The Apple Watch Ultra 4 is still the rugged smartwatch to beat, even if this year's upgrades are underwhelming

When Apple first revealed the Apple Watch Ultra, I thought it was a funny-looking, bulky smartwatch. A few years and four generations later, though, its oversized design looks surprisingly normal. It targets iPhone users that want more from their wearable, whether that's a more durable design, better health tracking, or longer battery life.

With the Apple Watch Ultra 4, Apple takes the durable smartwatch's core identity further with substantially improved battery life, better health tracking thanks to a redesigned sensor system, and an upgraded chip that's also more power-efficient. However, overall, it's not that much of an upgrade over the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and arguably even the Apple Watch Ultra 2 — and it looks pretty much the same as the OG Apple Watch Ultra.

Still, if you've been thinking about taking the bulky, outdoorsy Apple smartwatch plunge, the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is an impressive all-around wearable few people will be disappointed with, as long as you're cool with the hefty $800 price tag.

Apple Watch Ultra 4 pricing, specs, and availability

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 features Apple's dual-core S11 chip, 4GB of RAM, and battery life that clocks in at an impressive 50 hours (with Low Power Mode, the smartwatch can hit 84 hours). The case comes in at 49mm, alongside a sizable 1.98-inch 422x512 pixel resolution OLED screen that hits 3,000 nits peak brightness.

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 weighs 2.22 oz (63g) and measures 1.93 × 1.73 × 0.47 inches (49 x 44 x 12mm). Other features include 100m water resistance (WR100), IP6X dust resistance, and MIL-STD-810H certification. The smartwatch also features redesigned optical and electrical sensors for more frequent and accurate health tracking. The Apple Watch Ultra 4 is available now and starts at $800 in the US.

This year's design is strikingly familiar

Not much has changed

I've always described the Apple Watch Ultra as massive, and that's because, well, it is. On my tiny wrists, the Apple Watch Ultra 4 looks almost comical, but even on burlier individuals, it's a big boy. That said, over the years, I've grown to appreciate the sprawling screen and the very utilitarian look of the Apple Watch Ultra 4, but it definitely won't be for everyone. It feels rather weighty on my wrist, but just like with the Apple Watch Ultra 3, I quickly got used to its size and weight and most of the time, I don't even notice I'm wearing it.

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 has three familiar physical buttons: the spinning Digital Crown, the standard Side button, and the Action Button my 16-month-old son loves to tap to start Workouts at random times during the day (I really need to link a different app to it). I'm particularly fond of the Black Titanium color you'll see in this review, but it's not new and first arrived back in 2024. Over the years, the orange accents on the Digital Crown and Action Button have grown on me, too, despite initially being a design feature I wasn’t fond of.

The key thing to know is that the Apple Watch Ultra's overall look hasn't really changed since its launch. If you placed the OG Apple Watch Ultra beside the Apple Watch Ultra 4, you really won't notice a significant difference. This means that if you were turned off by the first-generation design, you won't like the look of the Apple Watch Ultra 4.

With all of this in mind, I would have liked to see Apple differentiate the Apple Watch Ultra 4 from earlier devices in the Apple Watch Ultra lineup in some way, whether with a unique color or a minor design change. I don't think the wearable needs a complete overhaul, but with four generations that look pretty much identical, we're getting close to it really starting to need a fresh coat of paint.

So what's actually new this year?

Better battery life, a Readiness score, and features that just aren't here yet

So if there are no fresh design flourishes to highlight, what's actually new? Good question. The key upgrade is the roughly 10 extra hours of battery life thanks to the more power-efficient S11 chip and a larger battery. I often accidentally don't put my smartwatch on the charger at night, so I've really appreciated that I can forget to charge it and not stress about it until bedtime the following day.

I'd say Apple's claim of 50 hours is a bit of a stretch, but with moderate use, I found I could easily get through well over a day and a half on the Apple Watch Ultra 4 before I started to feel battery-life anxiety. The battery-life improvement is by far my favorite upgrade on the Apple Watch Ultra 4.

Charging has also improved thanks to an updated magnetic fast charger that delivers 10W of power (you need at least 20W USB-C power adapter), up from the previous cable's 5W. This means 15 minutes of charging can give you up to 18 hours of battery life on the Apple Watch Ultra 4. I haven't needed to use this feature yet, but it's welcome peace-of-mind if you need to head out and the smartwatch is almost dead.

