Apple Watch Ultra Review Roundup [Video]

Early reviews of the Apple Watch Ultra have arrived ahead of its release of Friday, September 23.

The Apple Watch Ultra is a rugged smartwatch, designed for endurance athletes, outdoor adventurers, and water sports enthusiasts. It features a 49mm corrosion-resistant titanium case, larger display, multi-day battery life, three new specialized bands, a customizable Action button, precision dual-frequency GPS, an 86-decibel siren, and water resistance up to 100m. You can pre-order the Apple Watch Ultra now for $799.


Here's a roundup of early reviews...


Marques Brownlee
The Apple Watch Ultra is $800, which makes it worth it only for a certain set of people...




The Verge
All in all, the Ultra is one of the best debuts in a new product category that I’ve seen in a while. A lot of thought was put into the Ultra, and it shows. It’s not enough to make Garmin shake in its boots just yet, but it’s more than enough to pique interest and spark competition. Apple’s officially a viable contender in the rugged watch category — and I can’t wait to see what comes next.


CNET
The Ultra might not match the sports and mapping features on a higher-end Garmin, Coros or Polar watch, but the tight integration with iPhone might be worth more to you. Mobile payments, a wide selection of third-party apps, speaker, microphone and LTE connectivity all make the Ultra capable of doubling as an everyday watch and adventure companion -- unless you need a battery that lasts a week or more. The next step is for Apple to connect all the dots with all these data points it's collecting to paint a broader picture of your health and fitness. Here's hoping that's just around the corner.




CNBC
Putting all of these features in one watch makes Apple stand out from its main competition in this extreme sports market: Garmin. Many of Garmin’s extreme sports wearables are tailored to an individual activity, such as the Garmin Descent, which is specifically designed for scuba divers. It’s a pretty astounding technical feat to pack all of these sports features alongside all the regular features of the Apple Watch — notifications, movement tracking — in one small package. Most exciting, as we’ve seen Apple do before, the innovations in the Ultra could be passed down to the regular watch in future models. But for today, the Ultra is $400 more expensive than the Series 8 and $550 more expensive than the SE, which is really the best watch for most people. So if you’re only looking for better battery life and a louder speaker, the price difference is hard to justify.


Rafael Zeier