As we await possible news of Apple Watch updates I thought I’d share my thoughts on almost a year with my Ultra.
Firstly I’m going to cut to the chase and say I really like my Ultra and have been very pleased with my purchase.
Is it perfect? Probably not, but I am happy with it.
So firstly what about design and material.
Size wise it’s great, my AW6 was good but airways felt a little small, so the Ultra was a much appreciated step up in size.
Then onto the materials. Maybe I’ve been lucky but after wearing pretty much all day every day the case is still looking pretty new and doesn’t have any noticeable blemishes. I was a little anxious about how it would stand up, but those fears have proved groundless.
And I would highlight I wear it when exercising, doing DIY and at work which can include construction sites, I’ve also worn it exploring abandoned tunnels and bunkers. So it gets a lot of use and has taken a few knocks.
I use a variety of straps but my favourite is still the orange Alpine band, I even altered the Wayfinder Watch face to have orange elements. (Picture didn’t show colours as well as hoped.)
Then there is the screen.
It may not be massively bigger, but I’ve found the extra size useful.
And the flat screen has been much easier to read for me.
Clarity in all lighting conditions is great and I’ve been pleased with how it’s worked.
I like the option to switch to the night colour mode, makes it subtler in low light conditions and easy to read.
My biggest complaint with the Ultra when I got it was the Wayfinder watch face.
On launch each 5 minute segment was erroneously divided into 6 rather 5 making it not as easy to be accurate.
Fortunately this was resolved reasonably quickly.
I guess I’ve if the biggest criticisms of AW in general is battery life. But for me it has not been an issue.
The extra battery life meant I started using sleep monitoring and have continued with this.
I also run, do Apple Fitness+ workouts and walk the dog, so it’s getting a good set of usage.
Generally I am getting 36 hour’s use and find myself either charging after my morning workout whilst getting ready for work, or in the evening whilst relaxing. An hour or so charge and I’m up and running again, maybe hour and half on a bad day.
I had not used sleep tracking before, and have found this a really good addition to my health monitoring.
It seems a fairly good approximation of my sleep, and the wrist temperature has done a good job of highlighting when I’ve been ill.
Workout tracking on this has been better than my AW6.
The GPS has been much better and I’ve had less dropouts, if any.
And now I use a sport loop rather than band I don’t get any heart rate dropouts. Yes, I know this would have most likely fixed issues on my AW6, but it was only moving to this and finding my sport band couldn’t be adjusted to a good fit that made me realise the issue and solutions.
And I’ve find the extra button ideal for starting workouts, much simpler.
All of the above combined mean I’m pretty happy with my Ultra.
Yes the Alpine and Trail bands as well Sport Loops get dirty, but I’ve found using a hand soap under warm tap water cleans them up well.
Yes they are a few areas for improvement.
Of course it would be great if the battery was bigger.
More on board memory or more flexibility to use memory. I found I could not fit many audio books, and speed of loading mean I simply use my iPhone for audio books.
Some settings seem to randomly changed, I have a running playlist set to shuffle. This will regularly default back to start from beginning, and if I’m not careful it’s too late by the time I’m out as I don’t take my iPhone anymore.
But the niggles are minor for me.
I’ll be interested to see what the next generation Ultra is like, but am unlikely to upgrade unless it has some compelling new feature.
Now I know some people will have totally different views, but that’s ok.
Hope you don’t mind me sharing, have a great day.👍
Firstly I’m going to cut to the chase and say I really like my Ultra and have been very pleased with my purchase.
Is it perfect? Probably not, but I am happy with it.
So firstly what about design and material.
Size wise it’s great, my AW6 was good but airways felt a little small, so the Ultra was a much appreciated step up in size.
Then onto the materials. Maybe I’ve been lucky but after wearing pretty much all day every day the case is still looking pretty new and doesn’t have any noticeable blemishes. I was a little anxious about how it would stand up, but those fears have proved groundless.
And I would highlight I wear it when exercising, doing DIY and at work which can include construction sites, I’ve also worn it exploring abandoned tunnels and bunkers. So it gets a lot of use and has taken a few knocks.
I use a variety of straps but my favourite is still the orange Alpine band, I even altered the Wayfinder Watch face to have orange elements. (Picture didn’t show colours as well as hoped.)
Then there is the screen.
It may not be massively bigger, but I’ve found the extra size useful.
And the flat screen has been much easier to read for me.
Clarity in all lighting conditions is great and I’ve been pleased with how it’s worked.
I like the option to switch to the night colour mode, makes it subtler in low light conditions and easy to read.
My biggest complaint with the Ultra when I got it was the Wayfinder watch face.
On launch each 5 minute segment was erroneously divided into 6 rather 5 making it not as easy to be accurate.
Fortunately this was resolved reasonably quickly.
I guess I’ve if the biggest criticisms of AW in general is battery life. But for me it has not been an issue.
The extra battery life meant I started using sleep monitoring and have continued with this.
I also run, do Apple Fitness+ workouts and walk the dog, so it’s getting a good set of usage.
Generally I am getting 36 hour’s use and find myself either charging after my morning workout whilst getting ready for work, or in the evening whilst relaxing. An hour or so charge and I’m up and running again, maybe hour and half on a bad day.
I had not used sleep tracking before, and have found this a really good addition to my health monitoring.
It seems a fairly good approximation of my sleep, and the wrist temperature has done a good job of highlighting when I’ve been ill.
Workout tracking on this has been better than my AW6.
The GPS has been much better and I’ve had less dropouts, if any.
And now I use a sport loop rather than band I don’t get any heart rate dropouts. Yes, I know this would have most likely fixed issues on my AW6, but it was only moving to this and finding my sport band couldn’t be adjusted to a good fit that made me realise the issue and solutions.
And I’ve find the extra button ideal for starting workouts, much simpler.
All of the above combined mean I’m pretty happy with my Ultra.
Yes the Alpine and Trail bands as well Sport Loops get dirty, but I’ve found using a hand soap under warm tap water cleans them up well.
Yes they are a few areas for improvement.
Of course it would be great if the battery was bigger.
More on board memory or more flexibility to use memory. I found I could not fit many audio books, and speed of loading mean I simply use my iPhone for audio books.
Some settings seem to randomly changed, I have a running playlist set to shuffle. This will regularly default back to start from beginning, and if I’m not careful it’s too late by the time I’m out as I don’t take my iPhone anymore.
But the niggles are minor for me.
I’ll be interested to see what the next generation Ultra is like, but am unlikely to upgrade unless it has some compelling new feature.
Now I know some people will have totally different views, but that’s ok.
Hope you don’t mind me sharing, have a great day.👍
