Apple Watch Series 12 vs. Apple Watch Ultra 4: Clash of the Newest Apple Watches
At its Surprise & Shine event on Sept. 9, Apple revealed its newest devices, including its latest smartwatches. Here’s how the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 compare.
The new Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 are premium wearables running the company’s WatchOS 27 software, which have plenty of features that interact with paired iPhones and a growing number that work even when apart (handy when out on a run). The Series 12 is the standard model, while the Ultra 4 is the higher-end version with more durability and features.
This year, the Apple Watches got more software upgrades than hardware upgrades, but one important thing that didn’t change with either was the price. Whereas the iPhones all got price bumps (even the older models Apple still sells), the Apple Watch Series 12 still starts at $400 and the Apple Watch Ultra 4 at $800. Both models can be preordered now and ship on Sept. 18.
Note that while the Ultra 4 only has its titanium finish (and can be pricier with fancier bands), the Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $400 for 42mm in aluminum finish, jumps to $699 for titanium and tops out at $899 for its new ceramics case material.
Here’s how Apple’s latest smartwatches compare.
Apple/CNET
$399 (Save with trade-in)
Apple Watch Series 12 at Best Buy
Get it now
The latest 42mm Apple Watch Series 12 is available for preorder at Best Buy for $399. If you have an older device, you can trade it in for a new one at a lower price. Every purchase also comes with up to four free months of Apple Fitness and three free months of Apple Music.
Apple/CNET
From $799 (Save with freebies)
Apple Watch Ultra 4 at Best Buy
Get it now
The Apple Watch Ultra 4 is available for preorder at Best Buy for $799. The preorder comes with a few freebies, including four free months of Apple Fitness Plus and three free months of Apple Music. You can choose to pick it up in store on the release date or have it shipped to arrive by the release date, so you can start using your new watch as soon as it’s released.
Design and display
The Apple Watch Series 12 looks practically identical to its predecessor, the Apple Watch Series 11 released in 2025, with a rectangular OLED display (up to 2,000 nits brightness) and rounded edges. The 42mm and 46mm sizes return along with aluminum and titanium body versions — as well as a new ceramic material (returning from the Apple Watch 5 in 2019) that adds a hair more size and about 10g of weight. For a comparison, the 42mm aluminum model is 32.2g, the titanium is 36.5g and the pearl white color of ceramic is 41.7g (the night blue hue of ceramic is 42.8g).
The Apple Watch Series 12 comes in a variety of colors depending on the case material. For aluminum, you can pick between dark bronze, light gold, black and space gray. Titanium comes in radiant gold and natural hues, while the ceramic comes in pearl white and night blue.
The Apple Watch Ultra 4 likewise looks identical to its predecessor, with a larger, rectangular OLED Retina display that stretches flat to the watch’s edges. It still only comes in the 49mm size and titanium body. The bigger size makes room for a customizable Action button. The Ultra 4 comes in natural and black case colors.
The sensor array on the underside of both watches has been redesigned to increase the surface area for readings, but most folks won’t notice — until they realize the watch can take heart rate readings every 5 seconds, compared to roughly every 5 minutes on older models.
Both watches are rated IP6X for dust resistance, but while the Apple Watch Series 12 is water resistant to 50 meters — “swimproof,” according to Apple — the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is water resistant to 100 meters and rated for recreational scuba diving to 40 meters. It’s also tested to MIL-STD 81H to continue functioning at altitude, in high and low temperatures, frozen and thawed, in ice and freezing rain and through shock and vibration.
Given how similar the models are to their predecessors, the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is the superior model in display size and durability, surviving more extreme conditions. At literally twice the base price of the Apple Watch Series 12, though, you’ll be paying for this privilege.
Specs and battery life
Both watches run the S11 chip, the newest Apple wearable silicon that enables features such as the every-5-second heart rate readings. They also have 64GB of onboard storage apiece, which can be used to save music and other media or app data such as hiking trails, though a good portion is reserved for the operating system.
Battery life is another area in which the watches strongly diverge. Apple shares battery life estimates rather than battery capacities. The Apple Watch Series 12 lasts about 24 hours, or 38 hours in Low Power Mode. The Ultra 4 extends its lead over its predecessor, offering up to 50 hours of battery life, compared with 42 hours for the Ultra 3. That can be expanded up to 84 hours on Low Power mode.
While both watches have Low Power modes to last longer in the day, the Ultra 4 has two additional versions specifically tuned for workouts. The Extended Workout mode can track a workout for up to 25 hours by shutting off the always-on display and the running-form metrics while still tracking GPS and heart rate. If somehow 25 hours isn’t enough, there’s a Max Extended Workout mode that lasts up to 48 hours, though the tradeoff is dropping from multiband to single-band GPS and slowing heart rate readings to a 5-minute average instead of sampling live (you also can’t use custom workouts, get alerts or split the exercise).
Similarly, Apple doesn’t share wattage specs for its smartwatch chargers, but when using the company’s proprietary fast charger, the Series 12 can go from 0% to 80% in 30 minutes, while it takes the Ultra 4 around 45 minutes to hit the same percentage.
While both of Apple’s latest watches are almost equally powerful, the Ultra 4 beats the Series 12 by a landslide when it comes to battery life. According to Apple, the premium model can last about two days between charges — roughly twice as long as the Series 12. This is likely due to the Ultra 4’s larger battery.
AI and software
Both watches come with WatchOS 27, the latest version of Apple’s operating system at the time of their launch. New features include Siri AI, which CNET principal writer Vanessa Hand-Orellana found to be “miles ahead of traditional Siri.”
