Happy as I am with my Garmin Venu 2s, if I didn’t need to also buy an iPhone to use one, I probably already would have bought an Apple Watch Ultra. Despite my skinny wrists, my recent health scare means that the cellular capability and ECG combined with a more-than-24-hour battery life would seal the deal.

So I was interested in this review by someone who took the Ultra up into the Scottish Highlands. It turns out he loved it.

I don’t think you can properly test a device like this without taking it out into the field. So the day my Ultra arrived, I booked myself onto a sleeper train up to the Scottish Highlands for a three day hiking trip to really see how it performed. I ended up hiking just over 61 miles.

The standard Apple Watches are incredibly capable devices, that I’ve used to great utility on countless hiking trips, but using them in that context always felt a bit like I was pushing the boundary of what it was intended for or capable of. Whereas the Ultra is very much designed for the backcountry context. It is more rugged, more long lasting and much easier to read…all while still being 100% an Apple Watch and not compromising any of the features that make a standard Apple Watch so useful.

Source: Testing an Apple Watch Ultra in the Scottish Highlands | David Smith