Price and Compatibility
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 costs $799, twice as much as the base Apple Watch Series 9 ($399). It works with iPhones. Specifically, it works with the iPhone XS or later and requires the phone to be running iOS 17 or later. It does not work with Android phones.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra costs $649.99, which is more than twice as much as Samsung’s base Galaxy Watch 7 ($299.99)—and notably undercuts the Apple Watch Ultra 2 by $150. The Galaxy Watch Ultra doesn’t work with iPhones. It requires a phone running Android 11 or later and saves some of its best features, including AI insights, for Samsung Galaxy phones specifically.
Again, if you know your platform of choice and want a durable sports watch, you already have your answer. For the platform-agnostic and the curious, the Galaxy Watch clearly wins out on price.
Winner: Galaxy Watch Ultra
Durability
The Galaxy Watch Ultra can indeed rock and roll in harsh environments. The casing is made of aerospace titanium. It has an ingress protection rating of IP68 and a MIL-STD 810H certification—the standard used for military equipment confirming it has survived rigorous testing. It can withstand extreme temperature changes, blowing sand, and other environmental stressors such as vibration and shock. It’s also rated to work at altitudes ranging from 1,640 feet below sea level to 29,528 feet above it.
All of these specs stack up well against the Apple Watch Ultra 2, which also has a MIL-STD 810H certification and is safe to wear at the same range of altitudes. The Ultra 2 has a different ingress rating—IP6X. It’s equally impervious to dust, but not officially rated for water protection in this test.
However, it’s in the water that the Apple Watch Ultra 2 beats the Galaxy Watch Ultra. The Samsung model can withstand ocean water, and with a 10ATM rating, it can withstand water pressure at depths up to 328 feet deep. That said, the fine print on the Galaxy Watch Ultra's spec page notes that it is unsuitable for high-pressure water activities like jet-skiing and deep diving. You can take the Galaxy Watch Ultra climbing, spelunking, or snorkeling, but you’ll need to leave it behind if you want to water ski or scuba dive.
The Apple Watch 2 has a WR100 rating and EN13319 certification (the international standard for diving accessories). It can withstand the rigors of water sports and even act as a diving computer.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra keeps up with the Apple Watch 2 when adventuring on land, but if you’re heading beneath the waves, the Apple Watch 2’s extra price is worth it.
Winner: Apple Watch Ultra 2
Screen
The Galaxy Watch Ultra has a 1.5-inch, 480-by-480-pixel Super AMOLED screen. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 has a bigger 1.91-inch OLED screen 502 by 410 pixels. Both displays reach a maximum brightness of 3,000 nits, so you can see them in bright sunlight.
Winner: Apple Watch Ultra 2
Connectivity
Both watches support dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC for mobile payments, and LTE connectivity for data. Neither comes in a Bluetooth-only model. Both offer dual-frequency GPS to track your location more precisely and offer guided directions while you work out.
Winner: Tie
Recommended by Our Editors
Standout Features
Thanks to their operating systems, the Galaxy Watch Ultra and Apple Watch Ultra 2 have software features that match their base-level counterparts. The Galaxy Watch Ultra will ship with Google’s Wear OS 5 and Samsung’s One UI 6 overlay. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 ships with watchOS 10, which you'll be able to upgrade to watchOS 11 later this year.
Both offer a wide variety of health and sleep-tracking features. Both have a customizable action button to start or pause a workout. Both also support gesture controls, so you can double-tap your fingers to perform certain functions on your watch or the phone connected to it. Both have an emergency siren, though Apple’s is slightly louder at 86dB vs. 85dB.
Samsung offers more robust sleep tracking. It can sense snoring when paired with a Samsung phone and has FDA approval for detecting sleep apnea. It also uses a Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis sensor for body fat and other body composition measurements similar to a smart scale. It can offer even deeper insight into your metabolic age through a metric called the AGEs Index.
When working out, the Samsung Galaxy Watch can calculate your maximum cycling power, or Functional Power Threshold (FTP), in just four minutes. It takes the Apple Watch Ultra 2 several sessions to calculate the same metric.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is good at monitoring workouts. It showed extremely accurate heart rate readings in testing, and because of the wide interoperability of watchOS, it works with more third-party fitness tracking apps. Wear OS is catching up, but Apple is still in the lead.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra will debut a new Samsung feature allowing you to race yourself, so you can directly compare your workout times against your old self.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra will have a few AI-enabled features courtesy of Galaxy AI. Its holistic Energy Score feature rates your current well-being based on sleep and activity on a scale of 0 to 100. Wellness Tips use that score to offer personalized advice.
Apple’s watchOS 11 won't be receiving any AI upgrades that we know about, but the Ultra 2 will be able to offer a similar holistic wellness assessment with an upcoming feature called Training Load.
Winner: Tie
Battery Life
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 delivers about 55 hours of charge with its always-on display turned to maximum brightness. We haven’t been able to test the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s battery yet, but it’s rated to last 100 hours in power-saving mode and 48 hours in exercise power-saving mode. Samsung hasn’t specified how long it should last when not in some form of power-saving mode.
Winner: Too early to tell
Adventure Time
We’re testing the Galaxy Watch Ultra now to see how it measures up to the Apple Watch Ultra 2 in the real world. We’re eager to see if the Galaxy Watch Ultra offers a similar experience to the Apple Watch at a lower price, so make sure to check back soon for our full review.
Until then, check out all of the best smartwatches we've tested.