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Apple Watch Ultra 2
Most powerful Apple Watch
$719 $799 Save $80
Equipped with the brand new S9 chip, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is Apple’s best offering for fitness enthusiasts. The brightness of the OLED screen now hits a peak of 3,000 nits, meaning it can take on the best transflective screens out there.
Pros- Bright and vibrant screen
- New S9 chip
- LTE connectivity
Cons- Only comes in one size
- Expensive
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Garmin Fenix 7 Pro
Solid alternative
The Fenix 7 Pro is one of Garmin’s best adventure sport swatches. Packed with solar-charging capabilities, tons of new software features, and a rugged body, this watch can take on all kinds of environments and activities.
Pros- Battery life of 18 days
- Solar charging
- Very durable
Cons- Boring UI
- Smartwatch features disappoint
When the Apple Watch Ultra came out last year, it was pretty obvious that the company was gunning for Garmin’s demographic: a loyal bunch of fitness enthusiasts who would want something like the Fenix 7 Pro. And now we have the brand-new Apple Watch Ultra 2, which comes with marginal improvements over its predecessor. Both Garmin and Apple manufacture great smartwatches, but which option is best for you? While they may seem similar on paper, there are a few interesting differences between them that may not be very obvious.
Price, availability, and specs
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 comes with LTE capabilities, and unlike other Apple Watch models, there is no non-LTE version. It’s the exact opposite scenario for the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro, as there is no variant with mobile connectivity (although there are options with solar capabilities). Both watches are available on Amazon and Best Buy, plus you can buy them via their respective manufacturer’s websites.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 only comes in one variant and retails for $799. The Fenix 7 Pro comes in multiple models and sizes and sells for $800-$1,000, depending on the option.
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Apple Watch Ultra 2 Garmin Fenix 7 Pro Heart Rate Monitor Yes Yes Case Material Titanium Fiber-reinforced polymer with steel CPU Apple S9 ARM Cortex M4 Storage 64GB 32GB Health sensors Blood oxygen sensor, electrical heart sensor, third-generation optical heart sensor, temperature sensor high-g accelerometer, high dynamic range gyroscope Elevate V5 optical heart rate sensor, Pulse Ox blood oxygen monitor, barometric altimeter, gyroscope, accelerometer, thermometer Price $799 $800 Weight 61.4g 63g to 90g Water resistance 100 meters 10 ATM
Design and hardware
The Apple Watch Ultra 2.
We’ll start this section off with the good news: both wearables look like thoroughbred adventure watches. While the Fenix 7 Pro has a rugged bezel and looks ready for anything you throw at it, the Watch Ultra 2, with its titanium body and jutting controls, has a sporty, gritty appearance. The Ultra 2 is only available in one size: 49mm. You have a few more options with the Fenix 7 Pro as far as sizes go, with 42mm, 47mm, and 51mm options. There is only a slight difference in weight between the two devices; the Ultra 2 weighs 61.4 grams and the Fenix 7 Pro starts 63 grams. If you buy the large 7X Pro model of the Fenix 7, though, you’ll get a watch with a whopping 90 grams.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 has a crown and a menu button on one side, while the left has an Action button. The digital crown is its standout feature, though. For the Fenix 7 Pro, it’s the flashlight that first grabs your attention, along with four prominent buttons to navigate the UI. While the Watch Ultra 2 has a touchscreen, the Fenix 7 Pro’s buttons help you navigate, which will fare better when it’s raining.
Source: Garmin
Both watches come with adequate protection against water and dust. The Fenix 7 Pro is rated IP65, and the Watch Ultra 2 is IP6X-certified (both can hit a depth of 100 meters in water). You get an OLED screen on the Ultra 2, whereas the Fenix watch sports a transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP) screen. You can also see the circular ring of solar cells on the Fenix 7 Pro’s display, and I think it adds to the aesthetic of the watch.
Owners of both these devices love swapping straps, so you’ll be happy to learn that there are tons of official and third-party straps available for you to enjoy a new look on different days of the week. Personally, I think the official Ultra 2 bands look amazing — the Ocean Band is my favorite, with the Alpine Loop a close second.
