I spent 10 years with Apple Watch and after 10 minutes with the Galaxy Watch Ultra I can’t believe Samsung skipped this feature
I’ve used and tried every Apple Watch since its launch in 2014. I was on the floor at Apple on the first day of the Apple Watch’s launch, and I’ve been talking about the Apple Watch for the past decade.
But after years in Apple’s fold, 2024 ushered in a new opportunity to try fitness tech from the other side of the iOS/Android divide. I used the hugely impressive Mobvoi Ticwatch Atlas and to end 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 wanted to take a look at Samsung’s answer to the rugged, durable, adventure smartwatch.
But after just 10 minutes with the Samsung Galaxy Ultra, I was left baffled by the absence of a feature that I never thought wasn’t ubiquitous on smartwatches of all shapes, sizes, and manufacturers. 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 put it on and used it for the first time. After successfully pairing it with my Samsung Galaxy Fold Z 6, I started playing 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 I felt Nothing. I tried again, but… still nothing. “What the hell is going on?” I thought to myself as I stared 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 the decade that I’ve been reviewing and using the Apple Watch, I’ve had little reason to stray outside Apple’s walled garden, but it never occurred to me that some Android smartwatch models didn’t have a digital crown.
How on earth do you scroll on a watch with a digital crown? A quick search has reassured me that Google has adopted this indispensable technology with its Google Pixel Watch range, but I’m honestly surprised that Samsung hasn’t gotten on board.
Defying convention
The Galaxy Watch Ultra is definitely an impressive timepiece and one of the best Android smartwatches to boot. It definitely leans a little too heavily on the design of the Apple Watch Ultra, due to its squarer, blocky design, rear sensor configuration, and orange flashes, which everyone seems to have decided is the color of adventure.
However, I love the strap attachment mechanism and the vibrant display really makes the colors pop. Still, this emulation of Apple’s hardware makes the lack of a digital crown all the more confusing. How did Samsung take so much inspiration from the Apple Watch Ultra and skip one of its most important and useful features?
An ‘ultra’ smartwatch is by definition intended for tackling the outdoors. A world of mud, dirt, sand and water that makes a touchscreen unreliable. Having a tactile input such as a digital crown is essential to maintain greater control and functionality over your timepiece in bad weather. Plus, it’s crucial if you’re trying to use your smartwatch while wearing gloves, as I recently discovered on a trip to England’s Lake District.
I use the digital crown on my Apple Watch every day. You can scroll through messages and emails, adjust the volume of the music during a workout or quickly scroll through the tiles on the smart stack.
Now I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I used Samsung’s Touch Bezel on the Galaxy Watch Ultra. I hate it. Not only is it not conducive to outdoor use for all the reasons mentioned above, but I actually think it hurts the user experience because your finger often hides what you’re trying to look at and scroll through on the screen.
Maybe over time I’ll get used to the Ultra’s Touch Bezel and lack of a digital crown, but the revelation that not every smartwatch has a digital crown ruined me. I would challenge anyone who uses a Galaxy Watch to try a digital crown on an Apple Watch or Android alternative and tell me it isn’t a better, more tactile and satisfying experience.
There’s a lot to like about the Galaxy Watch Ultra if you’re an Android user. It is currently the most rugged and exciting adventure watch on the smartwatch market. It has excellent battery life and a sturdy titanium exterior, and is often discounted to the extreme, dramatically increasing its value.
Rumors about the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 are sparse 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-generation improvements.