The Apple Watch Ultra 2: A Personal Review

I've been using my Apple Watch Ultra 2 for some time now, and I'm generally very happy with its performance. Cellular connectivity has not been an issue for me, even when I've taken it on hikes or used it in areas where Wi-Fi is not available. In fact, I've found that the cellular signal is usually strong enough to get messages and calls through just fine, which has been a welcome relief.

I also appreciate the watch's ability to make communication easier, especially when I'm out and about without my iPhone. If someone needs to reach me, they can simply send me a message, and it will work seamlessly. The Apple Watch's messaging features seem to work particularly well with Siri for messaging, making it easy to respond or ignore messages as needed. Overall, connectivity has not been an issue for me at all.

In addition to its communication features, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 also excels in terms of fitness tracking. I'm not typically someone who wears a watch or tracks my activities, but I've found that the watch's Fitness app is motivating me to reach some goals this year. The Action button on the watch has been programmed to trigger a workout session, and I've even used it to track time for outdoor walks like a walk around the block. While I don't wear the watch constantly, I do intend to use its fitness features more regularly in the future.

One of my favorite apps on the watch is Lumi, which displays beautiful golden hour effects that can be useful for photographers or videographers. The app also shows sunrise and sunset times, as well as first light, making it a great tool for those interested in photography. I've been using this app for years, and I find it to be particularly useful when planning outdoor shoots.

In terms of watch faces, I'm quite simple-minded and don't often change things up much. However, the Apple Watch Ultra 2's modular design makes it easy to experiment with different looks. The watch comes with a variety of pre-installed watch faces, including the popular Lumi face, which I mentioned earlier. While I do enjoy switching between different watch faces, my personal favorite is usually something simple like the Ultra watch face.

As for updates and improvements, I was underwhelmed by Watch OS 10's changes to the Control Center interface. The new design has been met with criticism from many users, including my daughter, who uses an Apple Watch herself. Many people seem to prefer the old way of interacting with the Control Center, which involved swiping left or right to navigate through settings. While I understand the reasoning behind the change, I must admit that it's taken some getting used to.

Despite this, I'm generally very happy with my Apple Watch Ultra 2. It has provided excellent battery life, a stunning display, and a range of features that make it an essential tool for anyone interested in fitness or just staying connected on-the-go. With its sleek design and versatile functionality, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is definitely worth considering – especially if you're due to upgrade from an older model.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everyone Aaron here for zolot and the Apple watch Ultra 2 has been out for over 100 days at this point so I thought we'd go over the design durability and scratches bands that I use regularly talk about the new features such as the display see what battery life has been like performance and much more now the design of course we've had for a little while now with the Apple watch Ultra 1 Apple introduced this design and at first I actually didn't really like it that much now I actually like it quite a bit as it looks a little bit more durable and more rugged than what we had before and it just protects the screen a little bit better compared to the previous one we have a screen that sort of wraps around to the outside edges which looks nice a little bit more formal but if you want something a little more rugged the Apple watch Ultra 2 has this flattened display which I really like protected by titanium around the outside edge so it really keeps everything secure has this rugged look with the digital Crown that's protected and then just buttons off to the side and much more you're familiar with it I think it looks great and it's it's actually held up really well as far as scratches and more this is a titanium frame like I said and if I turn off the display we look around the outside of the case there's not a single scratch on it now over a year or so I did get a little bit of a Nick on one of my cases of the Apple watch Ultra 1 but I haven't really had any issues here banging this into either a concrete wall or a brick wall really has caused no issues whatsoever the sapphire crystal display holds up incredibly well maybe it's a little bit lesser than true Sapphire but it holds up well enough that I've never scratched one on any Sapphire display Apple watch I've had there's not a single scratch on any one that I've ever had that's why I opt for that whether it's stainless steel or Titanium because it's just a little bit more durable that way it seems to hold up really well and the same is true on the back of even the iPhone I've never actually scratched one of these lenses either as they hold up really well so in general I think it's a very durable watch I love the design and even the sensors have held up well well if you drop this you really don't have to worry about it too much and it just seems to be very durable in general of course the overall design incorporates the bands that we've always had and as far as the bands that I use regularly well this is The Nomad titanium band so I really like this one it has more of a formal or durable look but if you want to go outside with something a little bit more maybe lightweight if you're working out going for a hike or whatever the Alpine Loop is my next go-to band it's super lightweight it's still a little expensive from at $100 but the Alpine Loop