I’ve used and tried every Apple Watch since its launch in 2014. I was on the shop floor at Apple on day one of the Apple Watch launch, and for all of the last decade, I’ve been wearing, using, or writing about the Apple Watch.
But after years in Apple’s fold, 2024 heralded a new opportunity to try fitness tech from the other side of the iOS/Android divide. I’ve used the mightily impressive Mobvoi Ticwatch Atlas, and to close out the year I got my hands on the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the undisputed best smartwatch out there, and one of my personal favorite pieces of tech, so I was keen to get a look at Samsung’s answer to the rugged, durable, adventure-going smartwatch.
But after barely 10 minutes with the Samsung Galaxy Ultra, I became flabbergasted by the absence of a feature I’d never even considered wasn’t ubiquitous on smartwatches of all shapes, sizes, and manufacture. I am, of course, talking about the digital crown.
My first Samsung
I didn’t notice the Galaxy Watch Ultra didn’t have a digital crown until I first put it on and used it. After successfully pairing it with my Samsung Galaxy Fold Z 6, I started to play around with the watch’s basic settings and features.
The first time I encountered a menu, I instinctively reached for the digital crown to scroll, and to my horror, felt nothing. I tried again, but still nothing. “What on earth is going on?” I thought to myself, peering down at the side of my Galaxy Watch Ultra in dismay. There, staring back at me was the Ultra’s array of Quick Button, Home Button, and a Back button, with no scrolling crown in sight.
The lack of a digital crown has made me question everything I thought I knew about smartwatches. In 10 years of covering and using Apple Watch, I’ve had little reason to stray beyond Apple’s walled garden, but I’d never stopped to consider that some Android smartwatch models didn’t have a digital crown.
How on earth do you scroll on a watch without a digital crown? A quick shop-around has reassured me that Google has adopted this indispensable tech with its Google Pixel Watch range, but I’m genuinely astonished that Samsung hasn’t got on board.
Defying convention
The Galaxy Watch Ultra is definitely an impressive timepiece, and one of the best Android smartwatches to boot. It certainly draws a bit too heavily on the design of the Apple Watch Ultra, from the squarer, blockish design, the rear sensor configuration, and the flashes of orange, which everyone seems to have decided is the color of adventure.
However, I love the band attachment mechanism, and the vibrant display really makes the colors pop. Yet this emulation of Apple’s hardware makes the lack of a digital crown all the more befuddling, how did Samsung take so much inspiration from the Apple Watch Ultra and skip over one of its most important and useful features?
An “ultra” smartwatch by definition is meant for tackling the great outdoors. A world of mud, dirt, sand, and water that makes a touch screen unreliable. Having a tactile input like a digital crown is vital to retaining more control and functionality over your timepiece in inclement weather. What’s more, it’s critical if you’re trying to use your smartwatch while wearing gloves, as I found out on a recent trip to the English Lake District.
I use the digital crown on my Apple Watch every single day. It’s there for scrolling through messages and emails, controlling the volume of music during a workout, or sifting quickly through the tiles on the smartstack.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I have used Samsung’s Touch Bezel on the Galaxy Watch Ultra. I hate it. Not only is it not conducive to use in the great outdoors for all the aforementioned reasons, but I actually think it harms the user experience because your finger often obscures what you’re trying to look at and scroll through on the screen.
Perhaps with time I’ll grow used to the Ultra’s Touch Bezel and its lack of a digital crown, but the revelation that not every smartwatch has a digital crown has ruined me. I’d defy anyone using a Galaxy Watch to try their hand at a digital crown on any Apple Watch or Android alternative and tell me that it’s not a better, more tactile, and more satisfying experience.
There’s a lot to like about the Galaxy Watch Ultra if you're an Android user. It’s the most rugged and exciting adventure watch on the smartwatch market right now. It has excellent battery life, and a tough titanium exterior, and it’s frequently discounted to the extreme, drastically increasing its value.
Rumors about the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 are scant to non-existent, but I’d say a slam-dunk upgrade for the next iteration would be the introduction of a digital crown for scrolling that would drastically improve the user experience. It’s not a bad watch by any means, but a digital crown seems like an easy place to start when it comes to second-gen improvements.
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