Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 Delivers 50-Hour Battery at $700 as CNET Flags Missing Launch Features
Updated
Updated · CNET · Aug 4
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 Delivers 50-Hour Battery at $700 as CNET Flags Missing Launch Features
3 articles · Updated · CNET · Aug 4
Summary
Three weeks of testing led CNET to call the $700 Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 Samsung’s best smartwatch, citing about 50 hours of always-on battery life and faster performance from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear Elite chip.
An 800-mAh battery, titanium build, sapphire display and 5,000-nit screen drove the gains, while hands-free Gemini and improved heart-rate accuracy made the watch feel more practical for daily use and trail running.
Two headline outdoor features were not fully ready at launch: built-in trail map search did not work during testing, forcing GPX imports, and Samsung’s Mares-powered dive mode is delayed until later this year.
CNET said the 47mm watch remains bulky for sleep tracking and expensive versus the Galaxy Watch 9, though it offers nearly double the battery life of Samsung’s standard lineup and five years of Wear OS updates.
The review positions Ultra 2 as a premium Wear OS hybrid for Samsung users who want outdoor durability without giving up smartwatch apps, but not as a true replacement for weeklong-battery sports watches from Garmin.