the Trail Loop we have here and even The Ocean band all of them are very nice my next go-to band is the sport band from Nomad I've shown these in different videos but I really like this one I have a black one for when I go out on the water with a jet ski they just hold up well they're durable they're secure I don't have to worry about it so it's not a sponsorship but it's just something I really like I've enjoyed using these bands and maybe there's some better ones out there but so far these hold up really well for me so I like using them and my watch has been secure with them but I do like this apple one although it's still $100 it's definitely a very expensive band but I do like it in that it's super lightweight with titanium Hooks and more now as far as the display that's one of the upgrades this year and the display is just super bright I've never had an issue when I'm outside trying to see it in fact when you're up close to it or even far away it's so bright in the bright sunlight that there's no issues seeing it whatsoever and with that brightness of course it can get super dim this here which is a little bit of an issue for some people it's very hard to see and that it's super dim and that's something that I don't personally appreciate about it I'd rather just have it sort of bright but that will save some power as it can ramp down to one Hertz and if we turn it on or maybe you just sort of go to always on display like that it gets very dark if I turn the light off in here you'll see the display you can still read it but it can still be a little bit too dark depending on the environment you're in so that may be my only only complain about it but it's definitely nice and bright no issues seeing it in the brightest of sunlight whether you're on a boat in the middle of the water or you're maybe just hiking and it's a bright day out either way you can see it without an issue another thing I really like about it is the titanium frame because it's titanium it doesn't conduct heat very well so if I'm on the water in a hot day it actually doesn't get hot on my wrist that's something maybe some people Miss where you actually have it on your wrist if it's titanium whether it's this band you have that sport band I mentioned before that I typically wear with it it doesn't really matter it's not getting as hot as what we might have had with previous generations with steel so the steel will get much hotter where the titanium is barely warm to the touch even though it's in direct sunlight that's something I really appreciate about this now performance is one area it gets an upgrade this year with the S9 system in package or system on a chip and it's super fast now I wouldn't say it's incredibly fast compared to what we had before some people seem to think so but loading different apps is just what you would expect go into fitness it loads right away if it was open already go into your activity Rings again they load nice and quickly so no issues there whether you're opening email going into a message going in to check your heart rate everything just seems to work very quickly and also you can use those Siri functions so that you can actually log things such as your weight your health blood sugar and much more so you can talk to Siri with it that's something I appreciate something that you don't really get with all the other versions where you could say record my weight as 200 lb and it says to enable Access to Health Data first so as long as you have that enabled and I switched phones and devices I may not have enabled it on my latest phone but as long as that's enabled it will record that information and work really well so that's something it has it also has the ability to use double tap where you can use it with gestures to start and stop different things so if you want to play songs or you want to stop a song so if you you have it on your wrist and maybe you're playing music here we'll Tap Play connect the device if I want to double tap and stop I just double tap with my fingers and it stops so that part's really nice I don't know that it needs that extra chipset to do that however that's what it requires according to Apple so it's great that that works well however with connectivity you saw it took a while for my airpods to connect that's something that I think they should fix in the future I haven't had any issues once they're connected using things such as time to walk in the fitness app but for whatever reason it just takes a while to connect sometimes with my airpods I've heard this from others as well and some others have actually had issues with connectivity thankfully I haven't but some have actually experien problems with that that could be updated with software of course with your airpods but hopefully they get that right very very soon now as far as battery life and battery health well battery life this easily gets me through a couple days now I typically charge it every night I don't use it for sleep tracking however I have tried it for that and it works very well I used it for about 3 or 4 days it's accurate my bed actually tracks sleep anyway so I don't typically use this but it's just something that's really nice to have and will get you through a night through a day and then through another night and maybe even another day depending on how you're using it if you work out a lot of course it may actually use the battery more if you're using GPS functionality and much more so if you're taking it on Hikes and you really need that connectivity well that going to use a little bit more but battery health let's go in and go to battery you'll see battery here we're at 100% if we go to our apps go to our settings then we scroll down go into battery under battery scroll down again battery health and charging we're at 100% now my previous Apple watch Ultra is still at 100% And if I can find the actual cycle count I'll put it here on the left and maybe make a separate video if I can figure out how to do that properly but either way this seems to be getting me through