first Apple watch Ultra taught us anything, it’s that you don’t have to be an adventurer or Outdoors Enthusiast to wear this watch. Even if the most extreme thing you do is a coffee run, you can still get a lot out of it and with the ultra 2, it’s definitely evolving to be the do-it-all Apple watch, rather than just a pure sports watch. Here’S the five new things you need to know about: the Apple watch Ultra 2, whether you’re into health and fitness or not. The ultra 2 comes in 149 millimeter size and the case is now made of 95 recycled titanium, even though it looks identical to last year’s watch.
My wrist is 152 millimeters for reference, so you can get a feel of what it might fit like on yours. You probably know by now that it’s the biggest and most durable Apple watch you can get, but it’s also the brightest screen on any Apple device hitting a maximum 3000 nits. But it’s one thing to say that and another to actually show you so original Ultra Ultra 2 2000 versus 3000 flashlights on into the cave. Let’S see so that’s the first generation Ultra on the flashlight and let’s Sub in with the ultra 2, give it a brightness boost by turning the digital Crown, which is only on the ultra 2 and yep that is brighter practically speaking, you’re, probably not spelunking. All the time, so it’s incredibly easy to see your workout metrics if you’re say Open Water swimming at the beach or in a high glare environment.
And on the flip side, the screen goes down to one knit in sleep mode or if it’s a really dark situation and the screen is not active when your wrist is down. I didn’t have any complaints about the brightness or the dimness of the screen on the original Ultra, but you should have no issues seeing the screen on the ultra 2. Whatever the environment, the ultra 2 shares the same brand new S9 chip as the series 9. That means support for on-device, Siri performance improvements and double tap skip tracks.
Take a photo reply to a message, start timers. Just by doing this, you can see this icon at the top of the screen to show it’s been invoked, there’s over 65 different actions. You can do in first party apps and for third-party apps it will generally perform the default.
Action sounds like Assistive Touch. Yep, that’s been on the Apple watch for a while double tap Builds on that, but it is separate it’s on by default and in my experience it’s more accurate. Now I’ve been using a preview version on the series 9, but it will be the same on the ultra when it rolls out in October, make sure to check out my full text review, which I’ll update when it’s live.
I wish it did more in the workout app specifically at the moment. It doesn’t do anything, maybe it could Sub in for the action button. So if you can’t press it with the other hand, you could just double tap instead, that’d be nice. Foreign chip also supports on-device Series, so you can ask for more things, but, most importantly, if you’re Outdoors, you can use it with no connection, say you’re on a trail with no signal now you can add a waypoint or Mark a segment with your voice. You’Ll also be able to ask Siri for Health Data, but that doesn’t roll out until later in the year. It’S hard to know how useful this is going to be until we can test it out, and it is a bit of a bummer.
It’S not available at launch same as double tap until we get them. The ultra tooth still feels like the ultra one, but I did run a couple of tests side by side with the first Ultra to try and see a tangible difference in performance message. Dictation was slightly faster, but the biggest perk. For me, it’s much more accurate, especially with my accent and the new Ultra wide band chip, now supports Precision finding as long as you have an iPhone 15 or 15 Pro one. Other hardware update that didn’t get enough. Airtime is the ultra 2 doubles the storage to 64 gigabytes, which is a big deal, especially for offline music storage.
You can’t talk Ultra 2 without watch OS 10 because it brings a lot of updates that address what we wanted on the first generation. Ultra offline and topographic maps are now available through Apple Maps and the compass app supports cellular waypoints. So it’s going to show the last place you had a signal or where you can make it an emergency call on any network, let’s head indoors for a second. There are two cycling features that I am most excited about that come in watch OS 10.
The first is support for Bluetooth accessories like power, meter, pedals and the other one is seeing your live activity on the iPhone screen, so it essentially can almost replace a bike computer. I’M going to show you how it works on my bike here at home. So I have power meter, pedals, they’re, already connected to the ultra 2 through the Bluetooth settings. Now I’m going to jump on my bike and start a cycling workout, either indoor or Outdoors you’re, going to see a live activity pop up on the iPhone screen. You can tap into that and then all of your data is going to be front and center for you. If you do have an accessory connected, it’s going to support things like functional threshold power, as well as your Cadence and your power zones as well.
The biggest Advantage for me is not necessarily all this data, which is great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s really a safety thing, because, when you’re on your bike really the last thing you want to do is keep raising your wrist to see your workout stats. So you can have them right right there on the phone, which is great and guess what, if you don’t need an Ultra 2 to get this, you can also get it on any other Apple watch that runs watch OS 10.. I don’t normally talk too much about watch faces, but modular Ultra is great because of this horizontal slot, and you can have the time, nice and big. If you don’t want that complication in the middle, you can change what metric appears around the edge of the display with seconds depth or elevation and the best part it’s coming to the original Ultra 2.
night mode on this watch face and the wayfinder watch face now. Activates automatically using the ambient light sensor. That is also a watch OS 10 feature, so you don’t need to turn the crown to activate it anymore. There’S not much new on battery life, as the ultra 2 lasts, the same as before.
The official rating is up to 36 hours with regular use, but I found I can get almost three days out of the ultra with lighter use, something like one to two short workouts, no LTE, no music, playback and not tracking sleep. If you’re doing outdoor workouts with GPS, you can expect between 11 to 12 hours, maximum, that’s enough for a marathon or a century ride. For example, there is a low power mode that has a couple of different ways. You can calculate run time depending on, if you’re, taking full heart rate readings and using GPS.
I’Ve got more of a breakdown in my full text review Linked In the description and like the first Ultra. This thing charges up fast new, is being able to charge it from the iPhone 15.. Thank you USBC still. If we’re talking battery life, I would have preferred to have kept the same screen on the original Ultra and get a little bit more overall run time. As the trade-off, because no one has ever complained about having more battery like the first generation, the ultra 2 has a customizable action button, siren fall and car crash detection, ECG temperature sensor, diving features to 40 meters, dual frequency, GPS and built-in LTE. It shares the same heart rate sensor, so accuracy is excellent and you can check out my full review of the original Ultra to see how well that performs. The ultra 2 also has an expanded operating altitude, so it can go deeper and higher skydiving anybody. So I know the big question you probably have is: should I upgrade from the first Ultra? Probably not, it is a modest update and I don’t really know many people who do upgrade their watch every year, because Apple’s generally really good at giving you significant feature updates through software.
If you are coming from an earlier Apple Watch series, that is a way more compelling, upgrade a completely new design, huge screen and much better battery life, to name just a few reasons. So I’m left with mixed feelings about the ultra 2.. It’S a great watch. It just doesn’t have the same wow Factor as the first Ultra, because it looks and feels pretty much identical, and some of the key features that separate it from the first gen aren’t available at launch.
The ultra 2 really feels like it’s forging its own path compared to other sports and endurance watches, because it’s the watch, you can wear everywhere for almost every activity. Most importantly, it is a true Smartwatch. You make no compromises on app support, cellular connectivity or that seamless. Second screen experience that you often miss out on with other sports Watchers, but it’s still missing a way to interpret all your data with recovery, metrics and maybe throwing in some suggested workouts if you’re more into the health and fitness side.
I’D like that. I hope that’s in the works and maybe something that could be added in a software update, watch OS 11.. I am looking at you, so thanks so much for watching. I hope this was helpful.
As always, you can leave me a comment with your thoughts about the ultra 2 and check out my full text review, which is linked in the description I’ll see you later .