In fact, I’ve tested nearly every running watch from every major brand from Garmin to Samsung to Coros to Suunto. When a new flagship arrives, I’m not looking for what the brand tells me or what it reads like on a spec sheet. I want to see how the dang thing works on my wrist, and what it tells me about my body on a random Monday morning run.
After weeks with the Apple Watch Ultra 4, here’s my short answer: this is a vast improvement over the Ultra 3. It isn’t flawless, and I’ll get specific about where it falls short. But for a huge number of runners, it’s the best watch you can buy.
Generational upgrades are often a polish job. There are four main improvements that impressed me, and each one changed how I used and viewed the watch day to day: 🔋 Battery life and charging speed. Battery life used to suck, and charging was meh at best.
That’s no longer the case. 🫀 The heart rate sensor. They’ve completely redesigned it from soup to nuts and it’s loads better. ⚠️ ECG and hypertension alerts. The health suite feels more mature and more useful. 📍 GPS acquisition.
The Ultra 3 made you wait, and sometimes the signal never found you. The 4 gets the connection. I’ll take these upgrades in turn, starting with the one that affects you the most as a runner.
If you’ve ever stood on a cold sidewalk waving your wrist at the sky, you know the particular misery of a watch that can’t find satellites. The Ultra 3 was fine on this front, but “fine” included enough hesitation that I’d often start my run before it had locked on. The Ultra 4 connects fast.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
