Apple Watch Ultra £849

The Apple Watch Ultra is designed to be rugged and features a screen constructed from sapphire glass, which apparently is second only to diamonds in terms of its ‘hardness’. A bold claim, but one substantiated through our experience. The watch is also dustproof and waterproof to 40m.

The watch has large side buttons and a digital crown, which worked well even when wearing gloves. However, we tended to rely on the touchscreen

– it’s fantastically bright in all weather conditions and very responsive.

If you’re an iphone user it’s quick and easy to set up. The watch will work with other smartphone brands, but the functionality is decreased. Using the Wayfinder watch face option, we selected the battery life, start activity, music, move rings, date, heart rate, temperature, and sleep tracking options. This face also turns into a compass if you tap it and there is the option for night mode.

The watch features several health tracking features, including heart rate (HR), ECG, which tracks how your heart is beating and checks for arrhythmia, blood oxygen, temperature and sleep, which is broken down into awake, light sleep, deep sleep and rapid eye movement.

Using the watch for different activities was straightforward. To compare HR data, we did a mixed interval session on the indoor trainer, just to track how HR tracked compared to a Wahoo Tickr chest strap. Our BPM was always within a couple of beats of each other.

Riding outdoors, the Apple Watch Ultra’s GPS data proved to be near enough perfectly in sync with our Wahoo Elemnt Bolt. You can’t do on-the-fly route changes on the watch itself, but you can use the Maps app on your phone and directions will be shown on your watch.

The Ultra’s battery life does lag behind that of other GPS watches at a similar price point, but the activity and health tracking performance is on a par with its competition. For iphone users, it’s expensive but it does everything so well. But for non-iphone users, you might want to look elsewhere. Andy Turner www.apple.com

RATING

★★★★★