Ever since Apple unveiled the Apple Watch Ultra, I've been an Ultra user. I immediately upgraded from my Apple Watch Series 7 and haven't looked back. With the larger display, signature features, and larger battery life, the Ultra was the Apple Watch that was made for someone like me.
However, there's always been a problem with the Ultra: the price. While the regular Apple Watch starts at $399, the Apple Watch Ultra is twice the price at $799. That's a huge jump — imagine if the iPhone 16 Pro was twice the price of the iPhone 16 and started at $1600!
So, while I've enjoyed the Apple Watch Ultra since its release, I haven't enjoyed the money I've had to spend to enjoy the features that such a watch provides. Now that Apple has announced the Apple Watch Series 10, I'm wondering if the Apple Watch Ultra is still for me or if a downgrade is in my future.
The Apple Watch Series 10 is almost Ultra
When Apple was going through all of the features of the Apple Watch Series 10 it announced at the company's "It's Glowtime" iPhone 16 event, I was saying to myself "That's an Apple Watch Ultra feature" over and over again. Apple basically stole most of the features of the Ultra and brought them to an Apple Watch that is much more affordable.
The screen size of the Series 10 is actually slightly bigger than the Apple Watch Ultra now. It also gets what Apple is calling a Wide Angle display, which makes it much brighter — 40% brighter in fact — when glancing at it from an angle. While it doesn't get as bright as the Ultra 2's 3000-nit display, it does not match the original Ultra's 2000 nits. Despite all of these upgrades, the Series 10 is almost half the weight of the Ultra 2 (as low as 36.4 grams compared to the Ultra's 61.4 grams).
It also packs in a ton of the features that the Ultra provides. While you don't get the Siren feature, you still get Waypoints, Backtrack, and Elevation view as well as Compass, an always-on altimeter, and more. The Ultra was the watch that was made for adventures, but it seems that most of those have now come to the Series 10.
The Ultra still gets more "pro" features like deeper water resistance (100 meters instead of 50) for recreational scuba diving and the battery life is still twice that of the Series 10 (18 hours on the regular Apple Watch compared to the Ultra's 36 hours), but that's honestly the biggest difference. Plus, the Series 10 can now get 80% battery in just a 30-minute charge.
So, I'm left to wonder if the $800 price point of the Ultra is still worth it for me. With the Series 10, I can get most of the features of the Ultra as well as some that it doesn't have in a watch that comes in at almost half the weight and about $130 cheaper if I grab the cellular model. That's a pretty compelling argument that the Series 10 could pull some people back from the Ultra.
I think I'm going to preorder the Series 10 in that new Jet Black Aluminum and give the non-Ultra Apple Watch a try again. I'll have a couple of weeks to compare it to my Apple Watch Ultra 2 and see where I land. It's crazy that I'm even considering it, but Apple has made such a fantastic Apple Watch that I might just not need an Ultra anymore. Of course, that's until the Apple Watch Ultra 3 drops.
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