Display
The screen of the Ultra 2 is an OLED display offering 502×410 resolution and a maximum brightness of a whopping 3,000 nits. Comparatively, the Fenix 7 Pro offers a 260×260 resolution. As the Ultra 2 has an OLED screen, higher brightness translates to better visibility in sunlight. Garmin hasn’t provided a brightness rating for the Fenix 7 Pro, but that’s not a major concern since the transflective screen delivers the same level of clarity both indoors and under a hot sun.
There’s no real competition here because the Watch Ultra 2 screen is vibrant and colorful in comparison to the Fenix 7 Pro, which is mostly functional. The Ultra 2’s OLED screen is a visual treat with its animations and well-designed apps; comparatively, the Fenix 7 Pro tends to look a bit plain. Part of the blame can also be attributed to the UI, which is in desperate need of a design overhaul.
Software and performance
Apple clearly visualized the Watch Ultra 2 to be an all-rounder, a companion during both workouts and day-to-day life. While the Fenix 7 Pro is laser-focused on being an excellent training watch, the Watch Ultra 2 is doing its best to be a smartphone on your wrist.
Let’s look at the biggest differences. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 comes with LTE, which the Fenix 7 Pro doesn’t offer. This means that you can leave home without your phone and still be alright. Another advantage is that Crash Detection and Fall Detection work well, and your watch can notify your contacts (or emergency services) without having to connect to your phone. That’s something the Fenix watch cannot do unless it’s linked to your smartphone via Bluetooth.
Touch controls are a big part of using the Watch Ultra 2, and apps that are compatible with watchOS work wonderfully. Apple has also introduced Double Tap with watchOS 10 (which was an accessibility feature on earlier watchOS versions), which lets you execute tasks by simply tapping your index finger and thumb together twice. In comparison, the Fenix 7 Pro offers touch controls, but you can navigate much faster using your buttons. The touch experience on the Garmin isn’t as refined as it is on the Ultra 2.
Notifications on the Ultra 2 are interactive, and you can respond to messages and emails. Comparatively, you only get basic notifications on your Fenix 7 Pro, and there’s no way you can respond to messages. Similarly, Apple’s smartwatch comes with on-device Siri support, whereas there is no voice assistant on the Garmin. However, both watches let you make NFC payments, and both let you take your favorite music with you on the go with Spotify. Garmin lets you download songs to the watch, while you can only stream tunes on the Watch Ultra 2.
Source: Apple
Another possible dealbreaker is that the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is only compatible with iOS devices, while the Fenix 7 Pro will work with both iPhones and Androids with the Garmin Connect app. That brings us to the app stores of the respective devices. Here, the Ultra 2 easily beats out the Fenix 7 Pro because there are a ton of apps that you can download and enjoy. Garmin’s app store, called Connect IQ, is pretty basic — you get lots of similar-looking watch faces, music player apps, and some poorly designed games. Chances are, you won’t really visit it more than once a month. Personally, I haven’t checked it in at least a year.
Another thing I’d like to highlight here is the larger Apple ecosystem that the Ultra 2 is a part of. With this watch, you won’t be pulling out your phone much; you can get a lot done with the help of Siri and a few taps on your screen. This is an entire experience that you miss out on with a Garmin.
Finally, when it comes to processing power, the Watch Ultra 2 absolutely crushes the Garmin. It features the new S9 chip under its hood, which boasts of a four-core neural engine and a 30% improvement in performance compared to its predecessor. The processing abilities of this chip are significant, as are its graphics capabilities, as watchOS continues to focus on excellent visual appeal.
The Fenix 7 Pro, on the other hand, has an ARM Cortex M4 CPU that has been tuned for power efficiency (and not performance); you won’t ever see it struggle, but then, Garmin’s UI doesn’t need much processing power. In terms of storage space, you get 64GB on the Ultra 2 compared to the 32GB capacity of the Fenix 7 Pro.
Fitness features
Source: Garmin
Since the Fenix 7 Pro specifically targets outdoor enthusiasts, it has a lot of niche features. There’s offline topographic map support, which can be useful during hikes or expeditions where you will frequently refer to maps. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 does come with Apple Maps, and the navigation is pretty decent, but it requires an active connection. This can get dodgy in places with poor connectivity.
The Fenix 7 Pro also offers extensive customizable data fields for activities and watch faces. You have a ton of options to choose from, and it’s a huge relief, especially when it comes to races where you need access to specific metrics.
