There are still some Black Friday deals floating around even after the shopping holiday has ended, but we’re kind of surprised that the Apple Watch Ultra remains on sale, as this is rare for a high-end Apple product. Well, if you’ve had your eye on one and want to buy it, Amazon has them on sale for $739, down from the usual $799 they go for. Similar offers have started going offline though, so you should hurry if you want to avail of this one, especially since it’s unclear if the smartwatch will be part of the upcoming Cyber Monday deals.
There are many great things to say about the Apple Watch Ultra, and while it certainly is pricey, it has all the features that make it worth it. For starters, it has a large 49mm screen that gives you a lot more real estate to work with, and WatchOS 9 takes advantage of that, being more streamlined and having buttons that are designed better and are easier to work with. Of course, the new OS also brings a lot of improvements to fitness tracking, supplemented by newer and better hardware on the watch itself. For example, it not only displays more data tracking when you’re working out, but it also has better heart rate and blood oxygen sensors, as well as a couple of new accelerometers that can sense if you’re in a car crash.
That said, the two big standout features on the new Apple Watch Ultra are the Wayfinder watch face and the digital crown, both of which have a lot of customization. Wayfinder can show everything from longitude to compass direction. The digital crown can be set up to do whatever you want when you press on it so that you can pop open the app or features you use the most easily. As for battery life, you’ll be happy to know that it can hit the promised 36 hours and possibly even twice that if you have it in low-power mode. But, of course, if you lead a very active lifestyle and use all the fitness features, you’ll still have to charge it every day and a half or two, but that’s not necessarily a considerable downside.
Overall, the Apple Watch Ultra is precisely that: ultra. It comes with a premium price tag but is packed with features that make it worth it, especially if you’re big into fitness and are already looking at fitness watches in the several hundred-dollar price bracket. Luckily, you can still get it a little bit cheaper from Amazon for $739. However, it might also be worth looking at the other remaining Apple Watch Black Friday deals for alternatives, as well as our comparison between the Apple Watch Ultra vs. Apple Watch 8 to see if the extra price and features are worth it.
The OnePlus Buds Clip are a new pair of open-ear earbuds built around a simple convenience. They join Sony’s LinkBuds Clip in the growing ear-cuff category, but either OnePlus bud can go on either ear.
Sensors recognize how the earbuds are being worn and route the audio channels accordingly. There’s no label to check before putting them on, and the feature also works when only one bud is used.
We buy fitness bands and activity trackers to keep tabs on our exercise, but it is easy to forget to start tracking or switch modes when moving between different activities. For Fitbit and Pixel Watch users, that could soon become a lot less annoying, as Google is rolling out a major upgrade to automatic activity tracking that can recognize more than 100 types of exercise, up from just 10 before.
Google first showed off the improved tracking earlier this month alongside the Fitbit Edge. It is now coming to Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, and Google claims the added context behind the system makes workout detection nearly twice as accurate while cutting missed activities by more than half. Fitbit Edge will support it too.