a day no problem I expect it to last without an issue and like I said I put it on a charger every night with optimized charging on overall connectivity for cellular and Wi-Fi hasn't been an issue for me either where we have cellular I'm actually using it with T-Mobile without an issue whatsoever and it seems to be just fine if I want to go for a walk without my iPhone I can just leave this at home walk away I know it will work if someone needs to get a hold of me they can message me and it just works really well that way in fact Siri for messaging always seems to work a little bit better on the Apple watch so in general it seems to be pretty great that way so connectivity isn't an issue Wi-Fi isn't an issue for me and using it for locations and everything else isn't an issue whatsoever so I think it's a pretty great watch overall I'm really happy with it and one thing I plan to do in the future here is use it a lot more for Fitness I'm not typically someone that likes to wear watches or have things on my wrist regularly so I haven't been using it but I'll probably start using it for more Fitness to reach some goals that I have this year we'll talk about in separate videos but in general I have used it for time to walk which I think is great that's what I have the action button actually programmed to is to go into fitness or workouts here so we'll open that up and I do use time to walk or just an outdoor walk from time to time and I do have some people that follow me on here but if we just go down you'll see I haven't used it in a while but that's something I do plan to use it for quite a bit in this year so hopefully we can actually get some more real world testing Maybe some hikes and much more if you'd like to see a vlog like that as far as additional apps I really don't use too many apps on here except for the one in the middle here which shows golden hour if we press and hold I've shared this watch face before it's the modular watch face and this is the app called Lumi you can show things such as sunrise sunset first light golden hour for taking photos or video scroll down you'll see night ends you can have a bunch of different options here there's also an iPhone app I've been using it for years I think it works great it looks great and I switch between that and typically modular Ultra but I do have a few others here I don't typically really change a whole lot when it comes to the watch face but that's generally what I use and so I think the Apple watch Ultra 2 is great but I don't think it's much of an upgrade from Apple watch Ultra 1 that you would need to run out for double tap the screen that's a little bit brighter and the ability to actually have that new S9 chip other than that I think it's a great watch if you have an older version maybe you don't have an a watch that's an Ultra version maybe you have a series 8 or something older then definitely it's worth picking up and you may have to get one sooner rather than later as they could be off the shell in the USA again we'll have to wait and see what happens with that but in general I think this is a great watch it's worth picking up if you want a smart watchat it also gets the best battery life of any Apple watch has the best display and as long as it's not too large to wear on your wrists I think it's a great option as far as future updates to Apple watch watch OS 10 is a little bit disappointing in this as far as the actual Control Center and the way you scroll up I really don't like this interface and I've heard the same complaint from my children and many other people as well so my daughter uses an Apple Watch and really doesn't like that many people say they'd like it to be back to what it was with watch OS 9 they have brought some of the features back where you can just swipe from side to side to get to the next watch face I don't have that enabled now but you can just swipe back and forth hopefully we see some updates for usability as this just doesn't seem to feel the same even though I get what they were trying to do I think many people preferred the interface before let me know what you think about that in the comments below of course if you have any suggestions for apps that I'm not using maybe to help with Fitness or maybe some fun apps or anything else that I haven't mentioned before or you've never seen on my watch I'd love to hear from you in the comments below I'll link a wallpaper in the description like I normally do and if you haven't subscribed already please subscribe and if you enjoyed the video please give it a like as always thanks for watching this is Aaron I'll see you next next timehi everyone Aaron here for zolot and the Apple watch Ultra 2 has been out for over 100 days at this point so I thought we'd go over the design durability and scratches bands that I use regularly talk about the new features such as the display see what battery life has been like performance and much more now the design of course we've had for a little while now with the Apple watch Ultra 1 Apple introduced this design and at first I actually didn't really like it that much now I actually like it quite a bit as it looks a little bit more durable and more rugged than what we had before and it just protects the screen a little bit better compared to the previous one we have a screen that sort of wraps around to the outside edges which looks nice a little bit more formal but if you want something a little more rugged the Apple watch Ultra 2 has this flattened display which I really like protected by titanium around the outside edge so it really keeps everything secure has this rugged look with the digital Crown that's protected and then just buttons off to the side and much more you're familiar with it I think it looks great and it's it's actually held up really well as far as scratches and more this is a titanium frame like I said and if I turn off the display we look around the outside of the case there's not a single scratch on it now over a year or so I did get a little bit of a Nick on one of my cases