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Credit: Zac Kew-Denniss / Android Authority

TL;DR

• Samsung introduced the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear Elite chip and a massive 800mAh battery (up 35% from 590mAh), yet official estimates still quote the same “up to 60 hours with Always-On Display” as the original Watch Ultra model.
• The Galaxy Watch 9 models also increased battery sizes and switched from Exynos W1000 to Snapdragon Wear Elite, but Samsung continues to quote up to 40 hours of runtime without Always-On Display across both generations.
• The lack of runtime improvement despite Wear OS 7’s efficiency improvements and larger batteries could stem from power draws like the brighter 5,000-nit display, lower processor efficiency, or simply outdated marketing specs.

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Samsung officially announced the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 at its latest Unpacked event, introducing a major silicon pivot to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear Elite SoC alongside a massive 800mAh battery cell. Curiously, despite the larger battery and newer chip, Samsung’s official spec sheet quotes the exact same “up to 60 hours with Always-On Display” runtime as the original 590mAh Exynos W1000-totting Galaxy Watch Ultra.

The spec discrepancy was first highlighted by Phonefuturist on X, who questioned whether the Snapdragon Wear Elite is better than the Exynos W1000, given that it seemingly erased a 35% battery capacity jump.