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In past years Samsung has been more known for cameras, phones, and video electronics—not so much in the way of fitness trackers. But lately they’ve made more of a name for themselves in the fitness world by developing gadgets that are very compatible and intuitive; they’ve become respectable in their own right. Today, we’re going to explore their three newest fitness devices, and you can decide which one will work best for you.
Photo Credit: Lemondenumerique
$179.00 - $345.00 at Amazon.com
You’ll love the new designs of this smartwatch which come in Classic or Standard. It’s well-made, water-resistant, has a simple to use OS and fits more like a watch than its predecessors ever did, though it’s still on the bulky side. The Classic version is a bit smaller with more color choices for leather straps and is more stylish looking. Both versions have a sharp, vivid, easy-to-read screen and fun, customizable watch faces that give this smartwatch a look all its own. One of the great features of the S2 is its distinct circular interface with rotating bezel; it allows you to easily switch between notifications, apps and alter the brightness and volume—all with a swish of your finger. That’s convenient!
There are many fitness and health elements packed in a smartwatch nowadays and the S2 doesn’t disappoint. The Samsung Health app monitors your heart rate, accurately counts steps, calculates burned calories and shows your progress of particular set goals. It’ll give you handy alerts such as healthy pace, goal achieved and a reminder to move around when you’ve been sitting too long plus display active in addition to inactive time. A big drawback to this watch is that it doesn’t have a GPS; so if you’re an avid runner then the already loaded Nike+ Running app is best since it’ll display pace, time and distance on the watch’s face.
Underneath the S2 you’ll find a terrific heart rate monitor that can track a continuous pulse or just do spot readings. If you opt to monitor your continuous heart rate, then you can choose between frequent or moderate intervals. It also records resting heart rate; yet it might get a bit irritating after a while when the app repeatedly informs you if your resting heart rate is lower or higher than average or right where it should be. A fun little feature of this heart rate monitor is that you can tag your readings with emoticons like “angry” or “excited”; or just use phrases like “before exercise”, “right after exercise” and “resting”. Pretty neat, huh?
Speaking of apps, you’ll notice that the S2 has a bunch of awesome apps such as CNN, Twitter, weather, Yelp and selections for smart home controls; you can view even more app choices in the Gear Apps Store.
The battery life for the S2 won’t wow you but it certainly is a little above what you’d be expecting for smartwatches. Of course, how long the battery lasts depends on how often you use apps like Maps, S Voice, etc. and if you use the screen’s “always on” feature; but, generally, you can get 2 days out of the battery before recharging it. One thing worth mentioning is the power saving mode; this will shut everything off except for messages, calls and alerts and change your screen from color to gray. So in other words, if you forget to charge the S2 one night and wake up with only 13%, using this fabulous mode will get you through the day.
Photo Credit: Digitaltrends
$308.00 & $347.00 at Amazon.com
For the most part, the function of the S3 is the same as its predecessor and is still equipped with the same sensors, OS, rotating bezel and Samsung Health app. Likewise, it’s water-resistant—which is a small negative since many S2 users were hoping for an upgrade to waterproof. Despite that, there are some major differences which give this watch the edge over the S2.
While the S3 looks more stylish than its sibling, you might notice that it’s also a bit larger and heavier with a larger screen. But even with that, it also possesses a big upgrade in processing power and a battery life of three days—so the larger size might not be a bother to you after all.
With the S3 comes an improved Samsung Health app. You’ll still get all your info like burned calories, steps and so on; yet the neat thing is that now you can monitor your workouts with third-party apps like MyFitnessPal, MapMyRun, UA Record and Endomondo.
Lastly, if you’re a fitness buff or hardcore runner, then you’re going to love the fantastic new feature of a built-in GPS allowing you to track your bike rides, walks or runs more precisely; there’s even a “location detection” feature added. Another plus is this new element works well with other apps so you can use it simply for navigation or even as a golf watch! How cool!
$125.00 - $140.00 at Amazon.com
This powerful, water-resistant band is unique in that it’s actually a combo of fitness monitor and a smartwatch. The Fit2 has a slim, crisp, vibrantly colored, easy-to-read touchscreen. It has a sporty, watch-like look with a new textured wrap-around strap that’s now available in large or small as well as three colors. The strap fits snuggly on your arm and latches quickly and easily.
Fit2 automatically and accurately monitors and uses the Samsung Health app to display steps, calories burned, distance, speed and other usual details for every activity or workout. It also correctly and automatically tracks sleep even without a committed sleep app; it even tracks naps—wow! All of this information is placed in a 24-hour record so you can observe your activities for that day. Fit2 even displays times when you weren’t wearing the device! Amazingly, this tracker also “knows” and precisely records when you’re bike riding; performing yoga; running; doing squats, crunches or lunges; walking; climbing stairs; hiking or using a rowing machine. The device also provides directions on the screen of how to correctly perform a lunge, squat or crunch!
The GPS is one of the best new features added. Having a built-in GPS means you won’t have to carry your smartphone with you—thank goodness! Also, there’s now a map that’ll show your running, biking, walking or hiking route on the Fit2’s screen. While the map is on the small side, you’ll still get a good view of your whole route. After your workout, you’ll see a summary showing your tracked route, a speed graph and heart rate provided you have the “location detection” feature switched on. You can obtain details such as the percentage of time in intensity zone, speed, distance, workout duration, calories and maximum heart rate; this info can also be accessed while you’re on your route.
The optical heart rate sensor measures continuous beats per minute (bpm) when you start activity tracking, or it’ll track your beats every 10 minutes. The Fit2’s tracking of your resting heart rate is decent and, if you wrap the tracker tightly around your arm, you’ll find hardly any error in measuring bpm during your workouts. Sadly, though, some categories such as “other workout” and rowing don’t allow you to monitor your heart rate.
What’s different about the Fit2 that sets it apart from other fitness trackers is that there’s a new widget that allows you to manually input your intake of caffeine and water, yet logging every caffeine-laced drink or bottled water you consume could get monotonous after a while. Other marvelous upgrades are receiving notifications from your phone, streaming tunes from Spotify and downloading some apps to the tracker. Awesome! Oh and how about this? If you’ve created your own fitness music playlist, you can download it since this gadget will hold all of your tunes—it has 4GB of storage!
With all of these magnificent features, you’ll find that the battery lasts two days before needing a charge.
So which fitness device is “geared” to be perfect for you? Well, that all depends on what you want to get out of it and use it for. One of these Samsung fitness gadgets is sure to be a great fit to help you be healthier and stay active.
Photo Credit: Phonearena
