Apple Watch Ultra 4 reviewed: ready and capable

Four generations into Apple’s more specialised sport-focused wearable, the Watch Ultra 4 is better for understanding your health. Now we just want more from the battery.

Everyone is different, but depending on how much you value your phone, you might also value an equally connected device in your life: a watch.

In this day and age, that watch is probably more than just a timekeeper, with a way to keep tabs on your notifications, your health, and generally provide information from your phone at a literal arm’s length. It’s just the norm with how smartwatches work.

If you live in the iPhone world, there’s a solid chance that you’re rocking the Apple equivalent of that, the Apple Watch. And depending on how durable you like them, or how much battery life you feel is important, possibly the Watch Ultra models.

Originally built for athletes, runners, swimmers, hikers, and people who need their wearable to do some extended tracking both on GPS position and their health, it has become the choice for Apple Watch customers keen on getting a little more from their wearable.

Sporting a bigger screen and a bigger battery, the Watch Ultra may cost more than the standard Series model or the much less expensive Apple Watch SE, but it also has the best of everything: around mostly identical feature set to the Series flagship of that year, but with a meatier battery and therefore better battery life.

They don’t get updated every year, but when they do, the Apple Watch Ultra is typically the one to consider. Like the slightly better battery life of the Pro Max iPhone models, the Watch Ultra is technically the better model when every spec is considered.

This year, that holds true again, with the Watch Ultra 4 getting much of what made the Series 12 interesting, but arming it with a bigger screen and battery. Is it still the benchmark Apple Watch to consider?

Design and features

It’s been four years since Apple introduced the bigger and more endurance-focused “Ultra” series, and while the hardware has changed, the design largely hasn’t. Like its predecessors, this is still a 49mm titanium-encased wearable highlighting an OLED always-on display behind sapphire glass, and including a depth gauge, water detection, and more.

The screens runs a 422×514 OLED that can run as low as 1Hz for the refresh rate, coming in a body that weighs 63 grams, and includes a microphone and speakers. Like its predecessor in the Ultra 3, it can feel like little has changed from previous generations, because, well, not much has.

There is a new chip — the Apple S11 system-on-a-chip — complete with a 4-core Neural Engine and paired with 64GB RAM, while the other new feature is a completely rebuilt heart-rate tracking sensor stack which now includes recovery heart-rate variance tracking, working alongside all the other bits and pieces you probably already know about: electrocardiograph (ECG), SpO2 blood oxygen, temperature tracking, hypertension, sleep tracking with sleep apnoea notifications, and cycle tracking with fertility estimates.

That new heart-rate variability tracking means you do get a new “Readiness” score, though this is identical to the Series 12, Apple’s other wearable for 2026, with the main differences largely being aesthetic in the design, and a larger battery comparatively.

In-use

With the feeling that not much has changed under the hood, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that how you use the watch is also the same.

The crown offers a way to dial in menus or scroll, the right button brings up power controls and the left customisable shortcuts, which we mapped to Shazam music recognition, because this reviewer is clearly more music-focused than sport-synced, though each to their own. There are even gestures you can quickly do to browse through items, such as wrist flicks and finger taps of sorts.

But all of this is about par for the course, and the same as an Apple Watch before it.

If it seems a little like writer’s fatigue for simply mentioning the same, it’s because if you’ve used an Apple Watch prior, nothing about using the Ultra 4 will surprise, except perhaps the menu’s larger icons, and that’s a watchOS 27 thing.

And if you’ve never used an Apple Watch before, getting to grips with how the watch works won’t take long, either. WatchOS is a delightfully easy-to-use system that that little time to adjust to, and quickly becomes muscle memory.

Performance

A new chip means you can largely expect the Apple Watch Ultra 4 to handle everything you have in store, and it certainly has no qualms about the day-to-day everything, either.

Between time and apps and health and whatnot, you’ll find the S11 chip handles everything rather well, while the new health stack keeps on monitoring, and provides some of that new “readiness” score idea that Apple has been talking about.

After using both models with the readiness score, we’re still not convinced that the readiness score has a lot of use just yet. Applying a number to a metric about how “ready” you feel doesn’t always feel correct, and may completely miss the mark.

For instance, after a night of poor sleep with coughing and exhaustion, it may simply say “8”, which in turn means “go for it”. Never mind that your body might be crying for a day off and relaxing, because the Apple Watch says otherwise.

While constant heart rate tracking does seem useful, readiness comes across as less than ideal at present. It may simply need more time to work things out, but it’s not the reason to consider an Apple Watch.

