The Galaxy Watch Ultra (mostly) lives up to Samsung's lofty fitness promises

[Shirogane]

 

 

There are four main upgrades from the Watch 6 to the Galaxy Watch 7 and Ultra: faster Exynos, doubled storage, tripled LEDs in the bottom health sensors, and dual-band GPS. The first two are welcome but predictable for an annual upgrade, while the last two's value is somewhat subjective. Are the old Watch 6 HR and GPS data good enough that you can wait to upgrade, or do Wear OS athletes need the upgrade?

 

 

The Garmin watch was set to SatIQ mode, which starts with GPS-only to save battery but jumps into dual-band mode if the signal encounters blockage. In theory, the Galaxy Watch Ultra stays in dual-band mode by default, which would be more reliable.  

In this test, the Galaxy Watch Ultra's dual-band GPS map did better than Garmin's SatIQ map. On an out-and-back route, Samsung stuck more consistently to the running path while Garmin drifted outwards off the path. And at one early point where I was running in the street past some construction, Samsung better captured the moment where I stopped and turned to watch cars go by.

As for heart rate, Samsung mostly matched the HR monitor's peaks and valleys but lagged slightly behind during rapid changes. This is pretty consistent for wrist-based optical HR data, so Samsung is in good company. Aside from a couple of blips, the Ultra stayed close in accuracy.

 

 

 

 

SOURCE

[Shirogane]

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