Next, there's the redesigned health sensor. While the back of the Apple Watch Ultra 4 looks familiar at first, a closer look reveals a more flower-like rear sensor array. Apple says that this gives the sensor more surface area to capture ECG readings. On top of that, the tech giant says that the green and infrared LEDs are now arranged in a smaller circular cluster in the middle of the petals.

This lets the watch take a background heart rate reading every five seconds instead of every five minutes, like with earlier Apple Watch Ultra generations. At the same time, it lets the smartwatch measure heart rate variability (HRV) every five minutes, too.

Both upgrades will likely be welcome for health-conscious users. That said, we have to take Apple's word for the improved accuracy claims. What I can say is that I've appreciated the new Readiness score, exclusive to the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Apple Watch Series 12. It takes time to collect the data required to get it working and requires you to use the wearable for sleep tracking, but the score itself is interesting.

It gives you a score of 1-10 alongside guidelines like Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, or Go for It, so you know how much juice you have left in the tank. It's not perfect and doesn't include midday naps and, for women, menstrual cycles, but it's an interesting way to gamify health features.

Some of the smartwatch's most interesting features aren't here yet

It's unclear when Live Rewind and Siri Recap will drop (or if they'll be changed before release)

Lastly, both the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and the Apple Watch Series 12 include Apple's somewhat creepy (and controversial) new Audio Intelligence features. Just as Siri can use your iPhone's camera to examine the world, Audio Intelligence aims to gather information about the surrounding sounds.

There are lower-stakes features like faster music recognition with Shazam, and Sound Recognition, which sends alerts for specific sounds (it seems to work somewhat inconsistently). On the more controversial side, Audio Intelligence can transcribe live conversations through Live Rewind. With a double click of the Digital Crown, it pulls up a transcription of the last 15 seconds of what it just heard. There's also Siri Recap, which listens in the background and creates notes and summaries based on meetings and conversations. Apple says Siri Recap can run at certain times of day or in specific locations, allowing users to tweak it to work only when they want it to.

As useful as these features sound, they raise obvious privacy concerns, and Apple is asking users to really trust the claims it's making here about user data. For example, the tech giant says it processes all raw audio on the device in an isolated part of the S11 chip, that any audio Siri Recap sends to the cloud is condensed, and that it deletes the full transcript. Still, there doesn't seem to be a visual indicator that the feature is active, so you could effectively record people without their knowledge. Apple says all of these features are opt-in, so you don't have to use them if you don't want to.

I haven't seen any of Audio Intelligence's unreleased features in action yet, and it's unclear when they'll drop, with Apple only saying they'll "arrive in beta later this year." Given the negative response they've received so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see them tweaked before they release them to the public. As useful as features like Live Rewind and Siri Recap sound, I'm not sure if they are features I'd be personally comfortable using, or that really need to even exist for that matter.

Should you buy the Apple Watch Ultra 4?

One key thing Apple should be commended for in an era where every tech device (and everything, for that matter) costs a ton of money, is that it didn't increase the price of the Apple Watch Ultra 4 over the Apple Watch Ultra 3. Still, $800 is a lot of money for a smartwatch, and the advantages the Apple Watch Ultra line offers over the standard Apple Watch feel like they're shrinking every year, particularly with the Apple Watch Series 12.

Still, if you're an iPhone user who wants a smartwatch with a rugged design and really lengthy battery life, the Apple Watch Ultra 4 checks those boxes perfectly and kicks things up a notch over the Apple Watch Ultra 3. At the same time, if you already own an Apple Watch Ultra 2 or Apple Watch Ultra 3 (it might be a worthwhile upgrade over the original Apple Watch Ultra, depending on your budget), there's not much of a reason to upgrade here, given both smartwatches already offer solid battery life and exclusive features like the Readiness score aren't entirely game-changing.

On the other hand, if you've been waiting to take the Apple Watch Ultra plunge, now is a great time to pull the trigger.

You should buy the Apple Watch Ultra 4 if:

• You don't already own an Apple Watch Ultra.
• You really value battery life.

You should not buy the Apple Watch Ultra 4 if:

• You already own an Apple Watch Ultra 2 or Apple Watch Ultra 3.
• If you like smartwatches that are small and light.