Everything else might be, however, from the assortment of health tracking, sleep notifications, music and media monitoring, calls that work through the watch, and assortment of watch faces.

The Watch Ultra 4 is the latest incarnation of a fully-featured smartwatch from Apple, and it still delivers.

Battery

We use the word “still” because the range has largely been consistent. Ever subsequent version has been a slight update and improvement on the previous models, and this one echoes that.

And just like its predecessor, the battery life hasn’t really changed, meaning you’ll see roughly two full days of battery depending on how you use the Ultra 4.

Officially, Apple paints the battery life at up to 50 hours, and while that is technically true, you’ll probably charge it before going to bed on the second night because of the heart-rate tracking tech: it needs some battery overnight to run its checks.

Two full days is definitely possible, and if you need more a low power mode can apparently offer a little over three, but we’d keep the life at two days.

That’s definitely fine, and puts the Apple Watch Ultra 4 up there as being one of the better full-colour smartwatch batteries, but it’s surprising that more isn’t there. In the next generation, in the Watch Ultra 5, we have to hope the battery technology gets better overall, and more life can be found.

This is good, sure, but it does feel like the Ultra can be better. Maybe we’re just greedy.

Value

At least the price is a little easier to deal with, bucking the trend of 2026 where everything is more expensive, including gadgets made by Apple.

While the iPad is more costly, as is even Apple’s least expensive current iPhone, the Watch Ultra 4 actually costs less than its predecessor, dropping about $50 from the recommended retail price, down to $1349.

That’s definitely an unexpected change, but a positive one all the same.

It’s still an expensive wearable, there’s little doubting that, but the upside is that you’re getting every possible premium feature in the Ultra model, while the Series 12 makes you pay extra for it. Titanium is better than aluminium, and sapphire glass is better than engineered glass, not to mention a bigger battery for the device.

As it is, you can pick up the titanium and sapphire glass Apple Watch for $1249, a hundred bucks less than this one, but you’ll miss out on the better battery between the two. That alone is worth a hundred bucks, given the maximum day you’ll get from that other model.

In terms of overall value, the Watch Ultra 4 comes off as better value than the Watch Series 12, but it’s still a pricey gadget, for sure.

What needs work?

But price is hardly the biggest issue.

The biggest issue with the Watch Ultra 4 is the feeling that nothing has changed, making it not so much an upgrade path for anyone with a Watch Ultra model, unless of course it’s one that is no longer supported. That includes the original Watch Ultra model, a wearable that is by all accounts barely four years old.

You can thank watchOS 27’s rather stunted upgrade list, which only goes back to the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2, and drops off everything else before it, a move that is rather un-Apple-like, given the company typically supports its devices for closer to between five and seven years.

The sheer idea is very unlike what we normally see from Apple, but likely stems from operating system differences and AI capabilities, locking the older Watch models out because they just don’t have the specs.

So if you have a 2020 Watch Ultra original, the Watch Ultra 4 is actually a logical upgrade path, and it might be for regular Apple Watch owners, too.

But it does manage to complete the vibe that nothing has changed because not much actually has.

There’s a new health sensor stack with more complete heart rate tracking… and that’s largely it.

The battery could still be better, even though the Ultra 4 offers Apple’s best smartwatch battery at two days. The problem is that two full days in a $1349 Watch is not as impressive as it once was, especially when we’re now beginning to see two full days in models near half that.

What we love

These niggles can sure be annoying, but they don’t dampen the enthusiasm too much if you live in the Apple camp and want the best you can find.

In 2026, the Watch Ultra 4 is definitely the best Apple Watch around because it brings the entire Apple experience to the wrist with minor improvements where they count, even if we can’t help but want a little more.

Technically there is better battery life, but you need to sacrifice features and keep the screen’s always-on mode largely off.

In terms of what the Ultra 4 brings, it is largely everything Apple Watch owners expect, even if this reviewer can’t help but want a little more. Four generations in, we just want to see something else.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

With a new exercise-focused heart rate system and marginal improvements to the battery life, the changes to the Watch Ultra range are small and hardly important. But to new buyers, they may make all the difference.

Fitness fanatics are the most likely to consider it, and possibly previous owners of the first- or second-generation models. As it is, there’s not a lot of reason to consider upgrading unless your model is out of date or you desperately need the new health stack (and we’re not sure who would).

For anyone looking for a smartwatch that handles most of their life, the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is focused on iPhone owners looking for something ready and capable. It’s definitely that, we just want something even better next time around. Recommended.