Ultra switcher looking for more advice

[andloph]

Hi everyone,

i have been using my series 4 for many years now and I´m still very happy with it.
But I will probably get the ultra 2 in short, mainly because of the bigger battery and bigger display.
I have read lots of information about it and I´m more or less aware of what I can expect.

Still, it would be nice to have some more input from people that actually have switched from a regular watch to the ultra, just to make sure I´m not overlooking something obvious.

Thanks in advance !

 

[Jimmie Geddes]

I upgraded from a Series 7 to an Ultra 2 because of the reasons you listed above. I wear a CGM for Type 1 Diabetes and the continuous reading of my blood sugar has an impact on battery life. I would have to place it on a charger once or twice a day to make sure I had enough battery to make it through a full day. It gets pretty annoying having to think about charging so much.

My Ultra 2 has been getting me through 2 days consistently without the need to charge or think about charging. That peace of mind is huge for me.

Coming from a Series 4 will be a huge upgrade for you. Fast charging, faster processor, larger and brighter screen, and noticeably longer battery life will make you very happy.

 

[xraydoc]

Hi everyone,

i have been using my series 4 for many years now and I´m still very happy with it.
But I will probably get the ultra 2 in short, mainly because of the bigger battery and bigger display.
I have read lots of information about it and I´m more or less aware of what I can expect.

Still, it would be nice to have some more input from people that actually have switched from a regular watch to the ultra, just to make sure I´m not overlooking something obvious.

Thanks in advance !

I switched from a Series 7 Hermes to an Ultra 2.

Battery life is amazing. Too good, in fact. I don't usually wear my watch when I sleep (I don't really need the sleep tracking - I know I don't sleep well, so it's not adding anything helpful to my life), so I usually end the day with ~75% left on the battery. My S7 would end the day with ~25% left. But at least now I don't worry about being on cellular for extended periods of time, freeing me from my phone if need be. And I can use all those full-color bright watch faces that used to burn through my old watch's battery in no time. I find myself using the watch more frequently for things like Siri requests, responding to text messages, answering calls, etc, since I know there's battery life to spare.

Display is bigger and brighter. The display size difference isn't huge, but it's enough to make small text like Apple's corner date complication a bit easier to see.

The processor speed of the Ultra 2 (and presumably the Series 9 watches) is a noticeable improvement from my Series 7. Voice-to-text dictation is amazingly responsive and accurate, and watch animations/transitions are very smooth.

Size-wise, I think my wrist is just big enough to pull off the Ultra. I wear between a size 7-8 solo loop (7's a hair tight, 8 is a tad too roomy), and my wife thinks the Ultra looks fine on me.

I'm not a huge fan of the way the titanium looks when paired with my old leather bands with polished silver stainless lugs, but that's just me. But I do really like the way the Ultra looks with my brushed stainless link bracelet. And the sport loops, leather loops, solo & braided loops, sport bands and original woven nylon bands (not to mention the Ultra-specific bands) look perfectly fine.

I'm 100% satisfied with my Ultra 2. I was convinced that the Ultra was too big for me when they first came out, but I've completely changed my mind.

 

[Thirio2]

Be aware that you can’t turn off night mode on the Ultra if you have aging eyes. Messages are unreadable in the dark. This is something that should be fixable with a software update, but so far I have not heard of any intention to do so.

 

[drew0020]

If the size works for you then I’d do it. It’s the top of the line Apple Watch for a reason - best battery, largest and brightest screen, best water resistance, only watch with precision dual frequency GPS, and even more.

Personally I love the flat screen look too. Makes it look so much nicer than the standard Apple watches. Good luck!

 

[adam1080]

I made that exact switch.

I bought the aluminum, cellular S4 instead of stainless thinking I would be upgrading the following year like I usually do with phones.

Fast forward to 2023 and saw no real need to upgrade the watch. Despite wearing it all the time, I rarely used it for much. Reading some
notifications, setting some timers/reminders and checking the time. I just couldn’t justify getting something a bit newer, a bit faster, slightly larger screen and stainless.

I’m glad I waited…

With the Raw Titanium iPhones, the Ultra 2 was a no brainer to compliment each other.

The Ultra 2 is a HUGE upgrade from the S4. Feels entirely new, blazing fast and a battery that never seems to need charging. (Battery on the S4 was roached…)

I’m so glad I went with the Ultra 2 vs the S9, because I think the S9 would not have looked or felt much different besides being faster.

I use the flashlight “action” button all the time at night (despite being a total flashlight EDC nerd. The watch is just easier for “around the house in the dark stuff.”) I use the sleep tracking feature every night cause I only charge like twice a week in the mornings for under 30 min. No way to do that with S4 without lots of planning and charging.

The bigger display, faster processor and cellular also had me leaving the Pro Max behind more often(haven’t used a max/large phone since the X came out). It’s nice to be a bit “more” disconnected but not totally without something for emergencies.

The screen makes the watch more usable for everything, maps, messages, etc.

I have a large Citizen world chronograph. atomic clock radio controlled watch that I actually was sporting for a while before I got the Ultra since I lost the S4 for like a minute.

That made the Ultra not feel very big or heavy at all. It is not heavy, but it is tall. Big mechanical watches can be bigger and heavier across the wrist, but the only thing is the Ultra is a thic boi.

I thought I always had tiny wrists, but at 185mm I guess it is not as small as many people wearing the Ultras.

If a slightly bigger watch is not a concern (still crazy comfy with the Alpine Loop and other bands), then I promise you will not regret the upgrade.

