18 September 2024
Once again, I went down the rabbit hole. This time detailing all the differences between Apple’s two latest models – the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black and Apple Watch Series 10. In total, I’ve gathered roughly 40 differences between them. Some of these are big ticket (or obvious) ones like battery capacity differences and extra buttons. While others are more subtle, such as the differences in the speakers and microphones. Or, how the internal chipsets differ.
In total, the above video walks you through each of those things, including bits like comparing speakers side-by-side, as well as showing real-world footage of the display differences and whether or not the upgraded Series 10 display is all the meaningful compared to the existing (but smaller) Ultra 2 display.
Of course, I know many of you prefer a text based list. And given I had to write-up the list first to shoot the video, I actually wrote this post, and then built the video atop it. In the video I do give a bit more nuance on some things, but most of the stuff is pretty self explanatory.
(Oh, you can find my Apple Watch Series 10 In-Depth Review here, and my Apple Watch Ultra 2 In-Depth Review here, with an updated Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black with WatchOS11 In-Depth Review coming shortly, following some silly idea long adventure.)
The Pricing:
Before we get into the hardware differences, a quick note on pricing and models:
Apple Watch Series 10 Aluminum (42mm): $399USD
Apple Watch Series 10 Aluminum (46mm): $429USD
Apple Watch Ultra (Titanium): $799USD (Cellular Included)
If you want the cellular editions, they are:
Apple Watch Series 10 Aluminum (42mm cellular): $499
Apple Watch Series 10 Aluminum (46mm cellular): $529
Apple Watch Series 10 Titanium (42mm cellular): $699
Apple Watch Series 10 Titanium (46mm cellular): $749
Note that for the Apple Watch Ultra editions, you can choose from three included stock bands (all of which are quite good), and in the case of the base Apple Watch Series 10 editions, you also get quite a bit more flexibility than I’d realized. That includes not just the base silicon bands, but even fabric ones too – all for that $399 price point.
Ok, with that, let’s get into the fun stuff.
The Hardware Differences:
For this section, I’m going to focus on the hardware pieces first. And again, some of these are huge, some of them are small, and a lot of them are just half-way in between.
– Ultra 2 has a 49mm case size, Series 10 has a 42mm and 46mm case size
– Ultra 2 stock case is titanium, whereas Series 10 base case is aluminum (and Series 10 Titanium is $699)
– Ultra 2 has dedicated ‘Action’ button for dedicated quick actions
– Ultra 2 has ‘Precision Start’ for workout modes, versus 3-second countdown in Series 10
– Ultra 2 has cellular built-in all models, whereas Series 10 only in certain models
– Ultra 2 gets ~2 days battery life, Series 10 gets ~1 day (or 36hrs vs 72hrs in low power mode)
– Ultra 2 has GPS battery life of 12+ hours, Series 10 is 7 hours
– Ultra 2 has depth gauge to 40m/131ft, Series 10 to only 6m/20ft
– Ultra 2 hs depth gauge certified for scuba diving (and meets EN13319 standard), Series 10 does not
– Ultra 2 has water resistance to 100m, versus 50m for Series 10
– Ultra 2 has 86db emergency siren, Series 10 does not
– Ultra 2 has multiband/dual-frequency GPS/GNSS, Series 10 has regular GPS/GNSS
– Ultra 2 has the S9 SIP (chipset), whereas Series 10 has the S10 SIP
– Ultra 2 has three microphones, versus Series 10 has one microphone
– Ultra 2 has dual speakers, Series 10 has a single speaker (but there’s no audible difference in my tests)
– Ultra 2 has sapphire crystal display, and Series 10 base has Ion-X glass, though Series 10 Titanium has sapphire crystal
– Ultra 2 display max brightness is 3,000 nits, Series 10 max brightness is 2,000 nits
– Ultra 2 has a LTPO2 OLED display, Series 10 has LTPO3 OLED display
– Ultra 2 has a fully flat screen display top, whereas Series 10 has glass curves on edges
– Ultra 2 case weight is 61.4g/61.8g (natural/black), versus 36.4-41g (46mm), and 29.3-344g (42mm)
– Ultra 2 case thickness is 14.4mm, versus 9.7mm for Series 10
– Ultra 2 case has button guard around Digital Crown & Button, Series 10 does not
– Ultra 2 has been validated to MIL-STD 810H standards, Series 10 has not
– Ultra 2 has a ceramic & sapphire crystal back case, Series 10 has a metal and sapphire crystal back case
– Ultra 2 Black has protective DLC coating on the titanium, whereas neither Ultra 2 (original) or Series 10 has DLC
– Ultra 2 fast charges to 80% in 1 hour, but Series 10 does 80% in 30 minutes
Most of these are self-explanatory, but a few might need some additional explanation/expansion:
– Chipset: S9 SIP vs S10 SIP: Today, practically speaking, this has absolutely zero difference in functionality between the two units. Speed is identical, and even Apple will say these act the same. However, it wouldn’t take much to imagine a case where in 2025, Apple rolls out some new Apple AI feature to watches that might only work on the S10 or future S11 chipset. But as always, don’t buy a watch for future promises, and in this case, don’t buy a watch for something Apple hasn’t even talked about.
