14 DAY TRIAL // The wearable biz has grown at a super-fast pace in the last couple of years, and Samsung has been trying to be one of the top players here from the very beginning.
This year, the South Korean firm released updates to all of its devices, and in addition to the Gear S3, which is one of the most advanced smartwatches to date, it also took the wraps off another fitness band that’s specifically focused on activity tracking.
As compared to the Gear S3, which tries to mix the best of two worlds, smartwatches and activity trackers, the Gear Fit2 Pro does the same thing but with an obvious fondness for training and exercises.
A successor to the Gear Fit2, which it actually replaces in Samsung’s line of wearables, the Fit2 Pro is an upgraded model that doesn’t necessarily look entirely different but comes with some welcome improvements that are mostly aimed at its activity tracking side.
The Gear Fit2 Pro is available for $199 and comes in two colors that are more or less similar to each other: black and black plus red, with the first being tested today.
“Samsung Super AMOLED display.”
First and foremost, the Gear Fit2 Pro features the traditional elongated design that we’ve seen on other bands, including Microsoft’s already discontinued Band (and Band 2), but also the previous Samsung Gear Fit2. The device features a 1.5-inch curved Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 216x432 pixels and 310.7 ppi.
While on paper this sounds impressive, the display is twice more stunning in real life. After all, this isn't totally out of the blue, as Samsung has been a master of high-quality screens – no surprise here, as even Apple has appointed the South Korean firm to ship OLED screens for its iPhone X anniversary model.
The display has excellent brightness even in direct sunlight, with vibrant colors and adjustable brightness. Black is black, just like on every high-end AMOLED screen, and the display is super-responsive, so you won’t notice any delay or freeze, even with a sweaty hand, which is most often the case after working out. The display is protected with Gorilla Glass 3, which is without a doubt a welcome feature given this device is supposed to be used when working out.
Just like on the original Gear Fit2 model, the text is displayed on the screen horizontally and not vertically, as it was the case of some other devices, like the Microsoft Band, for instance. This makes it super-easy to navigate menus and to read the information on the screen, without having to tilt your head in a way that tests your flexibility.
This naturally goes hand in hand with the responsive touchscreen, but there are also side buttons to help you when selecting and browsing menus.
The Gear Fit2 Pro uses 24mm elastomer bands, which you can replace with a different color should you buy different ones from the web. While the device features interchangeable bands, changing them is not that easy at first, at least until you figure out that some extra pressure is needed on the clasp, but once you discover the magic, it’s all pretty easy.
“All the essentials are here.”
In terms of dimensions and weight, the Gear Fit2 Pro is feather light. It tips the scales at just 34 grams (0.075 lbs) and measures 25 mm x 51.3 mm.
As far as performance goes, power comes from Samsung’s in-house dual-core 1 GHz Exynos 3250 chip paired with 0.5 GB RAM. These specs are more than enough for an activity tracker like this, and during the test, I haven’t noticed any slowdown at all, with tip-top performance all the time.
The Fit2 Pro also boasts 4GB storage, and this is great if you’re an everyday runner. Thanks to Spotify integration, you can download music on your activity tracker and then listen to songs while working out using Bluetooth headphones. The band uses Bluetooth 4.2 and Wi-Fi for quick sync and updates, and even though I’d have preferred Bluetooth 5.0, this configuration does its job really well.
Samsung has added support for the majority of audio formats, including the most popular like MP3, AAC, and WAV. Once playback is started, music controls are displayed on the screen, and you can reach them by simply swiping from the main screen.
“First and foremost an activity tracker.”
The Gear Fit2 Pro is first and foremost an activity tracker, so it comes with hardware to power all its capabilities in this regard. In addition to rich support for the majority of common activities like cycling, running, and walking, the device also comes with swimming support, which is one major addition to this new-generation model.
Samsung has upgraded water-resistance from the previous versions to a depth of 50 meters, and while this comes in handy for swimmers, it’s still not enough for scuba diving. Taking a shower with the Gear Fit2 Pro is now perfectly fine, and for swimming, it offers stroke and lap count, which is pretty much the essential info that most people are looking for.
But one particular highlight that I really enjoyed was the water lock mode. This particular mode turns off several features of the tracker, including the touchscreen, the wake-up gesture, and the always-on feature to make sure that you can swim without having the screen turning on occasionally. This is where the side buttons are particularly useful to control the tracker, with a Water Lock mode icon displayed on the home screen to let you know when this feature is turned on.
Activity tracking is clearly the main focus for the Gear Fit2 Pro, and to excel in this area, Samsung has even partnered with Under Armour to provide users with a bonus in the form of apps to help track a wider array of activities and also optimize the diet to achieve results like losing weight.
