Apple Watch Ultra 3 review: Incremental, but still superb

Best Prices Today: Apple Watch Ultra 3

When Apple first launched the Watch Ultra back in 2022, it felt like a challenge to the Garmins of the smartwatch world. It was a statement watch – bulky, unapologetic, and designed for people who know what a decompression stop is.

Fast forward to the Apple Watch Ultra 3, and its rugged aesthetic can be found on the wrists of not only divers and hikers, but casual commuters, tradespeople and anyone who wants a smartwatch with a battery that doesn’t die before dinner.

The Watch Ultra 3 arrives with the same design as its predecessors and many of its new software features have also been granted to the Watch Ultra 2.

It’s therefore the definition of an incremental update with Apple focusing on internal refinements like 5G connectivity, Emergency SOS via satellite, a very slightly bigger display and faster charging to differentiate it from its predecessors. 

But that’s the thing about the Watch Ultra – it doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel every twelve months to stay relevant. It remains an excellent smartwatch for iPhone users looking for a larger device that lasts a little longer, or who find the standard Series 11 a bit too fragile for their weekend adventures.

Having worn it for the last four months, here’s why the Watch Ultra 3 is a great buy for many people, while some might think twice.

Design & Build 

• Titanium build
• 49mm case
• 9.7mm and 62g

You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between this model and the first Watch Ultra unless you looked very hard, mainly because there isn’t really one. But don’t mistake that for a criticism.

It’s a design that works, especially for those looking for a larger, chunkier smartwatch. 

The 49mm case continues to be made out of aerospace-grade titanium, which makes for a very premium finish and one that can survive a little more rough and tumble thanks to its various credentials, with IP6X, EN13319, WR100 and MIL-STD 810H all included.

I’ve testd this smartwatch for four months and there’s not so much as a single scratch or ding on it – and I’ve not been especially careful. The build quality is superb, while the satin-like finish transitions surprisingly well from a muddy stroll to a mid-week meeting. 

There are two colour options – Apple added a Black Titanium finish for the Watch Ultra 2, which carries over to this model, and while I have the Natural Titanium finish for my review unit, I prefer the black. That’s a matter of personal preference, of course, but the contrast between the black and the orange of the Action Button on the left of the casing is more striking.

Speaking of the Action Button, this is one of my favourite features of the Watch Ultra and the feature I miss most whenever I switch to wearing the standard Apple Watch Series 11. It’s programmable, so you can have it open anything from the Workout app (my choice) to a Shortcut, which gives you multiple possibilities.

You can only pick one, however, and that’s my only real complaint about the design. I’d like the option to double or triple-press to allow for more quick actions from that button, which is something I’ve said in the past for iPhone and its Action Button too.

Still, the Watch Ultra 3’s tactile controls are excellent and easier to use with wet, sweaty or gloved hands than the Watch Series 11 controls are. The chunky Digital Crown and side button are surrounded by a rugged guard that means you don’t accidentally knock them, while the gesture controls are handy in all sorts of situations, from a dog walk with a coffee, to running – more on those in a second.

At 62g, the Watch Ultra 3 is far from light, but I can’t say I ever notice it on my wrist. The curved underside and weight distribution mean it doesn’t feel cumbersome and that’s coming from someone with smaller wrists. I found it comfortable to wear not just during the day and during exercise, but overnight for sleep tracking too.

Overall, the Watch Ultra 3 retains a design that prioritises function without sacrificing flair like the previous Ultra models have done, and in doing that, it remains one of the most polished ‘tough’ smartwatches around.

Screen & Audio

• LTPO3 wide-angle OLED
• Sapphire glass
• Dual speakers with siren

I mentioned that the Watch Ultra 3 only comes in one size option – which has always been the case for the Ultra model, and while it might be too large for some wrists, the upshot of the bigger casing is the bigger screen.

