Apple Watch Ultra 2 Running Review: A Small but Useful Upgrade

Introduction

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a small and useful upgrade on the original Apple Watch Ultra. The brighter screen is nice, double tap is clever, and storage has doubled, but the core running experience has not changed in any significant way. This remains the best running smartwatch you can buy if you want Apple’s ecosystem, but it is not a watch worth dashing out to replace an original Ultra over.

What Is New on the Apple Watch Ultra 2

The headline change is the display. It uses the same technology as before but now reaches a maximum of 3,000 nits of brightness compared to 2,000 on the original. That also gives the built-in flashlight mode a boost, making it brighter than before.

Inside, the new S9 chip enables faster interactions with Siri, including the ability to ask Siri about your health data, and it powers the new double tap gesture. Storage has also doubled to 64GB, giving you more room to sync music and install apps. The design, sensors, battery life promises, and price all stay the same, while the original Ultra has dropped in price.

Design, Display and the Trail Loop Strap

The design is essentially unchanged, and it remains a well-built, great-looking watch, though it is a chunkier and less sleek device than the Apple Watch Series 9. It is still notably lighter and smaller than the big Garmin Fenix and Epix-style rugged watches. The brighter display is the real winner: it is easy to see underwater when swimming, easy to see in direct sunlight, and the touchscreen remains brilliantly responsive. It is arguably still the best screen seen on a smartwatch, and by far better than any running watch screen.

The revised bands use more eco-friendly materials, and the Trail Loop in particular impressed one tester with sensitive skin: it dries much faster than the original, so it no longer feels like a wet band around the wrist after swimming or showering. That said, some testers found the Trail Loop works its way loose over long runs and needed repeated tightening, and the straps still feel lackluster in design compared to what ships with the Series 9.

Run Tracking, GPS Accuracy and the App Store

The run tracking experience and accuracy are very similar to the original Ultra, which was already very good. Dual-band GPS performance holds up well and in some testing even performed slightly better than a Garmin Forerunner 965 in the same race scenario. Heart rate monitoring is consistent with the original Ultra, and pairing a chest strap is easy.

One quirk to know: the pedometer is used alongside GPS to calibrate pace and distance. In big city marathons this smooths out GPS dropouts under buildings and in tunnels, but the calibration is not foolproof and pedometer readings can drift slightly. Some third-party apps let you force GPS-only tracking for very accurate results, so calibrating carefully or using GPS-only apps is the smart move.

The Apple App Store remains the biggest advantage. It is by far the best-equipped app store for sports tracking, with strong third-party running apps filling gaps in analysis, mapping, and route-following that the native apps do not cover. Garmin’s Connect IQ store simply does not compare here.

Double Tap: Clever but Not Yet Fully Realized

Double tap lets you interact with the watch by tapping your thumb and index finger together, detected through the motion sensors and optical heart rate sensor. It can pause timers, pause music, answer and reject calls, and scroll through the Smart Stack.

There are caveats. You cannot use it during a run, because the movement of running makes it impossible for the watch to distinguish a deliberate gesture. It does not yet work with third-party music services like Spotify, only Apple Music. For some testers it was mostly a showcase of what is possible, though for one-handed situations like pushing a buggy, holding a baby, or cooking, flipping through the Smart Stack genuinely helps. If Apple opens it up to developers, it could become far more useful.

Battery Life and Charging

Battery life has not improved over the first-generation Ultra. It cannot match the staying power of big endurance watches like the Garmin Enduro 2, and probably never will. Still, it kills battery anxiety at least for racing: it will cover an entire marathon race weekend and can cope with most single-day ultra distances, though it falls just short of multi-stage ultra potential.

In day-to-day training it stretched to two days in full power mode with general usage between runs, possibly three if you tweak power settings. The main limiter is overnight battery burn, which tested at around 10% per night, quite high and a cap on multi-day potential.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The automatic workout detection can be genuinely annoying. Unless you turn it off, the watch tries to end your workout during longish pauses, which is frustrating on long runs where you stop to eat or drink. There is no ultra run mode with an auto-rest timer the way Garmin does it.

There is also no proactive training analysis, no training readiness, and no recovery time guidance. The Apple Watch is much more of a passive tracker than a coach, so runners who want that depth still need Garmin, Polar, or Coros. The price is another sticking point: it costs roughly double the Apple Watch Series 9, and while the extra button, multiband GPS, and longer battery life are real advantages for sports, the Series 9 is half the price and a lot of watch. The chunky design may also be uncomfortable on smaller wrists, and Apple offers no slimmer alternative.

Buying Advice

If you already own the original Apple Watch Ultra, do not upgrade. Nothing here justifies it, especially not from a running perspective. If you are buying new and spot a deal on the original Ultra, that remains the smarter buy, as the Ultra 2 is only a modest improvement.

If you want an Apple Watch for serious training, marathon preparation, or triathlon, this is clearly the best sporty smartwatch available, and it can absolutely support serious amateur racing. If instead you want detailed training analysis, navigation depth, and weeks of battery life, a Garmin Epix Pro or Forerunner 965 is the better, often cheaper alternative.

Conclusion

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 builds on the original benchmark only in a small way, and most of its upgrades are general improvements rather than run-specific ones. It remains a lovely, capable piece of kit with a top-notch screen, excellent GPS, and an unrivaled app ecosystem, but it is a smartwatch with running skills rather than a running watch with smartwatch skills. Buy it if you care more about the smartwatch side; save your money for a Garmin if you do not.