of the Apple watch Ultra 1 but I haven't really had any issues here banging this into either a concrete wall or a brick wall really has caused no issues whatsoever the sapphire crystal display holds up incredibly well maybe it's a little bit lesser than true Sapphire but it holds up well enough that I've never scratched one on any Sapphire display Apple watch I've had there's not a single scratch on any one that I've ever had that's why I opt for that whether it's stainless steel or Titanium because it's just a little bit more durable that way it seems to hold up really well and the same is true on the back of even the iPhone I've never actually scratched one of these lenses either as they hold up really well so in general I think it's a very durable watch I love the design and even the sensors have held up well well if you drop this you really don't have to worry about it too much and it just seems to be very durable in general of course the overall design incorporates the bands that we've always had and as far as the bands that I use regularly well this is The Nomad titanium band so I really like this one it has more of a formal or durable look but if you want to go outside with something a little bit more maybe lightweight if you're working out going for a hike or whatever the Alpine Loop is my next go-to band it's super lightweight it's still a little expensive from at $100 but the Alpine Loop the Trail Loop we have here and even The Ocean band all of them are very nice my next go-to band is the sport band from Nomad I've shown these in different videos but I really like this one I have a black one for when I go out on the water with a jet ski they just hold up well they're durable they're secure I don't have to worry about it so it's not a sponsorship but it's just something I really like I've enjoyed using these bands and maybe there's some better ones out there but so far these hold up really well for me so I like using them and my watch has been secure with them but I do like this apple one although it's still $100 it's definitely a very expensive band but I do like it in that it's super lightweight with titanium Hooks and more now as far as the display that's one of the upgrades this year and the display is just super bright I've never had an issue when I'm outside trying to see it in fact when you're up close to it or even far away it's so bright in the bright sunlight that there's no issues seeing it whatsoever and with that brightness of course it can get super dim this here which is a little bit of an issue for some people it's very hard to see and that it's super dim and that's something that I don't personally appreciate about it I'd rather just have it sort of bright but that will save some power as it can ramp down to one Hertz and if we turn it on or maybe you just sort of go to always on display like that it gets very dark if I turn the light off in here you'll see the display you can still read it but it can still be a little bit too dark depending on the environment you're in so that may be my only only complain about it but it's definitely nice and bright no issues seeing it in the brightest of sunlight whether you're on a boat in the middle of the water or you're maybe just hiking and it's a bright day out either way you can see it without an issue another thing I really like about it is the titanium frame because it's titanium it doesn't conduct heat very well so if I'm on the water in a hot day it actually doesn't get hot on my wrist that's something maybe some people Miss where you actually have it on your wrist if it's titanium whether it's this band you have that sport band I mentioned before that I typically wear with it it doesn't really matter it's not getting as hot as what we might have had with previous generations with steel so the steel will get much hotter where the titanium is barely warm to the touch even though it's in direct sunlight that's something I really appreciate about this now performance is one area it gets an upgrade this year with the S9 system in package or system on a chip and it's super fast now I wouldn't say it's incredibly fast compared to what we had before some people seem to think so but loading different apps is just what you would expect go into fitness it loads right away if it was open already go into your activity Rings again they load nice and quickly so no issues there whether you're opening email going into a message going in to check your heart rate everything just seems to work very quickly and also you can use those Siri functions so that you can actually log things such as your weight your health blood sugar and much more so you can talk to Siri with it that's something I appreciate something that you don't really get with all the other versions where you could say record my weight as 200 lb and it says to enable Access to Health Data first so as long as you have that enabled and I switched phones and devices I may not have enabled it on my latest phone but as long as that's enabled it will record that information and work really well so that's something it has it also has the ability to use double tap where you can use it with gestures to start and stop different things so if you want to play songs or you want to stop a song so if you you have it on your wrist and maybe you're playing music here we'll Tap Play connect the device if I want to double tap and stop I just double tap with my fingers and it stops so that part's really nice I don't know that it needs that extra chipset to do that however that's what it requires according to Apple so it's great that that works well however with connectivity you saw it took a while for my airpods to connect that's something that I think they should fix in the future I haven't had any issues once they're connected using things such as time to walk in the fitness app but for whatever reason it just takes a while to connect sometimes with my airpods I've heard this from others as well and some others have actually had issues with connectivity thankfully