It was added in at the top of the Apple Watch lineup for an extra premium price, kind of as an excuse to pack a much bigger battery in a smartwatch, but also to offer a few extra ruggedized features for enthusiasts willing to spend the extra money.

Now, this is the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, and it was added to the top of the Galaxy Watch lineup for an extra premium price, kind of as an excuse to pack a much bigger battery into a smartwatch, but also to offer a few extra ruggedized features for enthusiasts willing to spend the money.

Now look, there have been many copies before in both directions, like Samsung copies Apple all the time, and Apple copies Samsung all the time.

But this one is so far that it's hard to ignore.

So there's been a lot of chatter online about how the new Galaxy Watch Ultra is a copycat product of the Apple Watch Ultra.

And yeah, it's true, it really is.

But I've said this before, and I'll say it again, I actually don't care that these products and companies copy each other.

As long as they're copying the good stuff, then us as customers, we actually still win.

This one copied so many things that it actually went slightly too far and copied one extra thing that I think hurt its case.

So let's just go down the list.

So first of all, obviously they have the same name and the whole idea of the product, as I mentioned before, this is the Watch Ultra.

It's at the top of the lineup, it's the most expensive.

And of course they've matched the Apple Watch Ultra's durability specs.

So they're both made of titanium.

They're both water resistant to 100 meters.

They both have sapphire glass over their cover displays.

And then the other basic on paper specs, like they both have dual frequency GPS for high accuracy.

They both have extra bright displays for visibility outdoors so actually both 3000 nits.

And then they both have three default bands.

So the Apple Watch Ultra has an ocean band, a trail loop and an Alpine band.

So now along comes Samsung's Watch Ultra and they launch with three bands.

They don't have an ocean band though.

They have a marine band, totally different.

And then they have a trail band and then they have this peak form band.

So yeah, the ocean band and the marine band are kind of like, hey, can I copy your homework but change it up just a little bit so it's not too obvious that I copied?

And they kind of didn't change it up enough.

But it's like, okay, yeah, sweet, thanks.

Now we have two holes on ours instead of one.

And everybody knows not every marine is an ocean, duh.

But each watch has three buttons and you may remember the Apple Watch added this special orange button on the side called the action button that you could map to any number of different things.

But you know, it starts the workout selector by default.

Now the Galaxy Watch Ultra comes along, has a new orange button on the side.

This one is called the quick button and it can be also custom mapped to any number of different actions.

But the default again is the workout selector.

Now don't worry, it keeps going.

In the software department, they also lifted a whole bunch of stuff.

So, you know, this watch face that we keep seeing Samsung using in all of their flagship marketing for this thing with all the complications around the outside corners definitely takes heavy inspiration from Apple's flagship watch face with the complications everywhere.

It also has an all monochrome version for night mode which was also new to the Apple Watch Ultra.

And if you wanna change the watch face, they both have the same mechanic.

Just hold down the face for a second and then swipe over and you can customize the complications or watch faces from there.

They both use a blob of icons to scroll through all of your apps and even the double pinch gesture.

So this is something Apple recently added.

It was in beta at first and now it's operational and Samsung's added it now too.

It's off by default, but when I turn it on, it does the exact same things.

So yeah, as you can tell, there's no shortage of things that Samsung has lifted from the Apple Watch Ultra.

People are calling it shameless.

People are calling it pure copycat behavior.

There's endless comments online about it.

Here's the thing though.

There's only one thing that Samsung copied that I actually have a problem with, with this watch.

Like when you just look at this watch, you can definitely argue it actually looks mostly different from the Apple Watch.

I mean, I know they both have the orange button, but they've done this kind of unique thing where it's still a fully circular watch face, but then it's a much bigger brawny circle shaped titanium body underneath, like called a cushion design.

That's at least different.

You know, I don't know if I actually like it more, but it feels definitively bigger than the Apple Watch Ultra, which was already pretty big.

But in the grand scheme of watches, it's not actually huge, especially because the size of the screen is basically the same as a large watch seven.

Anyway, I thought that with keeping this circular screen, they would have a physically rotating bezel, like a clicking bezel on the outside, because that was the sickest feature on the Watch 6 Classic.

And it's the feature everyone wanted in all the other watches, but they just didn't do it.

This watch though is just pure touchscreen for everything, which might not seem like that big of a deal at first, but this is, again, this is a watch for fitness people doing a lot of workouts and things like that.

And if you use watches in all these workout situations before, then you know, like there are endless situations where like sweat or your sleeve is messing with the touchscreen, or if you've got gloves on, or if you're hiking or you're underwater or swimming, whatever, there's just plenty of chances for the touchscreen to suck.

So the rotating crown to use as a selector to mess with the watch would have been a banger differentiator for this fitness watch versus the Apple Watch Ultra.

But they didn't do it.

Now I'm guessing if you asked Samsung, they would say no rotating bezel on this watch because that's a moving part and that wouldn't have held up to the military grade certification of the rest of the watch.

Like it's got this 810H grade military certification where it's like, it can withstand even tougher drops and like more dust and wider range of temperatures and all that stuff.

So the moving part wouldn't have worked with that.

But honestly, Samsung, I think just do it anyway.

Just go with the rotating bezel.

I think 99% of users would rather have the rotating bezel over the military certification.

And you know, the 1% who don't, like they'll get a Garmin or whatever, something different.

But I think this is something that would have actually been a great match with this particular watch.

Now there's a few other things now that I've used it that do differentiate this watch too.

Obviously it's gonna be the one that works with Android phones and not iPhones.

That's number one.

But you know, Wear OS performs really well.

I know there was some early concerns about it not being super smooth, but it's been great.

It's very customizable, very functional.

The full-size keyboard is actually a bit easier to type on despite having a bigger screen because they make the letters bigger and then you have to go into a secondary menu for symbols.

But I actually feel like I can type words pretty well on this versus other smartwatches.

And I think best of all, the battery life has actually lived up to its claims.

So sometimes it's hard to know what to make of the, you know, 60 hours versus 100 hours in power-saving mode or 48 hours in exercise power-saving mode.

It's kind of confusing, but what I will say is it matched and sometimes beat the battery life of the Apple Watch Ultra, like pretty regularly.

I felt like it has about a 25% better standby time.

So if you have light use, you're just casually like getting text messages, doing one or two workouts.

You can easily get two full days out of this watch.

And then if you're going heavy, if it's a bunch of workouts, then it's closer to even, but still a solid day and a half, especially when you're using that 3000 nits Super AMOLED display a lot.

That's impressive.

So yeah, it's pretty clear that Samsung has copied a lot of features and things about the Apple Watch Ultra.

But as I've kept saying, if you copy the good stuff, then you can still end up with a great product no matter how shameless it is.

But the conclusion about this one is kind of funny because Apple or Samsung also updated the Watch 7 at the same time.

And that watch also has dual frequency GPS.

The screen is the same size, even though it's a smaller battery.

It's still got Sapphire crystal on top.

It's got three sporty bands and it's like half the price.

So that ends up making this one feel harder to recommend if it's so similar.

So this just ends up being a galaxy watch for people who want that, but with a bigger battery and I guess just a little more ruggedized features and that's kind of it.

And you have $650 you're willing to spend on it.

So I think the rotating bezel would have been easier to justify and like separate them.

But yeah, for now, this is one of those Samsung products that's a little more shameless in its inspiration and it won't be the last one from either side.

Thanks for watching.

Catch you guys in the next one.

Peace.