Unlike the standard Watch Series 11 that has a curved display at the edges, the Watch Ultra 3’s is flat allowing you to use the entire screen for interaction, whether replying to a message or viewing stats from a workout. It’s also very slightly larger than the Watch Ultra 2 due to a smaller bezel.

It’s still an OLED panel with sapphire crystal for protection like the Watch Ultra 2, but the technology has changed slightly this time around. It’s now a LTPO3 wide-angle OLED panel, which makes it easier to read the Watch Ultra 3’s screen at an angle. It means you can sneak a glance at your running pace or the time during a meeting without having to dramatically rotate your wrist.

As before, colours are vibrant with plenty of pop, while blacks are deep and whites are actually white rather than a yellowy tinge. The display is a gloriously bright affair too, peaking at 3,000 nits as the Ultra 2 did, so whether you’re trekking in midday sunshine or reading your notifications in a garishly lit office, the visibility is superb and details from app icons to text are crisp and sharp.

That brightness drops down to just 1 nit too, which is perfect for the cinema, checking the time on a red-eye flight without blinding your fellow passengers, as well as general sleeping.

The screen can also drop to a 1Hz refresh rate for the Always-On Display, which while not new in that the Ultra 2 also offered this, seeing a ticking seconds hand without waking the watch continues to make it feel more like a traditional timepiece.

In terms of audio, the dual speakers are as good as you could hope for from a device the size of a smartwatch. Using the built-in speakers wouldn’t be my first choice for taking a call or playing my favourite tune, but Siri’s responses are clear and the speakers and microphones are more than adequate if you need to take a quick call when you’ve left your phone in the other room.

The speakers also double up as an 86-decibel emergency siren should you get yourself into a bit of bother – though don’t try that at home if you don’t need it, as your ears won’t thank you.

Software & Features

• iOS 26 and above, no Android compatibility
• Emergency SOS via satellite, 5G connectivity
• Hypertension notifications, depth gauge up to 40m, gesture control

The Watch Ultra 3 runs on watchOS 26 like the Watch Series 11, Watch SE 3 and some older Apple Watch models, including both the original Apple Watch Ultra and the Watch Ultra 2. It means if you have either of the previous Ultra models, you don’t necessarily need the Watch Ultra 3 to benefit from some of the new features, though there are a couple specific to the Watch Ultra 3.

The Watch Ultra 3 introduces Emergency SOS via satellite (compared to just Emergency SOS on the Watch Ultra 2), which, while you’d hope you’ll never need, if you are someone who ventures off grid, it could come in handy. It allows you to share your location and request help if you’re out of range from a 5G mast. 

I didn’t test this during my review period (winter weather in the UK doesn’t lend itself to climbing mountains, sadly), but I did try it out when the Watch Ultra 3 was first announced and it works in a very similar way to the feature does on iPhone. There can be some delay between the messages you send and the response, as it depends on satellites passing overhead, but it was easy to use and understand, which you may need it to be if you’re in trouble.

Elsewhere, there is 5G connectivity rather than 4G for the Watch Ultra 3, though that’s the extent of the exclusive features.

Everything else the Watch Ultra 3 does, the Watch Ultra 2 also does. That includes hypertension notifications for when signs of high blood pressure are detected, the inclusion of a depth gauge and depth app up to 40 metres, and an Always-on altimeter with an operating range from 500-9000m so in theory, you could climb Everest if you so wished.

Perhaps more useful to the majority of us, however, the Watch Ultra 3 also has a new Wrist Flick gesture that joins the Double Tap gesture, which launched with the Watch Ultra 2 and the Apple Watch Series 9 in 2023.

Wrist Flick allows you to flick your wrist to dismiss notifications or calls and it’s surprisingly helpful in use, while Double Tap remains one of my favourite features of the latest Apple watch models. Tapping your thumb and index finger together twice lets you do things like start a suggested workout, answer a call or swipe through the Smart Stack on the Watch Ultra 3’s interface that has cards presenting information like the weather and your activity.

