I had ultimate frisbee practice out in new york. A lot of people dont realize how many calories you burned during a three hour practice, but there you go finished that drove home and then went about the rest of my day. I ended that day, going to sleep with about 69 battery. Nice then slept with the watch on for sleep tracking, then woke up on sunday morning, with 60 drove into new york city again had another practice. This one, a little hotter suns baking a little more three more hours and 2 000 calories later. That was over, drove home, went about the rest of my day again and then again, i slept with the watch on for sleep tracking woke up on monday morning, drove to the studio now its monday morning, 11am at the studio, and i currently have 20 battery, lift Its pretty good thats two days and two nights and into the third day, which is far better than ive, ever been able to get out of any other apple watch period, but lets rewind for a second Music. So we knew something like this was coming. We knew there was going to be an upgraded ruggedized apple watch in some way and i think a lot of people sort of assumed it would be called the apple watch pro, but instead we got this thing and its called the apple watch ultra. The thing is, though, it would have actually been totally reasonable and probably kind of perfect if theyd also call this the watch pro and thats just because of the way apple treats the word pro nowadays like apples toss the name pro around the highest end versions of Almost all of their products iphone pro macbook pro airpods pro ipad pro pro display, and each of these expensive devices has some set of features that a smaller fraction of the population can actually take advantage of and use now whether that makes you a pro or a Hardcore user or an enthusiast or a wannabe pro like what is a pro airpods user anyway, thats a debate for another day, but its the same thing with this apple watch, ultra ive been using it for about a week now and the way i think about it Is theres a core group of people for which the apple watch se actually covers all their needs and thats like most of the population, but then theres an additional group, a little bigger than that for which the standard apple watch, which is now series 8, covers.
All of their possible uses, so you know it adds the always on display the different sizes etc. Its already a really versatile smartwatch, but theres still some people around the outskirts for whom the regular apple watch still wasnt enough and apple naturally still wants those people. So this is an 800 watch that has some extra premium features and specs that are amazing and definitely overkill for most people, like the ones in the middle of my illustration, but its attractive for the most extreme users. The adventurers who go on serious hikes or go diving or run marathons or do triathlons so theres, really three main things that they added to this watch over the regular one which are ruggedness features and battery and they all kind of go hand in hand for ruggedness. Well, its pretty obvious: they just beefed this thing up so its now much bigger 49 millimeters diagonally, but it has the shapes and materials now of a watch that should be much harder to break its a titanium case with a ceramic back. It has much bigger buttons that dont have quite as much travel as i expected, but they are easier to press with gloves theres, the bigger crown and then the crown guard on the side here, its a very distinct look and then the display at the top here Is a flat sapphire crystal instead of the normal curving over the edges, with this slightly raised lip all the way around the screen, so its protected from corner impacts.
To me, its pretty huge like this is a pretty massive watch. I will say it is not nearly as heavy as it looks, which is pretty nice uh, but it does visually stand out for a couple of reasons. One. This is the only color, so this is the exposed titanium. It looks very silver. I wish it came in black because black is slimming like you can make a black watch, look smaller with a black band, but that would admittedly require black paint, which would probably get like scratched and then the silver would show through and then it would look pretty. Gnarly, after a while, so i get it, maybe they could anodize it. I dont know, but yeah big silver watch on skinny wrist looks big, but then also two, this shape see like this is a big watch to me. Someone who wears pretty much only smart, watches, right and smart watches are kind of weird shapes, sometimes like its a computer on the wrist type of a look, its sort of just a block, but in the overall watch world the apple watch ultra is actually nowhere near The biggest watch youll see like some people are very used to much larger watches on their wrists actually, and especially those people on the outskirts. I was talking about earlier theyre, fairly used to wearing some of these massive garmins or suuntos, or even specialized activity. Specific equipment like dive computers, thatll make the apple watch ultra look compact, so the whole like this watch is huge thing is very much up to context, but the thing is like a lot of these watches here are bigger than the apple watch, but they are watch Shaped theyre circular up front, and then they have this taper around the wrist at the top and the bottom.
