Hands-On: Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 should come with a warning, as it demands you live extreme
Don’t worry, there’s a new watch for the rest of us too
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 isn’t your ordinary fitness tracker or stylish smartwatch. The Ultra 2 is ready to kick down your door, fix itself to your forearm, and drag you off the sofa.
Samsung says this is its strongest, toughest, fastest, brightest Galaxy Watch to date, and it’s tailored to extreme sports athletes. That’s a pretty niche market, but is there a wider appeal outside those whose idea of a quiet weekend is a mountainous trail run followed by deep sea diving? Well let’s take a look.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: In short…
- Built for those who "push limits"
- You can use it as a professional diving computer
- Pro-level sports tracking with real-time guidance and monitoring
- Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 price is £649
- Pre-order July 22nd, on sale August 8th
Cast an eye over the spec sheet and you’ll see the Galaxy Watch 2 is well equipped, with the biggest battery Samsung has ever put in a smartwatch, a 35% increase over the original Ultra.
The larger screen, with narrower bezels, means it’s really easy to read data on the screen, as I found when I went hands-on with the watch at a special Samsung preview event in London.
And that screen gets bright — really bright. It’s the world’s brightest smartwatch display, with the ability to hit a peak brightness of 5,000 nits. That means you should still be able to clearly see what’s being shown in direct sunlight (something which was a little tricky to test in the windowless basement of the briefing location).
There are a host of other upgrades too, including more power, improved GPS, faster loading and a thinner design. While this is still a large watch at 47mm, I didn’t find the shock resistant titanium case overbearing on the wrist. It was actually rather comfortable, which was nice.
So you get a big, bright display, slimmer design, huge battery, and more power. For anyone looking for a feature-packed Apple Watch Ultra 3 rival for Android phones, the Ultra 2 is an obvious contender.
But it’s the pro-level sports tracking where Samsung wants the Ultra 2 to really shine. The new Trail Run mode offers specialized tracking for detailed route and elevation guidance, estimated completion time, climbing progress and also terrain advice.
It even features a real-time nutrition alert, as the watch monitors your sweat and other vitals to calculate the amount of fluid you need to drink to recover safely and avoid dehydration.
Then there’s the diving mode, which is now so advanced you’ll be able to use it as a professional diving computer when an accompanying Mares app arrives on the watch later this year, offering up the ability to track descent speed, monitor your time left at depth, and a safe ascending guide.
It’s waterproof to a depth of 100m (as you’d hope, given the diving credentials), 100% dust proof, and provides real-time tracking of depth, time, and water temperature. And the clever part is, you don’t even need to enable it - the Ultra 2 will automatically detect when you enter the water and switch to diving mode for you.
Of course, if you’re not into your extreme sports - and to be honest, I’m not - Samsung does have another new Galaxy Watch that might be more your speed…
Samsung Galaxy Watch 9: Health management for the masses
Say hello to the Samsung Galaxy Watch 9, your new everyday health companion. Samsung claims the Watch 9 is the “easiest way to manage your health”, and it’s focused this iteration on improving its health and wellness features.
That means if you already own the Galaxy Watch 8, or are familiar with this wearable, the Watch 9 will look particularly familiar. Samsung even admits it’s done very little in terms of mixing up the hardware design, as it has only just refreshed the look of its core smartwatch with the Watch 8 model last year.
At almost half the price of the Watch Ultra 2, the Galaxy Watch 9 will have a wider appeal, and both devices offer Samsung’s new suite of preventative health features, which combines a variety of sensors and metrics with the power of Galaxy AI.
Samsung says the new watches offer data in a more digestible format, providing hints and tips you can implement in your day-to-day life, helping to reduce illness, recover faster, and prevent injury.
The new Vitals feature kicks in after a week of continuous wearing, monitoring heart rate variability (HRV), skin temperature, respiratory rate, blood oxygen and heart rate. If any of these metrics fall outside their recommended baseline, you’ll be alerted and given tips on how to restore it.
The Galaxy Watch 9 and Ultra 2 might pick up on your skin temperature increasing, which could be a sign cold or flu is about to strike. The Samsung Health app will alert you to this, and provide advice such as eating more fruit and veg, and getting an early night, to help reduce the potential effect of the illness.
Another new feature is Heart Health Score, which gives you a simple daily metric and actionable tips to improve your heart health. The tips include advice to do more cardio and suggesting rest days if it detects you’re overtraining.
For runners, the new Daily Cardio Load feature will be of interest. Using your workout history, it creates training and recovery help based on workout intensity, maximum training load, and real-time heart rate. Samsung says it can help you recover faster and prevent injury from overtraining.
All of this is powered by AI, and Google’s Gemini assistant is literally available at the lift of a wrist. Move your wrist towards your mouth and the Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 will detect the movement and automatically wake Gemini. You can then start speaking immediately, without the need to say the wake word.
In the past I’ve found gesture controls like this to be hit and miss, but trying it out on both of the new watches I was impressed at just how accurate it was. Every time I attempted to trigger Gemini, it worked. Plus, a quick flick of the wrist to check the time will illuminate the screen, but the system is smart enough to know I’m not after Gemini.
Samsung’s gone big with health and wellness monitoring on both of its new watches, and while some might be tempted by the bells and whistles of the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, I think for many the Watch 9 will be the better choice.
Pricing and availability
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 price is £649. It’s only available in the 47mm size, with two colour options of Titanium Gray Titanium Silver.
Meanwhile the Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 price starts at £349 for the smaller, 40mm model, which is available in Graphite and Cream. For those after a bigger screen, the 44mm will cost you £379, with the choice of Graphite or Silver hues.
Pre-orders for both watches open on July 22nd, and they’ll hit stores and land on wrists from August 8th, 2026.
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