TheApple Watch Ultra 2and theSamsung Galaxy Watch Ultraare supposed to be your forever watches.
Ive regularly swapped between the two over the past few weeks, never spending a minute without a watch.
Occasionally, Ive worn both simultaneously, going watch-akimbo like a fitness-obsessed cyborg.
© Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
I wanted to see which one I liked more.
All I learned was that Apple and Samsung wearables are at near-complete parity.
Samsung ate Apples homeworkon some of its latest devices.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
The competing companys high-end sports watches even bear the same Ultra monicker.
Its become a major talking point among Samsung and Apple fans, but it truly doesnt matter.
Im not a lawyer; Im a consumer.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
I dont care who steals from whom.
If youre an outdoor exercise aficionado and an Apple user, you would go with Apples Watch Ultra.
Ditto with Samsung fiends and the Korean tech giants big, durable watch.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
What I was curious about was the minute differences between them.
Is one truly more usable than the other?
They look great, though.
Two watches, two very different scores. Left, Apple Fitness; right, Samsung Health. Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
I like them both, especially in dark mode, with the glowing red neon feeling very thematic.
That said, its not uncomfortablefar from it.
You never know its there, but the size distributes its 60.5 grams of weight over more skin.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
The Apple Watch Ultra is similarly thick but not nearly as wide.
That means its 61.4 grams of heft are more concentrated on one point.
The digital crown is a godsend.
Its useful for simple things like diving through your app waterfall or selecting watch face colors.
The Apple Watch doesnt have any kinds of tiles, but you know what?
Its not missing much.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra uses a new 3nm processor thats supposed to be three times faster than last gen. Theyre features meant to compete with Samsung Healths sleep tracking.
For the Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra, Samsung released new sleep apnea and electrocardiogram detection.
That sleep apnea detection isnt on Apples wearables, at least not yet.
Those capabilities might be enticing to some, but theyre not going to offer a medical diagnosis.
Samsung also offers body composition snapshots, but the accuracy of those measurements is dubious at best.
Ive struggled to get it to work on both devices.
However, other smaller details differentiate the two.
I cant compare underwater features since I never took this thing to Davy Jones locker.
Apple is conservative when it says youll get 36 hours from a full charge without using battery-saving mode.
Wearing them both simultaneously, Apples equipment managed to go around 42 hours before needing to charge again.
Samsungs went closer to 46 hours.
Apples high-end watch measured my top elevation at 1,218 feet compared to Samsungs at 1,270 feet.
The Apple Watch breaks down heart rate into different zones than Samsung does.
Apples heart rate zones list my aerobic heart rate as between 145 and 158 BPM.
Samsung says my aerobic workout sits between 134 and 152 BPM.
According to Doctor Apple, I spent 24 minutes of my 2-hour and 10-minute hike with an aerobic heartbeat.
Doctor Samsung disagrees, saying I only spent 33 minutes at vigorous intensity.
The stated length for the Wilkinson Trail Loop of Breakneck Ridge is 3.2 miles.
Samsungs watch said I did exactly 3.13 miles, which seems accurate.
For some odd reason, Apple declared my hike was 3.45 miles.
Apple likes to measure pace in minutes per mile rather than Samsungs miles per hour.
It could be a difference in how each rig tracks GPS.
Whats more strange is that these two watches presented wildly different numbers for total calories burned.
Samsungs Watch Ultra claimed I burned through 1,126 calories on my hike.
The Apple Watch claims it was 616 in total.
Apple says my average heart rate was 72 BPM, while Samsung says it was 85 BPM.
As a reminder, these watches cant actively track calories with any particular sensor.
They instead calculate the calories you burn based on your personal information and workout routine.
In those tests, the Apple Watch was normally more accurate by a few percentage points than Samsungs.
In this case, I would trust Apples heart rate tracking more than Samsungs.
But thats all beside the point.
You should not use these smart watches for medically accurate health measurements.
Theyre better considered as metrics to judge your own improvement.
But you cant go wrong either way.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
Meta Pissed Off Everyone With Poorly Redacted Docs
Meta is being very transparent on accident.