So they dont look like they stick out nearly as much, even though they do where the apple watch just doesnt taper at all its just like a block. So yeah the computer on the wrist thing i dont know i actually dont mind the aesthetic. Like i said i just wish it came in black. That would have been nice. I wonder if colorware is going to be able to paint these things anyway. Thats the build quality, but the other two things that make the ultra ultra are battery and capability battery being pretty simple, its a much bigger watch and it has room for more battery inside but well get to that in a second. But the capabilities just come in the form of extra features, so the extra microphone and extra speakers for better audio quality in windy environments, the dual frequency gps for more accurate and reliable gps and tougher settings like forests or in cities between skyscrapers the wr 100 water Resistance rating for submersion up to a hundred meters, the new 2000 nits max brightness for this display, which means its the most visible outdoors, that ive seen a smartwatch oled plus it makes for a nice flashlight if you need it and, most importantly, the new extra button. So that bright, international orange colored button is called the action button and it can be mapped to right now any one of these eight things. So i currently have mine to just open the new workout selector.
I pick the type of workout and then hit the action button again to get it started and then once youre in an activity theres again a layer of customization to what this action button can do. So maybe marking segments or laps inside a track workout or marking. When you switch from the bike to the run in a triathlon, all kinds of stuff, like that, i really like having it i did feel like. I accidentally pressed it a lot just because of the way i grabbed the watch and adjust the crown, but i pretty quickly got used to that too. I think the most noticeable thing that this apple watch has over other apple watches, is gon na be the battery life. So this, like, i said from the beginning two full days and two full nights with plenty of room to spare thats easily better than its roughly double. What i was able to get out of my apple watch series. 7.. The thing is, while it is a massive improvement for an apple watch, its still nowhere near the other highest end, watches, which many of them are expected to go weeks months, even years, without even thinking about charging this one right here. This casio watch its a casio right casio pro trek uh, which has solar charging, has never been charged. It is virtually infinite battery life. It didnt even come with a charger in this watch world a two day. Battery life is not that impressive, but really that that brings me to the ultimate question with this ultra, which is how are you going to be using this watch like if youre one of these people on the outside here that doesnt use an apple watch apple was Trying to find a reason you didnt use it and add the features or capabilities to make.
You actually want to use it now because of course, they want to bring you into the ecosystem. So some of these people over here, like these, are frequent. Scuba, divers and theyve been using dedicated dive computers, ranging from giant watch to tablet on the wrist to track depth and directions, and a bunch of other safety metrics underwater. Now the apple watch ultra has added that wr 100 water resistance up to 100 meters theres a new dive app to track some pretty basic stuff like depth and give you times for safety, stops on your way back up for recreational diving things like that. But then apple also partnered with a third party company for this oceanic plus app thats coming later this year. That seems to do basically everything that the pro dive computers do, including air integration pretty much. The only thing it doesnt do that some extreme technical divers might want is tank pressure, monitoring and depth monitoring past 40 meters. Now some of these people way over here. These people are really adventurous. Hikers, like not the normal beaten path, casuals finding popular hikes on google. I mean these people are going off and carving their own path for miles and miles in the middle of nowhere, sometimes for days at a time, so the watch ultra has got now. A bunch of navigation, related features, theres, dual frequency, gps for more accurate pinpointed gps. Even in challenging locations, but then the new compass app is pretty impressive.
It lets you set unlimited waypoints so that you can navigate back to them at any time and you can track your exact walking path with a backtrack feature in case visibility is difficult or you need the watch to guide you back where you came from theres. Also, a super loud 86 decibel siren that can play from the new speaker system. If you find yourself completely lost with no one around and yes, it is actually impressively loud and you can hear it from probably a quarter mile away and theres. A new wayfinder watch face by default that sort of puts all the stuff right at your fingertips, including a live compass thats super smooth. I think a lot of people just leave this face on all the time, even if they dont need it. But then some of the other people up over here are ultra endurance, athletes and, of course, the name sort of speaks for itself. Here, honestly, the apple watch just didnt last long enough for these peoples, iron man, races and ultra marathons and spartan races. So the new watch ultras got the dual frequency gps, which is huge, and the action button is nice too, but the significantly improved battery life is huge for these. Now its not going to last a week or a year like some of the stop, watches or simpler ones, do but now its just about double the battery life of the standard apple watch and its finally up to the task of some of the most extreme gps.