The watchOS 26 software introduces a number of new features to the Watch Ultra 3 too, though as I said, it’s important to note that these are all available on the Watch Ultra 2 and many on the original Watch Ultra, too.

The new Liquid Glass design sees icons and menus more translucent in their appearance, and overall, it’s very intuitive and easy to navigate. There’s also a redesigned Workout app, features like Live Translate in Messages if you have an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone nearby, and Workout Buddy for real-time feedback during workouts. 

As you would expect, the Watch Ultra 3 also delivers timely notifications from a connected iPhone, and this works seamlessly with the ability to reply to messages on your wrist, for example, not something all third-party smartwatches can offer.

The Watch Ultra 3 also offers useful day-to-day features like being able to pay using your wrist with Apple Pay and my personal favourite, Precision Finding for iPhone. I can’t tell you the number of times I tap that little icon in Control Centre on the Watch Ultra 3 to ping my iPhone that’s slipped down the side of the sofa.

Fitness & Tracking 

• 70+ sports modes
• Heart rate, VO2 Max and sleep tracking 
• Offline maps

Of course, it’s not just the general features the Watch Ultra 3 offers; it tracks a multitude of health and fitness features too, from blood oxygen and nightly wrist temperature, to an ECG app and sleep apnea alerts. 

As has been the case since its inception, there are three primary rings on Apple Watch to indicate ‘Activity, Exercise and Stand’ goals. Apple finally introduced a Sleep Score measurement with watchOS 26, though this doesn’t appear as part of those three key rings.

It also – yes, I sound like a broken record – isn’t exclusive to the Watch Ultra 3 and is available on all previous Ultra models, as well as the regular Watch Series 6 and newer, and the Watch SE (2nd generation) and newer. 

I found that Sleep Score measurement to be a little higher than other sleep trackers I use, including the Oura Ring 4 and EightSleep Pod 4 mattress topper, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes a higher score makes you feel better through a placebo effect.

I have over 100 days of comparison data, but taking the last two nights before I wrote this review, I got a sleep score of 95 and 99 on the Watch Ultra 3, while Oura gave me 89 both nights and EightSleep 89 and 90, respectively.

Sleep duration for the first night mentioned was within 10 minutes across all three devices, and REM sleep was consistent across them too, though the Ultra 3 tracked less deep sleep than both the others by around 20 minutes.

There is still no daily readiness score or energy score as you’ll find on competitors, and Apple Watch doesn’t track stress either, both of which I’d like to see in future software or hardware updates to give me similar data to the Oura Ring 4 or other smartwatches like Garmin.

Still, when it comes to workout tracking, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is excellent, like other Apple Watch models with a serious amount of data collected in the Health app if you want more details. Heart rate data during high-intensity exercise was on par with the chest strap I wear and I found GPS performance to be solid, too. 

The Watch Ultra 3 will track over 70 different workouts and while that is less than the likes of the much cheaper Amazfit Active 2 I also tested, there are more than enough for the average user with decent metrics for running, cycling and walking too. If you’re hiking, there are offline maps with turn-by-turn directions and there are also features like Waypoints and Backtrack GPS data in the Compass app to help you on your way.

The Workout app, meanwhile, where much of the main exercise data is collected, is also easy to use and navigate, with a good presentation of your stats. Training Load helps you understand how you are doing compared to your average, though it’s not as advanced as Garmin offers, so there are some areas Apple could expand to make the collection of all the data more holistic.

Battery Life & Charging

• Up to 72 hours in Low Power Mode 
• Up to 42 hours with normal use
• Fast charging with 80% in 45 minutes

There are plenty of reasons to choose the Apple Watch Ultra 3 over the Watch Series 11, with the rugged design and larger display being two of the key ones, but battery life is definitely on that list, too.

The Watch Series 11 needs a top-up pretty much every day (occasionally you can stretch it to the morning of the next day) with the SE 3 offering even shorter life, the Watch Ultra 3 has much more stamina.

