Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 review: Battery life and a 5,000-nit screen

The case is shock-resistant titanium with IP69K dust and water protection and a 10 ATM rating, good for 100 meters. A dedicated diving app promised at launch has still not arrived months later. There is no rotating bezel, and the buttons protrude less. Bands depend on Samsung's proprietary Dynamic Lug System, which limits third-party choice.

The battery grows from 590mAh to 800mAh, and the Snapdragon Wear Elite chipset helps. With mid-to-light use and the always-on display enabled, the reviewer got three days before dropping below 20 percent. That included notifications, an hour-long gym workout most days, media controls and nightly sleep tracking. Skipping workouts or turning off the always-on display stretched it to four or five days.

Software and weaknesses

Navigation is the weak spot. Three buttons plus swipes from every edge feel like too many inputs, notifications sit in a swipe-right panel rather than under the pull-down menu, and the plain app icons make the alphabetical drawer tiresome. A panel of the six most recent apps helps. Picker wheels also feel oversensitive without a physical dial, for example when setting weights in Hevy.

Health features are split between the Health and Health Monitor apps, so medical-grade tools such as ECG and sleep apnea detection can be limited by region. Finding metrics is often laborious, and some, like sleep data, require opening the phone. Watch faces are playful, but uploading your own photos is slow.

Who it is for

The Watch Ultra 2 suits Android users who want multi-day battery and rugged hardware and accept a bulky case. Those who want something smaller can look at Samsung's Watch 9 series.