I have been debating on getting an Ultra, but I know full well that I don’t need that big of watch (I have small wrists), nor will I take advantage of the features. I’m going to see what the S9 offers, but if the rumors are accurate, I will probably hold on to my S8 and SS S7.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Who's buying a new Apple Watch this year, and what are you going for?
- Thread starter The Cockney Rebel
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think it was the S4 that had a big jump in screen size. Made a big difference to me.
Going for the Ultra this year. I have an SS (black) S5 (bought at launch, replaced via AppleCare almost 3 years ago). It works fine and I am happy with it for normal day-to-day life, but started doing regular hikes and the battery just can’t handle it anymore. I think I might keep it and use it for formal occasions but will see how the Ultra fares.
I’m wondering if there won’t be a new Ultra this year but just the additional colour option..
If the new chip (A15 based?) is really coming to the S9 then it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t increment the Ultra as well. They probably don’t want the S9 with a better chip than the Ultra, and it should improve battery life.
Might get an Ultra this year. I'm really not sure if I'll upgrade at all, Watch or iPhone. I'm already on 14 PM and Series 8 GPS -- for the iPhone it almost always comes down to camera upgrades.
All my previous Apple Watches were cellular and I found myself basically never using it (or so I thought) so I went with GPS last year. I quickly found that even walking 50 feet away from my iPhone would cause the Watch to lose connection so I'm not going to make the mistake of getting a non cellular watch again.
The reason I would go with Ultra this year is not only to get Cellular back but also to get the double battery life. This would make sleep tracking feasible without worrying too much about having to charge the Watch twice a day.
My dad is finally getting this year's Ultra. He's been using a Series 6 cellular for a while and almost exclusively wears it for run tracking (he doesn't take his iPhone with him). The big upgrade for him will be the better GPS because it will boost tracking accuracy quite considerably.
All my previous Apple Watches were cellular and I found myself basically never using it (or so I thought) so I went with GPS last year. I quickly found that even walking 50 feet away from my iPhone would cause the Watch to lose connection so I'm not going to make the mistake of getting a non cellular watch again.
The reason I would go with Ultra this year is not only to get Cellular back but also to get the double battery life. This would make sleep tracking feasible without worrying too much about having to charge the Watch twice a day.
My dad is finally getting this year's Ultra. He's been using a Series 6 cellular for a while and almost exclusively wears it for run tracking (he doesn't take his iPhone with him). The big upgrade for him will be the better GPS because it will boost tracking accuracy quite considerably.
That's interesting to hear. I use my watch to track my sleep, I think I started doing that with the S6, but could have been as early as the S4, I'm not sure. I'm now using the S8. I've never felt like I had to charge my S6 or S8 twice a day to use it for sleep tracking. I charge my watch to 100% before going to bed, and it usually has around 30-20% battery left by the time I start thinking about charging it the next night. I do a 45 minute meditation workout and a 20-40 minute walking workout each day. I do have the AOD turned off. Can you tell what could be causing the difference in our experiences with the battery life?
I missed a huge detail actually: I'm on the watchOS beta. That's part of the reason for the battery difference, the initial betas were unoptimized. Also the new optimized charging feature (holding the charge at 80%) is new for the regular watches in version 10 (Ultra had this at launch) so there's been a couple instances where I've put the watch on only to find I have 80% battery life. I have AOD turned on btw.
Ordinarily I end the day with anywhere between 20-40% battery life remaining if I'm not sleep tracking (I haven't been recently). It's possible to charge once a day but only if I'm charging the watch every night at around 9 or 10pm. Sometimes I'll have the watch on until 2am because I'm working and it tells me I should charge before sleeping to ensure sleep tracking lasts all night.
Overall the battery life is great but to be extra sure I don't end up in a situation where I run out of battery I feel like I have to charge twice a day, not out of necessity per se because I want the security of accounting for edge cases where I'm wearing my watch for longer than usual or I'm doing 1 hour+ fitness tracking.
On a Series 6 at the moment and will probably upgrade to a Series 9 next month. I've recently started using my watch a lot more for fitness and have started sleep tracking so a Watch with potentially better battery life due to a more efficient chip as well as much faster charging will be worthwhile upgrades.
I am currently using a series 5, and after 4 years, an updated Ultra would make for a nice upgrade for the battery life and larger display. I had the battery replaced last year, but it seems to be running low a tad more quickly these days, often ending the day at under 20%.