“Continuous heart rate monitoring comes at a cost.”
What I found particularly useful was the continuous heart rate monitoring. First and foremost, this is a feature that provides HR tracking 24/7, so whenever you look at the screen, you see the heart rate in real-time. There are third-party faces in the Samsung store that provide a graph created with HR data, so you can detect any spikes in HR activity without having to launch a separate app.
Of course, such a feature comes at a cost, as battery life is substantially impacted, but not in the way you’d normally expect it to be. On average, I get 20 hours of battery life with around 1 hours of daily exercises (with GPS on), only a few smartphone notifications, and continuous HR tracking. If you turn off this feature and get the standard HR monitoring, you should expect somewhere between 2 to 3 days of battery life.
You can control the HR mode in the settings screen, with three options available: always, frequent, and never. This is a menu that needs to be refined in future updates, as the notifications that are displayed when choosing different settings create even more confusion. For instance, when choosing “always,” the device displays a notification indicating that you should consider selecting a different setting because battery life can be substantially impacted.
Going for “frequent,” on the other hand, warns that “your Gear will be unable to measure your heart rate when it detects your workouts.” So after reading these warnings, Samsung makes it clear that you need to come down to a compromise and choose between better HR readings or longer battery life.
While there is no speaker and microphone, there’s a vibration engine that you can configure to a long buzz for calls and notifications, which should help make a difference when working out.
As for working out, the Gear Fit2 Pro provides the same data as its predecessor, like mapping your route, calories burned, duration of the workout, and HR readings. It can also count steps and floors. Auto tracking works surprisingly well, and it doesn’t take more than 30 seconds to detect a new workout session, with activities like biking and running also supported.
When it comes to smartwatch capabilities, it’s very important to have in mind that this is an activity tracker that works best with a Samsung smartphone. So even though it should offer support for the iPhone (it should because while Samsung has created an app for the Gear, Apple doesn’t allow full functionality), you’re getting the best experience with a Samsung handset – our test was performed with a Galaxy S8, and everything worked flawlessly.
“Tons of faces (hear that Apple?)”
First and foremost, there are several watch faces to choose from by default, but there is also access to the store where you can find hundreds of others, both paid and free. Installing them doesn’t take more than just a few seconds with a fast Internet connection, and everything can be done on your smartphone to avoid the pain of browsing the store on such a small screen.
Notifications do come with several options on Samsung smartphones, and you can dismiss or delete emails and messages, but you won’t enjoy the same plethora of options on iOS because of we know who.
Thanks to its ambient display, each face can display the essential information even when not looking at the screen, so you can easily check the time just like on a classic watch without the display turning on, which in turn helps reduce battery impact.
There’s no speaker or microphone, and you can’t talk on the watch or listen to music without headphones, but you can answer calls with watch input, though you still need to use the phone to speak to whoever calls you.
You’d normally expect the Gear Fit2 to be more limited in terms of smartwatch capabilities, but it’s certainly not, especially when paired with a Samsung smartphone. Truth be told, it doesn’t look like a watch, but more like a fitness band, but if you’re an athlete who exercises a lot, this could be the easiest way to mix the two.
As compared to other smartwatches, like the Apple Watch, it lacks the more refined touches, like the soft vibration or the pleasant sounds, but it scores extra in other areas, such as swimming and the workout detection. It has all the essential features, like an alarm clock, a log, and a calendar, and also displays the weather with just a swipe on the home screen.
“You can't be a lazy person wearing it.”
The Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro is without a doubt a welcome evolution of the Gear Fit2, and Samsung once again shows that it’s very serious about providing customers with a powerful device for tracking their workouts.
To be completely honest, the Fit2 Pro is the kind of device that you won’t be able to wear if you’re a lazy person. It has several features to serve as motivation to get you moving, including health nudges, activity reminders, and support for a wide variety of workouts, just to make sure that you won’t be using limited activity support as an excuse for not working out.
In terms of activity tracking, it offers the essential feature package and a little more, like the swimming support. This is a feature that most device manufacturers are only now adding, and this is certainly a good thing, though for the time being only the basic data is provided, including swimming time and laps.
For smartwatch lovers, you get the essential package, though it’s pretty clear from the very beginning that you shouldn’t expect the Gear Fit2 Pro to excel in this category. It’s not a powerful smartwatch and it’s not even supposed to be because, after all, that’s what the Samsung Gear S3 is for.
On the other hand, the $199 price tag is an excuse for all its setbacks. It’s hard to complain that a device this cheap does not have a speaker and a microphone because when looking at the spec sheet, it’s very clear this is one of the most capable activity trackers currently out there.
