More durable watch

Review: Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 – Better but expensive

The biggest advantage of the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 is its battery life; the biggest drawback is the price.

Published 24 September 2026 - 14:22

A watch called Ultra comes with certain expectations. Compared with the Galaxy Watch 9, launched at the same time as the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, I expect the watch not so much to be more luxurious as more durable, more ready for adventure, with longer battery life and perhaps more advanced navigation features.

I do get more battery life, and it is certainly needed. Samsung's watches with Google's Wear OS aim to measure your sleep and detect sleep apnoea, among other things, which is a problem if the watch cannot even last two days on a charge, as is usually the case with the Galaxy Watch. The easiest option then is to charge it overnight, as Apple Watch users do, and the sleep features are wasted.

With the Galaxy Watch Ultra, I get 2 days and 9.5 hours when I time it. That is with the always-on display enabled, so the watch face constantly shows the time. Since this is a notoriously power-hungry feature, I try turning it off. Then I get two days and 22 hours. I do not think the gain is sufficient, so I turn always-on back on.

Not having to charge every day makes a big difference to the user experience, but it is still certainly not battery life to boast about for a smartwatch. Then there is the charging time. It takes almost two hours to charge the watch from empty to full, which is far too long.

The watch charges wirelessly, and a cable with a wireless charger is included. However, when I try to charge it with a standard wireless charger using the Qi standard, I get an error message, so I am limited to using the one included.

Large and durable

The watch is robust, with materials that feel durable. It is also a large watch, noticeably thicker than the Galaxy Watch 9 but thinner than its predecessor, the Galaxy Watch Ultra, and I do not find it feels unwieldy on my wrist. The fact that the watch has a round screen is somewhat undermined by the watch itself being a rounded square with four protruding corners.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 is available in only one version, with a 47 mm case and built-in SIM slot, and it costs SEK 8,200. That is a great deal for a watch, almost twice as much as the cheapest version of the Galaxy Watch 9 and SEK 3,000 more than the most expensive one. Among other things, you are paying for a titanium case instead of aluminium, which feels like an unnecessary luxury. After all, most of what I see on the watch is plastic or glass.

The mobile network connection requires an add-on to your mobile subscription, adding an extra cost, and not all operators support it. With it, you can, among other things, stream music and make phone calls without bringing your phone with you. Battery consumption is acceptable: when I stream music, it uses ten per cent of the battery in 15 minutes, while a 15-minute phone call uses 4 per cent. Of course, you can also download music in advance to save battery. The watch supports Spotify, YouTube Music and Deezer, among others, because Wear OS is a genuinely smart smartwatch system that lets you install third-party apps.

As mentioned, you can also get mobile network connectivity with the regular Galaxy Watch 9, but the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 can withstand pressure of 10 atmospheres rather than 5. This means it can be used as a fully fledged dive computer, tracking depth, time and water temperature from your wrist. Samsung has equipped the watch with the dedicated Ultra 2 Diving app, developed together with Mares, which measures, among other things, descent speed and dive limits.

Programmable button

The Trail Run function is a dedicated training mode that tracks elevation changes and terrain obstacles, among other things. However, if you neither dive nor run trails, the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 offers no special features that you do not get with the Galaxy Watch 9. You do, however, get a significantly brighter display, with a peak brightness of 5,000 nits, and I have never had any trouble reading it, even in direct sunlight. The watch also has a third button that you can programme as a shortcut to your favourite function.

The watch is powered by a new Qualcomm processor and feels reasonably fast, though not as instantly responsive as the Apple Watch. Its 64 GB of storage provides generous space for installing apps and downloading playlists and maps.

Plenty of measurements

Samsung's Galaxy Watch watches measure a large amount of health data, either passively or when you actively choose to take a measurement. Naturally, you get everything you would expect in terms of heart rate, heart rate variability, step count, sleep stages, blood oxygen saturation and more, but there is also blood pressure monitoring and more exotic metrics such as the amount of antioxidants in the body and vascular load. Honestly, it is difficult to navigate all these health measurements, and Samsung's Galaxy Health app does not do a particularly good job of explaining and compiling these results. It becomes cluttered. However, I focus on the basics and like the heart that measures daily activity in three categories, shown as heart-shaped circles that fill up during the day. My exercise sessions receive detailed information with facts and maps. The GPS is supposed to be particularly accurate, but the way my route wavers on the map suggests that Samsung is still not particularly good at this compared with other watches. The differences from how I actually moved are small, but I have not had the opportunity to try it in more demanding environments such as major cities with skyscrapers.

From a smartwatch, I expect to be able to receive notifications on the watch and reply to them directly from my wrist. With the Galaxy Watch, I can reply using preset quick messages, emojis or even type something on the on-screen keyboard. You can also tap to pay with Samsung Wallet, which has the broadest bank support of any payment service. Another feature worth mentioning is the movement reminders when you have been sitting still for an hour, with suggestions for quick exercises and visual instructions.

In addition to apps, you can also install watch faces, but I am happy with the one that comes pre-installed, which presents a lot of information at a glance. I particularly like that I can tap through from each field to get more information related to that value.

I like Samsung's Wear OS interface, and the unimpressive battery life may not be Samsung's fault as much as the system's. But I find it difficult to feel that the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 offers benefits that justify the massive price premium. At least not unless diving is your hobby.