- The Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra is now out with the longest-lasting Wear OS smartwatch ~ 4 days of battery.
- It features Samsung's new 3nm Exynos W1000 SoC, which is twice as fast and efficient as last year's W930.
- The Watch 7 Ultra comes in an LTE version and costs $649.
At the Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung showcased its attempt at an Apple Watch Ultra competitor, and it’s called the Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra. From a new controversial design, and form factor to newly added functionality, here’s a detailed overview of everything you need to know about the Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra.
Galaxy Watch 7 UItra: Build and Display
Let’s kick things off with the build quality and display. The casing of the Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra uses Titanium. It features a square case with rounded edges around a circular display and a rotating bezel on the top. Unlike the regular Watch 7 which comes in two sizes, the Watch 7 Ultra is available in only 47mm size. The overall dimensions of the watch are 47.4 x 47.1 x 12.1mm and weighs 60.5 grams.
The Watch 7 Ultra has three buttons, all of which are on the right side. There’s no rotating crown, and the one in the middle is actually a button with touch sensors to take different health readings. The strapping mechanism on the Ultra differs from the usual spring-pin one.
Like the Apple Watch, there’s an underbody button to remove the straps. Overall, if we put the design-related criticism aside, the Watch 7 Ultra looks like an absolute unit, just like the Apple Watch Ultra. It’s also IP68-rated and MIL-STD-810H certified.
The Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra has a 1.5-inch Super AMOLED with 480 x 480 pixels resolution. It’s protected by Sapphire Crystal for extra ruggedness.
Performance
The Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra features Samsung’s latest Exynos W1000 SoC built on Samsung’s 3nm manufacturing process. The W1000 is a 5-core CPU with 1 x Cortex-A78 performance core at 1.6 GHz and 4 x Cortex-A55 efficiency cores at 1.5 GHz.
According to Samsung, the W1000 can open apps 2.7 times faster than the W930. The single-core performance is 3.4 times better, whereas the multi-core performance has been improved by 3.7x. These numbers need to be tested, but if Samsung’s claims are true, the Watch 7 series brings the best performance over any watch released by the brand.
The Watch 7 Ultra features 2GB RAM and 32GB storage. The storage is now twice the one on the Watch 6 Classic, but the RAM remains the same. Overall, the Galaxy Watch 7 series’ performance upgrade was much-needed, and there’s another huge issue that the SoC upgrade addresses and that is:
Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra: Software
The Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra comes with One UI 6 Watch based on Wear OS 5.0 and Android 14. There are lots of cool additions in One UI 6 Watch, including AI health tracking, a new Energy score feature, and an improved Samsung Health experience. There are many other nifty features that you can find in our detailed One UI 6 Watch features article.
Battery Life and Connectivity
The battery capacity of the Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra is 590 mAh and charges at 10W. It’s now the second largest out of all Wear OS devices after the TicWatch Pro 5’s 628 mAh battery. Samsung claims a battery life of more than two days on a full charge and four days in power-saving mode, dethroning the OnePlus Watch 2 which is also one of the Best Wear OS Smartwatches picks.
On the connectivity front, the Watch 7 Ultra features Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz, NFC, and LTE. There’s a Bluetooth-only variant as well. In the sensors department, the watch features Light, Geomagnetic, Accelerometer, Barometer, BioActive, BP & ECG, AGE, Skin Temperature, SpO2, Heart Rate, and Gyroscope. There’s also a more precise dual-band GPS for better tracking and a new sleep apnea feature.
Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra: Availability and Pricing
The Galaxy Watch 7 will be available in three colors Titanium Gray, Titanium Silver, and Titanium White. All variants come with Samsung’s Extreme Sport band. The Watch is already up for pre-orders.
The Watch 7 Ultra only comes in an LTE variant and costs $649 in the US. Samsung is yet to reveal the India pricing. What are your thoughts on the Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra? Do you think it’s worthy of being called an Apple Watch Ultra 2 contender? Let us know in the comments.