New to both watches is Audio Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered features that uses their microphones to continuously analyze surrounding sounds. For instance, Live Rewind allows you to press the digital crown to see a transcription of the last 15 seconds of conversation around you, and in early testing, it was able to pick out voices pretty well. Another feature, Siri Recap, detects conversations throughout the day or at set times to generate summaries or notes — say, for work meetings — which can be triggered manually or scheduled ahead of time. Apple says it’s designed the features so audio isn’t stored on the device and only keeps transcripts the wearer chooses, but it’s already spurred some privacy concerns.
Upgraded sensors on both watches allow them to take readings more often, sampling how your body is doing across various metrics. This is mined and represented in a new Readiness score, which represents how well your body recovers from exercise over the course of the day. The Vitals app also has a new Daytime toggle that allows you to compare your health metrics throughtout the day to compare with the usual overnight measurements.
Both watches also get a redesigned Health app with AI insights and biometrics provied in daily summaries, which replicate findings from other wearables such as the Fitbit Air and Oura. It’s also gotten a more comprehensive health test to measure VO2 max and mobility, which is done in combination with the cameras on a paired iPhone.
While both watches can be connected to cellular service (the Series 12 must be purchased in the 4G LTE version), the Ultra 4 inherits its predecessor’s capability for 5G connectivity as well as linking up to satellites to contact emergency services when outside mobile network range. The premium watch also has fall detection and crash detection.
Those last emergency connectivity features should give the Ultra 4 the edge over the Series 12, but virtually every other software and AI feature is shared between the smartwatches.
Which watch should you pick?
Which smartwatch you pick between the Series 12 and the Ultra 4 is an easier decision than it might seem, as the more premium option is twice the price of the most affordable configuration of the Series 12. The two watches share nearly all the same features, so only the most serious athletes need consider the more expensive model.
If you have $800 to spend, the decision becomes tougher. Of the Ultra 4’s handful of advantages over the Series 12, the one you’ll likely appreciate most is its longer battery life. Charging a standard Apple Watch every day can be tedious, and if you forget to top it up at the end of the day, it may not last through the night. That makes it tough for the Series 12 to measure health and sleep metrics while you’re snoozing.
The Ultra 4 is the obvious choice for outdoorsy folks with deep enough pockets, as it’s more rugged, can survive in deeper waters and has satellite connectivity to help when running into trouble off the grid or away from your phone.
That said, both smartwatches improve on their predecessors and are excellent options for anyone seeking a watch that works seamlessly with an iPhone.
| Apple Watch Series 12 | Apple Watch Ultra 4 | |
| Design & sizes | Rectangular, 42mm, 46mm | Rectangular, 49mm |
| Display | 42mm: 446 × 374 pixels; LTPO3 OLED Retina display (wide-angle) 46mm: 496 × 416 pixels; LTPO3 OLED Retina display (wide-angle) | 49mm: 514 × 422 pixels; LTPO3 OLED Retina display (wide-angle, Always-On) |
| Brightness | Between 1 and 2000 nits | Between 1 and 3000 nits |
| Thickness & weight | 46mm: 9.7mm; 39.5g (aluminum GPS), 38.6g (aluminum GPS+Cellular), 44.9g (titanium); 46mm ceramic: 9.85mm; 51.3g (pearl white), 52.9g (night blue); 42mm: 9.7mm; 32.2g (aluminum GPS), 31.5g (aluminum GPS+Cellular), 36.5g (titanium); 42mm ceramic: 9.85mm; 41.7g (pearl white), 42.8g (night blue) | 49mm: 14.4mm; 61.6g (titanium) |
| Material & finish | Aluminum: dark bronze, light gold, black, space gray; Titanium: radiant gold, natural; Ceramic: pearl white, night blue | Titanium, natural or black finish with saphire crystal dysplay (titanium) |
| Durability | IP6X dust resistant, water resistant to 50 meters, Ceramic Shield 2 glass | Water resistance 100m; dust IP6X, scuba to 40m, tested to MIL-STD 810H |
| Battery life | 24-hour battery life; up to 38 hours in Low Power mode; Fast-charge capable 0% to 80% in 30 minutes | Up to 50 hours; up to 84 hours Low Power; Fast charge to 80% in 45 min |
| Sensors | Health sensing system, second-generation electrical heart sensor, always-on optical heart sensor, temperature sensor, water temperature sensor, depth gauge and depth app to 6m, speaker, microphone with voice isolation, always-on altimeter, high dynamic range gyroscope, compass, waypoints, backtrack and elevation view, ambient light sensor | ECG, 3rd-gen optical heart sensor, 2nd-gen electrical heart sensor, skin temp, depth gauge, SpO2, Noise monitoring, water temperature, compass |
| Emergency features | Emergency SOS, Fall detection, Crash detection, Check-in and Backtrack | Action button, Satellite SOS, Emergency SOS, Fall detection, Crash detection, Check-in and Backtrack |
| AI & coaching | Apple Intelligence, Siri AI; Workout Buddy | Siri (voice assistant); Workout Buddy |
| Processor | S11 chip with 64-bit dual-core processor | S11 SiP with 64-bit dual-core processor, W3 Apple wireless chip |
| RAM/Storage | 64GB (storage) | 64GB (storage) |
| Payments | Apple Pay | Apple Pay |
| Price (US) | $399 to $949 | $799 |
Managing Editor, Mobile
David Lumb is a managing editor for the mobile team, covering mobile and gaming spaces. Before CNET, he covered tech, gaming, and culture for TechRadar, Engadget, Popular Mechanics, NBC Asian America, Increment, Fast Company and others. As a true Californian, he lives for coffee, beaches and burritos. See full bio
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