Apple claims the battery life of the Ultra 3 has jumped to 42 hours of normal use, which is a notable increase from the 36-hour ceiling of its predecessors. The Low Power Mode remains at 72 hours and is unchanged from previous Ultra models, though it’s still a decent figure for a trek and it doesn’t make the Watch Ultra 3 utterly redundant either.

Meanwhile, although the 42-hour claim is still not as long as some smartwatches, with much cheaper options like the Amazfit Active 2 offering around five days and more expensive models like the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro offering up to 30 days, in the context of the Apple Watch world, it’s a noticeable increase. It moves the Watch Ultra 3 from being a 1.5-day device to a two-day smartwatch for regular use.

I found that even with a workout every morning and the Always-On display on and those seconds ticking away, I was regularly hitting the 40-hour mark. If you’re pushing the new 5G capabilities or using GPS for regular walks and runs, that figure will naturally dip, but for standard adventuring to the office, the battery life is better than it is on any other Apple Watch model and it will see you through a marathon too.

If you do get caught short, however, there’s faster charging on the Watch Ultra 3 compared to the Watch Ultra 2 and perhaps that’s the biggest reason for an upgrade. Pop it on the charging puck for 15 minutes and you’ll get around 12 hours of use, which is more than enough for an evening out or a full night of sleep tracking.

It takes around 45 minutes to top the battery up to 80 per cent, while it was an hour on the Watch Ultra 2. It might seem like a small improvement, but it’s noticeable for those with busy lives.

Price & Availability

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 starts at £749/$799, which is for either the Natural Titanium or the Black Titanium finish with the Alpine Loop, Trail Loop or Ocean Band straps. GPS and Cellular connectivity is offered as standard in the Apple Watch Ultra 3, but the price can increase if you opt for a different band other than the three I just mentioned. 

For example, pick the Titanium Milanese Loop band and the price increases to £849/$899, though if you’re after a smarter look, this is a great combination. 

You can buy the Apple Watch Ultra 3 through a number of retailers, including Apple, Amazon, John Lewis and Currys. Head to the likes of BestBuy and Walmart if you’re in the US.

Check out our list of the top 10 best smartwatches right now.

Should you buy the Apple Watch Ultra 3?

If you have the Apple Watch Ultra 2, then no, you don’t need the Apple Watch Ultra 3 unless you feel like 5G connectivity or Emergency SOS via satellite is really going to make a difference to your life.

Predecessors aside and judged on its own merits, however, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is a fantastic smartwatch. It offers a premium build quality, a large and responsive display and it’s packed with features that are all executed brilliantly. 

The battery life improvements are welcome, while the watchOS 26 software makes for a very easy to use device, whether you’re new to Apple Watch or a seasoned user.

There’s no denying the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expensive, and for athletes and marathon runners, you may be better served by Garmin. But if you’re looking for a tough and rugged smartwatch that can be worn as much as a lifestyle watch as a sports watch, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is up there with the best.

Specs

• WatchOS 26
• 49mm
• 1245 sq mm display area, LTPO3 OLED, 422 x 514 pixels, 3000 nits
• Apple S10 processor
• Apple W3 wireless chip
• Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip
• 64GB storage 
• EN13319 certification
• IP6X dust resistant
• Water resistant to 100 metres
• Up to 42 hours battery
• Electrical heart sensor
• Third-generation optical heart sensor
• Blood oxygen sensor
• Temperature sensor
• Depth gauge
• Water temperature sensor
• Compass
• Always-on altimeter
• High-g accelerometer
• High dynamic range gyroscope
• Ambient light sensor
• Three-microphone array
• Dual speakers
• Siren
• Torch
• L1 and L5 precision dual‑frequency GPS
• Wi-Fi 4
• Bluetooth 5.3
• 61.8g

Best Prices Today: Apple Watch Ultra 3