Heavy endurance, athletes, and even if it isnt apple, has mentioned that theres. This battery optimization setting feature coming later this year that its not the low power mode thats already existed in the watch, but its an extra setting within workouts to ping, gps and heart rate. Less often so in a normal workout for me, which is its a disc sports workout for an ultimate practice, basically its just its measuring heart rate, constantly like every few seconds, which is super helpful, you can see how quickly you recover. You can see when youre in certain heart rate zones during the course of a practice, but if youre running like a hundred miles or something ridiculous, you dont need multiple pings. Every minute you just need a broader sense of how its going so thats a helpful feature for these people and when you turn that on it should essentially triple the life of the apple watch, apple says up to 60 hours. I dont have it yet because it doesnt exist, so i cant tell you exactly how well it does but thats a useful feature. They even have a trio of new 99 bands for this watch for these activities, so theres a trail band which looks kind of sick. Then the alpine loop and the ocean band as a reviewer i want to like. I want to test all these activities and like go okay. I guess i got ta run an ultra marathon now and like scuba dive, but i cant remember the last time i was 10 meters underwater, let alone 40.
. So i cant test all of this stuff, but actually reached out and heard directly from these people. On my podcast, the waveform podcast ill link the episode specifically below the like button. So you can listen to it, but i had on a diver, an ultra runner and an alpinist. So we asked them about the risk computers they currently use and whether or not they think this apple watch ultra is good enough to replace them and through those conversations one by one, they each came to the end with basically the same , which is that yeah, It looks like they kind of did everything that they were looking for. Out of an apple watch, ill link it below. So you can hear exactly what they said and then theres me. So you know im a tech, reviewer and an ultimate frisbee player so turns out. The normal apple watch is actually enough for me, like i said, a normal ultimate workout or any sort of training. We do is typically just a ton of heart rate readings theres, not a bunch of gps, pings or elevation tracking or anything like that, so its not super demanding, but still on the ultra id get to reap the benefits of the battery only running down 20. During a practice instead of 40 and then the more accurate gps readings and the brighter screen are kind of nice to have on other activities, maybe the occasional bike ride or a hike or stuff like that, and it might be better for you too, its one of Those things where i think generally, if you have to ask you, probably dont, need it, but it really reminds me of the rog phone like that thing is complete, complete overkill for almost every human on the planet, with all its crazy gaming features and absurdly high end Specs, but also all those features for gaming also happen to make it better for media and regular use and its basically, the same thing here like this is technically speaking.
The best apple watch theyve ever made its got the longest battery life. The biggest brightest display the best microphones and speakers and its all in this most accurate tracking package. Yet i mean if your wrists are big enough, then yeah. You can daily this too its kind of put itself in this unique category where its replacing some of these extreme, like dive, computers or gps, watches that youd normally take off when youre done with your workout uh, but its an apple watch through and through. At the end of the day, you can wear this thing every single day. I just dont know if you can like dress this thing down as much as you could, a regular apple watch like fun fact. I wore the apple watch series, seven in midnight with my tux at the met gala and it didnt look insane to me anyway. Uh get a nice. You know watch band with it like the leather one at shopdownitemphd.com. It all works out great, but yeah this one. Just because its so it just sticks out its massive all the time you cant really hide it as much might have a little more trouble with that. But hey. If you know what youre getting into the rog phone is a pretty good phone and if you know what youre getting into the apple watch ultra is a pretty good apple watch.HjEqOWjTkHE