– 1 Mic vs 3 Mics: Interestingly, this ties into the one above it. In the case of the Series 10 it uses that S10 SIP to do audio voice isolation during calls from the watch with one microphone. Whereas in the Ultra edition, it does that at a hardware level with the three microphones. End result is the same, just different ways of doing it.
– 1 Speaker vs 2 Speakers: The Series 10 got an upgraded speaker setup this year, including the ability to playback music. However, despite only having 1 speaker, it’s just as loud as the Ultra 2 in my side-by-side tests. I noticed no difference in quality either.
– Multiband/Dual-Frequency GPS vs Regular GPS: There’s nobody that will dive into GPS accuracy testing as deeply (or stupidly) as I. Yet thus far, I’m not seeing any meaningful difference between the two models in real-world tests. Undoubtedly, there may/will be some situations that multiband handles better, but even in some tall building tests and cliff tests, I haven’t had any issues with the Series 10 accuracy. As we’ve seen over the last few years, antenna design and firmware/algorithms can and will often beat less sophisticated multiband setups. Both Apple & Garmin have proven this time and time again.
– LTPO OLED Display differences: The new LTPO3 OLED on the Series 10 has a better off-angle viewing angle than older/past units (especially Series 4/5/6 units), but you’d be very hard pressed to see any real-world difference between Ultra 2 and Series 10. You can see this below. Additionally, while the Ultra 2 has a 3,000 nit display versus the 2,000 nit display on the Series 10, both are well beyond overkill for even the brightness of sunny days.
Looking at the screen, this is where you get into the nitty gritty detailed differences. Apple noted in their keynote that the Series 10 has ‘the largest active display area ever’ on a watch. And that’s true. But only just barely. It’s technically got a 3% larger ‘Active’ display area, with ‘Active’ being the most important word here. That’s specifically talking about the portion of the display that the watch can leverage and light up. Obviously, 3% isn’t really noticeable per se.
The official dimensions for the units are:
Series 10 (42mm): 374 by 446 pixels (989 sq mm display area)
Series 10 (46mm): 416 by 496 pixels (1220 sq mm display area)
Ultra 2 (49mm): 410 by 502 pixels (1185 sq mm display area)
In the video I have approximately 1 million shots of the two side by side from all angles. Literally, that’s the entire video.
When it comes to battery life, the TLDR is the Ultra 2 will get you 2 days, whereas the Series 10 will get you one day. At least in normal smartwatch mode. It’s as simple as that. But the more important piece is the differences in GPS battery life. Here’s the specs per Apple:
Apple Watch Series 10: 7 hours outdoors GPS (they don’t publish low power claims/specs)
Apple Watch Ultra 2: 12 hours outdoors GPS, 17 hours low power GPS, 35 hours outdoor GPS lower power + fewer readings
In my testing, these specs do indeed hold up. In fact, I’ve consistently gotten better results in my testing than Apple’s specs. Not by much, but slightly. For the Series 10, I’m getting closer to 8hrs of GPS time, and for the Ultra 2, I was in the 14hr+ range even without turning on low-power GPS.
The Software Differences:
There are very few differences here, but there are a couple:
– Ultra 2 has Modular watch face, Series 10 does not
– Ultra 2 watch face has night mode (goes to a red coloring), Series 10 does not
– Ultra 2 allows up to 7 data fields per sport mode setting, whereas Series 10 allows 6. Note this includes the time in the upper right corner.
– Ultra 2 has Precision Start (using the Action button), though I’d argue that’s a software feature and not really a hardware feature, hence why I’m including it in both places.
And…that’s it. Virtually everything else is identical.
Things That Are the Same:
One could basically surmise that everything else is teh same, and that’s essentially true. Nonetheless, I want to call many of these out, just to illustrate that they are indeed, the same:
– Both run WatchOS 11
– Both have features like DoubleTap
– Both have offline Siri introduced with the S9 chipset
– Both have the same optical HR sensor
– Both have Blood Oxygen capability enabled if bought outside US
– Both have Blood Oxygen capability disabled if bought inside the US
– Both have ECG, Sleep Apnea features, wrist temperature, and all other health metrics
– Both have all the same sport modes (as listed in the Workout app)
– Both can do snorkeling via the Depth gauge (and Oceanic+ app), but only Ultra does diving
– Both have the Compass app, Backtrack, Offline Maps, Etc (these are all WatchOS features)
– Both can playback music on their speakers (at seemingly identical DB levels in testing
– Both have a minimum display brightness of 1 nit
– Both have 64GB of internal storage
– Both have a 4-core Neural engine (S9 for Ultra 2, S10 for Series 10)
– Both have a water temperature sensor
– Both units come with a wide variety of stock/base bands, even fabric ones as default options
Got all that? Good.
For those asking my preference between the two, the answer is relatively simple: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 (Black). The reasoning is also simple: I just want the battery to last longer, and wearing the Ultra 2 means it lasts basically two days for me, versus barely making it a single day on the regular Apple Watch Editions. Everything else is just minor differences to my personal needs.
With that, thanks for reading!