Fitness wearables are a dime a dozen these days. It’s hard for us to keep track of what’s what, with Fitbit, Huawei and Samsung all throwing their hats into the ring. IFA 2017 is filled with fitness trackers – and, if I’m honest, writing about them is already getting stale.
But Samsung has launched a new one – the long-in-the tooth Gear Fit 2 Pro, a 2017 re-do of sorts from last year’s impressive, but expensive, Gear Fit 2. The Pro improves on a lot of things its ancestor was already capable of doing, and then some, but what makes this new fitness tracker stand out from the rest?
Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro review: UK price, release date and specifications
- Display: Curved 1.5in, 128 x 432 Super AMOLED
- Battery life: Four days
- Price: $199 (UK price TBC)
- Release date: TBC
Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro review: Design, key features and first impressions
Samsung’s Gear Fit lineup is tried and tested. The dinky 128 x 432 Super AMOLED touchscreen is bright, with punchy colours you can see in daylight, while the black (or red) rubber strap is tastefully low-rent – although if you’re looking for something to show off, you can replace it with a bunch of coloured or metal bands from Samsung and third parties.
There’s not a jot of difference between it and last year’s Gear Fit 2, but when it did everything well the first time around, I can’t blame Samsung for sticking with the "if it ain’t broke don’t fix it" mantra.
Back to that screen, and there are all sorts of customisable watch faces to cater to your fitness needs. You can ask it to highlight your calorie consumption during the day, total steps or even your current elevation. Perfect for an at-a-glance metric of your choosing.
Other than that, its features are pretty much what we expect of a fitness wearable nowadays. You’ll find the usual suite of goodies; including built-in GPS, heart-rate monitoring and 5 ATM1 water resistance.
Speaking of which, the Gear Fit 2 Pro really wants you to swim with it. Speedo’s newest swim-training app, Speedo On, is installed as standard, allowing budding athletes to track all sorts of swimming metrics; from lap times, lap counts and even swim stroke tutelage.
There’s also 4GB of onboard storage to store your favourite workout tunes. Samsung’s freshly announced partnership with Spotify allows you to store music offline on your Gear Fit 2 Pro without your smartphone, too.
Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro review: Early verdict
The Gear Fit 2 Pro, as its handful of a name doesn’t suggest, is a stripped-down fitness tracker, albeit with plenty of bells and whistles. At first pass, there’s plenty going on here: packaged with some useful swimming features and helpful at-a-glance metrics, all inside a lightweight and comfortable little wearable strapped to your wrist.
As it stands, there’s still no confirmed UK pricing, however. Leaks currently point towards an expected £200 asking price, and if it did come to that, the Gear Fit 2 Pro will show up in shops for £20 more than last year’s Gear Fit 2. Given Fitbit is dominating the market with budget trackers these days, this might be a hard sell come launch.
Expect my full Gear Fit 2 Pro review in the near future.
