Apple Watch Ultra vs Apple Watch Series 8, which is better

Welcome everybody to icrawlr, once again.

Today I’m going to be comparing the Apple Watch Series 8 in both the aluminum and the stainless steel versions to the all-new Apple watch Ultra.

Let’s get started.

Despite these being two current-generation devices there are quite a few differences between these two models so let’s go ahead and break down all of the details.

1 Model Sizes and colors 

The Apple Watch Series 8 comes in two different sizes you can choose the smaller 41-millimeter or the larger 45-millimeter Apple watch Ultra only comes in the largest 49-millimeter size.

The Apple Watch Series 8 comes in two different case materials you can choose between aluminum which is the cheaper option or stainless steel, both of those colors or both of those materials come in multiple different colors such as Starlight and midnight on the aluminum or graphite and silver on the stainless steel.

For the Apple watch Ultra it only comes in one material and one color which is natural titanium.

2 GPS features

The aluminum version of the Apple Watch Series 8 comes in both GPS or GPS Plus Cellular options it’s a little bit more expensive if you want to include the cellular when you get up to the stainless steel version of the Apple Watch Series 8.

Apple only offers it with cellular so you don’t have an option to get a cheaper version without cellular if you’re getting the stainless steel you’re getting cellular baked in finally.

The Apple watch Ultra again a high-end option only comes with the cellular configuration that said you don’t have to have a cellular plan if you don’t want or need one you can get a cellular version and just use it without that cellular option or add a plan at any point down the line.

Let’s look at the displays I already went over the sizes 41, 45 and 49 but there are other differences too not just the sizes.

The Apple watch Ultra has a completely flat display which is reinforced with titanium around the edges.

The Apple Watch Series 8 has the Apple watch’s traditional design which is a rounded display that adds very nice curves to it and feels really nice as you’re swiping in from the sides.

The Apple watch Ultra has a sapphire glass off the display for the series 8.

Apple uses ion X glass for the aluminum version and it’s using sapphire on the stainless steel both the series 8 and the Apple watch Ultra have always on display so you can see some information even when your wrist is down,

But the Apple watch Ultra has a brighter display getting up to 2000 Nits of peak brightness when you are outside.

The Apple Watch Series 8 only goes up to about 1000 Nits so it can be twice as bright on the Apple watch Ultra when you are outside and that’s a big deal for people who are really adventuring and are in bright Sunlight areas,

Whereas even the brighter Apple Watch Series 8 can still struggle in extremely bright conditions.

Since we’re talking about the screens the Apple watch Ultra has an exclusive watch face that no other Apple watch has which is the Wayfinder face.

It takes advantage of the larger display includes more complications and has a night mode option that increased the contrast with a black background and red imagery and texts.

There are several differences in design aside from just the displays the Apple watch Ultra is a pretty big redesign of the app watch compared to earlier versions and even the series 8.

You can tell distinctly from looking at it that it is an Apple Watch Ultra whereas the series 8 looks very similar to the series 7 which looks similar to the Series 6 which looked similar to the series 5, almost going all the way back to the beginning.

The Apple watch Ultra also has an additional button highlighted in International Orange a color Apple seemingly more or less branded and created for this is the Action Button.

It’s located on the left-hand side if you’re wearing it properly on your left-hand wrist and you’ll be able to press this and program it to do really anything you want it can be shortcuts to do some sort of action.

It can open the workouts app, it can start a dive, whatever it is that you want to set it to do, it can also be programmed into third-party applications like the oceanic dive app that’s coming later this year.

The digital crown on the Apple watch Ultra is more pronounced with increased knurling this is designed to make it easier to press while wearing gloves which is important if you are running outside in the cold or you’re diving underwater and you’ve got gloves on, it’s important to be able to control your watch.

The Apple watch Ultra has an improved speaker it’s not only louder but it actually has two speakers in there and apple has a new three-microphone array that supports beam forming on the Apple Watch Series 8.