I haven't but some have actually experien problems with that that could be updated with software of course with your airpods but hopefully they get that right very very soon now as far as battery life and battery health well battery life this easily gets me through a couple days now I typically charge it every night I don't use it for sleep tracking however I have tried it for that and it works very well I used it for about 3 or 4 days it's accurate my bed actually tracks sleep anyway so I don't typically use this but it's just something that's really nice to have and will get you through a night through a day and then through another night and maybe even another day depending on how you're using it if you work out a lot of course it may actually use the battery more if you're using GPS functionality and much more so if you're taking it on Hikes and you really need that connectivity well that going to use a little bit more but battery health let's go in and go to battery you'll see battery here we're at 100% if we go to our apps go to our settings then we scroll down go into battery under battery scroll down again battery health and charging we're at 100% now my previous Apple watch Ultra is still at 100% And if I can find the actual cycle count I'll put it here on the left and maybe make a separate video if I can figure out how to do that properly but either way this seems to be getting me through a day no problem I expect it to last without an issue and like I said I put it on a charger every night with optimized charging on overall connectivity for cellular and Wi-Fi hasn't been an issue for me either where we have cellular I'm actually using it with T-Mobile without an issue whatsoever and it seems to be just fine if I want to go for a walk without my iPhone I can just leave this at home walk away I know it will work if someone needs to get a hold of me they can message me and it just works really well that way in fact Siri for messaging always seems to work a little bit better on the Apple watch so in general it seems to be pretty great that way so connectivity isn't an issue Wi-Fi isn't an issue for me and using it for locations and everything else isn't an issue whatsoever so I think it's a pretty great watch overall I'm really happy with it and one thing I plan to do in the future here is use it a lot more for Fitness I'm not typically someone that likes to wear watches or have things on my wrist regularly so I haven't been using it but I'll probably start using it for more Fitness to reach some goals that I have this year we'll talk about in separate videos but in general I have used it for time to walk which I think is great that's what I have the action button actually programmed to is to go into fitness or workouts here so we'll open that up and I do use time to walk or just an outdoor walk from time to time and I do have some people that follow me on here but if we just go down you'll see I haven't used it in a while but that's something I do plan to use it for quite a bit in this year so hopefully we can actually get some more real world testing Maybe some hikes and much more if you'd like to see a vlog like that as far as additional apps I really don't use too many apps on here except for the one in the middle here which shows golden hour if we press and hold I've shared this watch face before it's the modular watch face and this is the app called Lumi you can show things such as sunrise sunset first light golden hour for taking photos or video scroll down you'll see night ends you can have a bunch of different options here there's also an iPhone app I've been using it for years I think it works great it looks great and I switch between that and typically modular Ultra but I do have a few others here I don't typically really change a whole lot when it comes to the watch face but that's generally what I use and so I think the Apple watch Ultra 2 is great but I don't think it's much of an upgrade from Apple watch Ultra 1 that you would need to run out for double tap the screen that's a little bit brighter and the ability to actually have that new S9 chip other than that I think it's a great watch if you have an older version maybe you don't have an a watch that's an Ultra version maybe you have a series 8 or something older then definitely it's worth picking up and you may have to get one sooner rather than later as they could be off the shell in the USA again we'll have to wait and see what happens with that but in general I think this is a great watch it's worth picking up if you want a smart watchat it also gets the best battery life of any Apple watch has the best display and as long as it's not too large to wear on your wrists I think it's a great option as far as future updates to Apple watch watch OS 10 is a little bit disappointing in this as far as the actual Control Center and the way you scroll up I really don't like this interface and I've heard the same complaint from my children and many other people as well so my daughter uses an Apple Watch and really doesn't like that many people say they'd like it to be back to what it was with watch OS 9 they have brought some of the features back where you can just swipe from side to side to get to the next watch face I don't have that enabled now but you can just swipe back and forth hopefully we see some updates for usability as this just doesn't seem to feel the same even though I get what they were trying to do I think many people preferred the interface before let me know what you think about that in the comments below of course if you have any suggestions for apps that I'm not using maybe to help with Fitness or maybe some fun apps or anything else that I haven't mentioned before or you've never seen on my watch I'd love to hear from you in the comments below I'll link a wallpaper in the description like I normally do and if you haven't subscribed already please subscribe and if you enjoyed the video please give it a like as always thanks for watching this is Aaron I'll see you next next time\n"