Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra2 review

Hardware and sensors

Let's start with the hardware you interact with the most - the display. The device features a slightly larger 1.52-inch OLED display with a slightly higher 498 x 498px resolution and is also brighter than ever before.

Samsung advertises 5,000 nits peak brightness, which is higher than the usual 3,000 nits that most smartwatches are capable of. We have no way of measuring peak brightness on a really small spot, but the max brightness we saw in this watch's Flashlight mode, where the whole screen lights up in white, was close to 3,000 nits. Assuming the 5,000 nits of peak brightness is measured on a non-fully white screen, the advertised readings are not far off.

Since the device is certified to provide full functionality at 40-meter deep dives underwater, this also means the display remains fully readable at such depths as well.

Galaxy Watch Ultra2

Moving onto the SoC, for the first time we get a Qualcomm-powered Samsung Galaxy Watch. The Watch Ultra2 runs on the flagship Snapdragon Wear Elite, promising a 32% jump in CPU performance and 19% GPU gains. Additionally, the SoC is advertised to improve GPS accuracy significantly, even in deep forests .

Overall operation seems snappy and responsive as before. We couldn't compare the previous Ultra and the current one side by side, but if there's any improvement at all, it seems marginal.

The SoC uses a penta-core CPU configuration that consists of one main core clocked at 2.1 GHz and four energy-efficient ones ticking at 1.95 GHz.

And unlike before, the Ultra2 comes in just one memory configuration - 2GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The base storage of the original Ultra was 32GB. This is good news for anyone who likes to go on a run or a bike ride without their phone, as they can store large amounts of downloaded Spotify playlists, for example.

Sensors-wise, the watch is fully equipped by today's standards, and we see no changes to the list compared to the previous generation.

• Accelerometer
• Barometer
• Gyro Sensor
• Geomagnetic Sensor
• Temperature Sensor
• Light Sensor

There is also Samsung's combined BioActive sensor, which combines the following:

• Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis
• Electrical heart sensor (ECG) and Optical heart rate sensor

Battery life and chaging

One of the standout features this year is the battery capacity. The newer Ultra runs on an 800 mAh battery - a significant step up from the 590 mAh cell that powered the first Galaxy Watch Ultra. That's a 35% increase, while the watch has lost some weight and size, so we are guessing the battery on board uses a Si/C anode. We are glad to see Samsung finally warming up to the technology.

So how does the combination of a bigger battery and a new chipset translate in real-world usage? Well, the verdict is that Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 has impressive battery life, at least in the context of Wear OS-running wearables.

With the always-on display feature turned off (raise-to-wake was active instead), we got solid 96 hours of battery life with heart rate measurements every 10 minutes, sleep tracking each night, two gym sessions and two bike rides with GPS on, about an hour-long each. That's quite competitive compared to the older generation and when compared to rivaling solutions.

Always-on display

When we added the always-on display into the mix, battery life got worse, but still surprised us in a good way. We managed to squeeze out almost 72 hours.

Interestingly enough, Samsung's own battery life estimations are not far off. With always-on, the company advertises 60 hours of battery life and 80 hours without. We managed to beat both estimates comfortably, and our usage pattern was pretty heavy.

Equally important takeaway from these tests is that the Galaxy Watch Ultra2's battery endurance is enough to get you through an ultra marathon or a long, high-endurance bike ride with GPS turned on and all the sensors tracking your vitals.

When it comes to charging, we didn't see any improvements. Charging the watch with the provided charger takes anything between 1.5 and 2 hours from an almost empty battery, which is quite a long time.

The watch refuses to charge not only over third-party wireless chargers, but we couldn't get it to work with older, genuine Galaxy Watch chargers or the Galaxy S26 Ultra via the Wireless PowerShare feature. There is literally no alternative way to charge this watch except using its

The watch prompted us with a message that the charger isn't compatible with the watch and stops charging after a few seconds. This issue may be isolated to our specific unit, but we highly doubt that.