The Apple Watch Ultra finally has some competition from an unlikely source

Huawei watch ultimate
(Image credit: Huawei)

The Apple Watch Ultra is the undisputed king of wearables right now. It's big and beautiful and it's a dive computer. But now there's an equally big dive computer on the scene. And it might be even better.

In fact, some might even say it's the Ultimate diving smartwatch.

Others would call it the Huawei Watch Ultimate.

Just look at it

There's no denying that the Apple Watch Ultra is the best Apple Watch money can buy today, but the laughably-named Huawei Watch Ultimate seems to tick a lot of boxes.

Those boxes start with a big and bright 1.5-inch AMOLED display that's housed beneath a sapphire crystal to ensure scratches are kept to a minimum. Maximum 1,000-nit peak brightness isn't to be sniffed at and could come in very handy the next time you're underwater.

Speaking of water, the Huawei Watch Ultimate loves it. TechRadar notes that it's rated for depths of more than 100m for up to 24 hours, which is a lot longer than anyone should want to spend that deep. Or in water at all, for that matter. It's also passed diving tests and has officially been awarded the ISO 22810 standard.

Much of that won't mean an awful lot to a ton of people, which is fine. Because all you have to do is look at this thing to know it's a dive watch. The bezel and liquid metal casing just drive home that point.

In terms of smarts, Expedition Mode switches to dual-positioning GNSS satellites for more accurate placement on maps. Then there are the SpO2 measurements it'll take. Oh and the claimed 14-day battery life which is, frankly, impressive.

The downside? We don't know how much Huawei will sell this thing for when it goes on sale on April 3, 2023. We do know that it'll launch in the U.K. and Europe as well, although there's no word on the United States for obvious reasons.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.