Apple just has a standard second-generation speaker and microphone setup the same as on the app watch SE in previous versions of the Apple watch since we’re talking about design,

I wouldn’t mention the bands Apple watch Ultra supports any of the 45-millimeter bands so anything that worked on your previous version of the Apple watch will work on the Apple watch Ultra.

When buying your Apple watch Ultra, Apple will give you three new band options to choose from there’s the Alpine Loop which here in green and orange, there’s also the Ocean band great for diving,

Then there’s like the Trailblazer Trail Runner band great running band super lightweight and reflects all those will work with the Apple watch Ultra but they’ll work with the 45-millimeter version of the Apple Watch series 8 in previous versions of the Apple watch as well internally.

The Apple watch Ultra is no faster than the Apple Watch series 8, they’re both using the latest generation S8, to run all the internals.

Both also have a standard array of sensors that includes heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen measurements, and the new temperature reading that can measure your temperature overnight and show you any variations from your Baseline core temperature.

Additionally, Apple watch Ultra has an external spacing sensor that can be used when scuba diving to give you the water temperature as well inside of the diving app.

Apple watch Ultra and Apple Watch Series 8 have the new high G accelerometer and updated gyroscope this is used for the new crash detection features for GPS.

The Apple watch Ultra and Apple Watch Series 8 both support GPS but the Apple watch Ultra has a better GPS it’s a dual frequency GPS that supports both the L1 and L5 bands and should be more precise in general.

But it’s particularly good in areas with large buildings like cities and running a marathon.

What about water and dust resistance?

Both watches are rated for similar dust resistance but the Apple watch Ultra is more water resistant than the Apple Watch series 8.

Apple Watch series 8 is rated for 50 meters of water resistance whereas the Apple watch Ultra is rated through 100 meters.

Apple says the Apple Watch Series 8 is also swim-proof whereas the Apple watch Ultra is rated for scuba diving all the way down to 40 meters.

Apple has additional certifications to back this up to go with this apple has a dedicated depth gauge application for the Apple watch Ultra that can show you, your water temperature as well as your current depth and how long you’ve been underwater.

Later this year Oceanic plus will be launching on the App Store, which would give you a full-featured dive watch to use on your Apple watch Ultra.

I talked about the new updated speakers on the Apple watch Ultra but what I didn’t mention was the new siren capabilities.

Apple watch Ultra can use its speaker to emit a very loud siren of 86 decibels.

Apple says this is loud enough to be heard from over 600 feet away at least if you’re in an open field and there’s room for that sound to travel there is a dedicated siren app to go with it.

When you’re in this dedicated siren app you’ll be able to start and stop your siren as well as see how much battery life you have remaining so when you do turn on the siren it’s using a lot of power to put out such a loud noise to hopefully help people find you and you’ll be able to see how much battery life is remaining.

At the same time super useful if you were out you were hiking you get lost and need some help.

By the way, both versions Apple Watch series 8 and Apple watch Ultra support the new backtrack feature that can help you find your way out of any of these locations.

Finally let’s talk about battery life,

The Apple Watch Series 8 has pretty much the same battery life as the past few January stations of Apple watch this is up to 18 hours of typical usage enough to get you through the day.

It also can get up to 36 hours when you enable low power mode Apple watch Ultra should get you about 36 hours on typical use but up to 60 hours with low power mode enabled.

Both versions of the Apple watch support fast charging and include a USBC to Apple watch charger in the Box though the charger for the Apple watch Ultra has a braided nylon cable that’s just nicer for reinforced and more sturdy compared to the one that comes with the Apple Watch series 8.

Those are the differences between the standard Apple Watch Series 8 and the Apple watch Ultra many features are shared between them so I’m not going into every detail of all the software and things are the same between them.

But I really want to highlight the differences in the new features that are exclusive to one model or another, if you happen to have any questions let me know.

By commenting down below.

Cheers to life !!!