 

[Jimmie Geddes]

Be aware that you can’t turn off night mode on the Ultra if you have aging eyes. Messages are unreadable in the dark. This is something that should be fixable with a software update, but so far I have not heard of any intention to do so.

You can turn off night mode, the setting was on by default. I turned it off under watch faces.

 

[andloph]

Hi everyone,
and many thanks for all your input !
I got my ultra2 last week and have been using it on a daily basis since then.
Very happy with the change, it doesn't feel heavy nor clunky on my wrist, screen size and battery are excellent as expected compared to my previous s4.
Thanks

 

[Jimmie Geddes]

The display is amazing, the battery life is insane, and it's much lighter than I expected. I have no issue sleeping with it and I don't ever feel it's heavy or bulky while wearing it.

 

[ndouglas]

Good thread, inspiring to me as a Series 7 user. Even though I don’t have the monitoring device Jimmie G mentions, I still have to charge it similarly often… Someday soon I might switch… I know I’ll be relieved to just let it charge when I’m in the shower etc for only 1x a day instead of 2x which is a minor but continual hassle.

 

[andloph]

Hi everyone,

I will elaborate a bit more my experience so far :

- size and build quality : when I unboxed it i was like "OMG, this thing is way to big" but after you put it on it certainly doesn't feel heavy or "enormous". It is chunky, sure, but not uncomfortably so. I have rather big wrists though, suppose that helps. Build quality is excellent as you might imagine, let´s see however how it deals with scratches.

- display : amazing, it is very bright and of course bigger. For me it is enough to actually make me use my phone a lot less, which is what you should expect when you buy a device like this I guess.

- performance : if I put my s4 and the u2 side by side and I start open apps it is indeed a bit faster, the UI feels a lot more snappier and smoother compared to my s4 though.

- battery life : this has been a surprise to me.
I usually put my watch on at 07:00 AM and turn it off at around 08:00 PM. So basically around 12 hours of use each day.
I'm not a "power user" ( whatever that means on a watch) : I just use it to check mails, messages, phone calls and to log my daily 90 minutes workout. I fully charged the ultra last Monday night to 100% and today ( Friday morning) I still have 49% left, which is fu**ing amazing !
As a comparison : my s4 with 88% battery health lasts 2 x 12 hours with more or less the same usage pattern.

I briefly used a Galaxy Pro 6 smartwatch a couple of months this year. Excellent smartwatch too, great build quality ( on par to the ultra in my opinion ) and excellent battery life too. But the ultra has certainly much better battery life, display and features.

One thing is still very disappointing. Apple claims Siri is twice as fast as previous generations ( or something like that IIRC) : indeed it is twice as fast providing useless information ... what a stupid piece of software, I don't see any difference between the experience you get on my s4 and the u2 apart from it being, well, "faster".
Siri will remain disabled, like on my phone.

The action button is fine I guess, it makes it at least quicker to launch my workout routine.

The exclusive ultra watch face is useful too, I have basically all the information I need in 1 watch face now.
I was actually also hoping there would be some built-in solution to check my phone´s battery from the watch now, looks like I will have to keep using the Juice Watch app.

Anyhow, excellent device that will hopefully serve me well for a couple of years.

This is just my experience of course, yours could be very different.

Thanks

 

[jdb8167]

One thing is still very disappointing. Apple claims Siri is twice as fast as previous generations ( or something like that IIRC) : indeed it is twice as fast providing useless information ... what a stupid piece of software, I don't see any difference between the experience you get on my s4 and the u2 apart from it being, well, "faster".
Siri will remain disabled, like on my phone.

With my Series 9, I only use Siri for things that stay on device like starting timers or turning on lights. My watch would seem crippled without Siri. One of the biggest frustrations with my previous generations of Apple Watches was inconsistent network connections when using Siri. I’m very happy to have that fixed.

Trying to use Siri to look up information on the internet is still mostly a waste of time. It doesn’t work any better on the latest Apple Watches than it ever did.

 

[MapleBeercules]

Hi everyone,

i have been using my series 4 for many years now and I´m still very happy with it.
But I will probably get the ultra 2 in short, mainly because of the bigger battery and bigger display.
I have read lots of information about it and I´m more or less aware of what I can expect.

Still, it would be nice to have some more input from people that actually have switched from a regular watch to the ultra, just to make sure I´m not overlooking something obvious.

Thanks in advance !

if you sleep with your watch, you may find the AWU2 a bit annoying as its bulker than my pervious apple watch 7 nike edition. The S7 was much more comfortable to wear while sleeping but the AWU is a much better watch both battery life and screen size.

 

[cateye]

Siri is fine for the sort of thing it's been possible to do by voice for like 25 years: Discrete, definable tasks like starting a timer or asking for a very specific piece of information that is within that narrow rails of a subject ("what is the temperature outside?"). But for general queries, the sort of thing I've grown accustomed to the Google speakers I have scattered around the house handling effortlessly, or anything requiring the voice assistant having access to context? It's just so bad. Bogglingly so. Apple should be ashamed of it, it's a bad, amateurish product, period.

Which is a shame, really, because the combination of the Watch, its ability to tap into information on your phone and your greater Apple identity, and an always-on connection could make Siri uniquely useful and interesting, were it not handled so poorly by Apple. Every time I hear Apple back on its heels about how it's "totally working on AI," it's like a secret signal that they're still directionless and without leadership in that regard. Stupid and shameful.

Thank you for your updates, andloph! It's really helpful for us still considering the jump from regular Watch to Ultra. It's not in the budget for me this holiday season, but I like hearing other people's thought processes and the things they find better in comparison.