The biggest difference between the Ultra Watch 2 and the Fenix 7 Pro is training data. Garmin is hyper-focused on providing you with tons of data about your runs or rides or other activities, as well as your general health. You get some excellent insight into your training by analyzing all the post-activity reports, plus Garmin summarizes them well and gives you daily and weekly summaries of your performance. For someone who is serious about being fit, the insight provided by the Apple wearable simply cannot come close to what Garmin offers.
Activity tracking
Source: Garmin
If you’re planning on buying an Ultra 2 or a Fenix 7 Pro, it’s obvious that you’re serious about tracking your training. Luckily, both of these devices do a great job of accurately recording all your data — be it GPS, sports activities, sleep, heart rate, or steps. Both the Apple and the Garmin watches in this comparison come with excellent sensors.
Being a sports-centric watch, you do have a lot more activities to choose from on the Fenix 7 Pro, plus the insight into your performance is a lot better, with specific run-based stats like power zones, elevation, stamina, and more. Comparatively, the Ultra 2 only offers basic information about your activity. Garmin does a great job analyzing the data it collects from you — it gives you metrics like training load, personalizes suggestions for training, and also updates you about your workout readiness.
If you’re into diving, the Ultra 2 will appeal to you since it uses the Oceanic+ app, which is like a dive computer on your wrist. Using depth gauge and water temperature sensors, the Ultra 2 gives you timely notifications like, for example, your decompression time.
Both watches offer sleep tracking as a feature. You get a breakup of your sleep session in the morning, and both watches split it up into Awake, Light, REM, and Deep zones. A key feature of the Fenix 7 Pro is its Body Battery percentage, which tells you how rested you are each morning.
One tracking feature on the Ultra 2 that gives it an edge here is ECG (electrocardiogram). The internet is filled with stories of Apple Watches detecting abnormal heart behavior, so it’s considered a pretty important feature. While the Fenix 7 Pro does keep an eye on sudden dips or spikes in your heart rate, it doesn’t really do what the Ultra 2 does. Both watches do track blood oxygen levels, though.
Battery
The difference in battery life between the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro is a much-talked-about point among buyers. We expect the Ultra 2 to give you about a day and a half of use on average, whereas the Fenix 7 Pro can do almost 18 days with normal use. Throw in 3 hours of exposure to the sun each day, and that number goes up to 22 days thanks to its solar charging abilities.
This isn’t particularly surprising; the Ultra 2 is focused on being a stellar smartwatch, while the Fenix 7 Pro is meant to be taken on the go for longer periods of time. But the Fenix 7 Pro struggles a bit when you want more than just activity tracking; if I play music on my run with my earbuds connected to the Fenix, I notice an additional 10% drop in battery per hour.
Apple Watch Ultra 2 vs Garmin Fenix 7 Pro: Which one is right for you?
As you’ve probably realized by now, both of these watches serve two completely different demographics despite appealing to the outdoor crowd. There is no way that the battery on the Ultra 2 would suffice for a fitness fanatic, while somebody who wants smartwatch features would be pretty unhappy with the Fenix 7 Pro.
That said, most people don’t really need the kind of activity tracking that the Fenix 7 Pro offers. On average, more people would enjoy using the Apple Watch Ultra 2 because of its other features and connectivity with other Apple devices. As someone who has owned both of these watches and opted for the Fenix 7 Pro, I still feel that most people would instantly fall in love with the Apple Watch Ultra 2.

Editor’s choice
Apple Watch Ultra 2
Equipped with the brand new S9 chip, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is Apple’s best offering for fitness enthusiasts. The brightness of the OLED screen now hits a peak of 3000 nits, meaning it can take on the best transflective screens out there.
However, the Fenix 7 Pro is a good choice if you want an aggressive makeover for your fitness routine. It makes you so much more aware of what your body is capable of and gently guides you on the path to getting fitter. You’re constantly fed data about your body, and with time, you really start to enjoy the focused approach toward fitness that your Fenix 7 Pro offers you.

Good alternative
Garmin Fenix 7 Pro
The Fenix 7 Pro is one of Garmin’s best adventure sport swatches. Packed with solar-charging capabilities, tons of new software features, and a rugged body, this watch can take on all kinds of environments and activities.