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Apple Watch Ultra 2 vs. Ultra 3 Buyer's Guide: 10 Upgrades Compared
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I’ve been on the iOS 26 beta since day one and honestly, there’s nothing wrong with leaving Adaptive Power on. It’s way less noticeable than Low Power Mode — I don’t feel any performance drop at all. The adjustments it makes are much lighter and handled by AI, which is why it’s only supported on devices with Apple Intelligence.
Normally, if you want to squeeze more battery, you’d have to tweak stuff manually — like lowering brightness, turning off background app refresh, limiting location services, disabling 5G when not needed, or cutting down push mail. Adaptive Power basically does that type of thing automatically, on the fly, only when it’s actually needed.
It’s a nice feature because a lot of people just use their phone out of the box without ever touching settings, and this way the phone optimizes itself for them.
People just like to nitpick on features they don’t even understand.
Normally, if you want to squeeze more battery, you’d have to tweak stuff manually — like lowering brightness, turning off background app refresh, limiting location services, disabling 5G when not needed, or cutting down push mail. Adaptive Power basically does that type of thing automatically, on the fly, only when it’s actually needed.
It’s a nice feature because a lot of people just use their phone out of the box without ever touching settings, and this way the phone optimizes itself for them.
People just like to nitpick on features they don’t even understand.
This is one reason I've been looking at it. I was curious if fall detection on the watch would use an iPhone satellite if there was no cell service and it appears it does so that makes that feature a bit less appealing. The hypertension alerts I thought looked interesting but they back ported that too.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/108896
Moving up to the black ultra 3 from my Series 7 Titanium. Held onto this thing long enough. Pretty pumped. This is not a worth upgrade for ultra 2 owners as most year over year tech drops are not worth the upgrade.
I have tested my AWU1 on the track multiple times and found it to be within a couple of feet every time. It sounds to me like your watch is defective.
The AWU1 remains a great watch. However it sounds like the AWU3 may be brighter and more visible, which is important to me. I will do real-world comparisons on Friday. If the trade-in value of the AWU1 is good I might upgrade.
Just something to consider: even if the error is 200m, it's over 10,000m. That's an error of 2%, well within the margin of error for the gps tech. So it doesn't matter if it's Watch ultra 4, 5 etc. The error will always be there depending on many variables (including whether you're in power saving mode etc.)
The following is from chatgpt.
The real question for me is, what is the functional difference in terms of the blood oxygen capabilities/sensor between Ultra1 and Ultra3?
Ultra 1 blood oxygen displayed on watch and in vitals app.
Ultra 3: blood oxygen measured via watch but only displayed on iPhone and not in the vitals app
Imagine paying so much money for a watch that you should change after 2 or 3 years of use…. But what if you actually buy a real watch that will last forever with you …
I didn’t have this issue before.
And someone here said they don’t have that issue.
Its to the point that its affecting my pace as well
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It's not that expensive and if and when your so called “real” watch can stream music to my AirPods when I am out running and a host of other functions, then maybe I consider going back. Otherwise they are staying in the drawers unless I am in some black tie events…..
Did you take a look at the map in the app after the run? I used to have a similar problem back when I was using an Apple Watch 5. On the map I could see where it went wrong, and if the distances matched the real world distances. This has not been an issue since I upgraded to Ultra 2, which is extremely accurate for my outdoor runs.
It could also depend on where you run. My old watch had specific spots where it went wrong.
I own a few very nice real watches, Apple Watches are much more useful for most daily activities. Time and a place for both
I loved my Ultra 2 so much that I thought I’d absolutely skip the next version, but I placed an order for an Ultra 3 this evening. With my qualified discount of $719 plus my trade-in value of $335, it brings my cost to $384.
Considering that I also get a new Trail Loop out of this and an extra charging cable, that gives me even more value. I got two full years of 24/7 use out of my AWU2 (except for charging while showering) and while the battery in my AWU2 is still doing great at 96%…it is probably safe to assume that if I kept it another 2 years, then a $99 battery replacement would come due at some point in time, especially since I wear my watch around the clock.
I routinely run with just my watch and no phone, and I am routinely out of all cell phone range at least 8 days a month, so the satellite connectivity will be very handy for me. Excited about the upgrade!
Considering that I also get a new Trail Loop out of this and an extra charging cable, that gives me even more value. I got two full years of 24/7 use out of my AWU2 (except for charging while showering) and while the battery in my AWU2 is still doing great at 96%…it is probably safe to assume that if I kept it another 2 years, then a $99 battery replacement would come due at some point in time, especially since I wear my watch around the clock.
I routinely run with just my watch and no phone, and I am routinely out of all cell phone range at least 8 days a month, so the satellite connectivity will be very handy for me. Excited about the upgrade!