Gadgetory

Samsung is throwing their own name into the game of everyday fitness bands with an offering that tries to bridge the gap between SmartWatch and exercise tracker did they get it right on the first time well it's Josh regard for manager Authority of what's going on everybody and this is our full review of the Samsung gear fit if you thought the gear line of smartwatches was a little less than accessible you will find a refreshingly easy design in the gear fit a module comprised of a 1.8 4 inch curved display a single button a charging connector and a heart rate monitor on the back fits into a rubber band that can be replaced with different colors if you have ever used a fitness FuelBand like the Fitbit or the Nike FuelBand the gear fit takes on that particular motif but adds in much more functionality due to its unique display experience and as far as the band goes it is refreshingly easy to put on compared to the gear smartwatches which were a little confusing at first a double pin fastener fits right into the holes on the other part of the band allowing you to easily dawn and remove the gear fit without any fuss the overall size of the entire set up is not too bulky but it does dwarf the other fitness bands out there that have a more minimalistic design but again that is because of the screen however overall it doesn't weigh down your wrist at all and after some time you're not even going to notice that the gear fit calls your arm it's home easily the most eye-catching part of the gear fit is its vibrant display you will undoubtedly be asked what that is on your wrist when it goes off for notifications or when you're checking the time the touch screen capabilities are easy to use and allow for quick access to the different functions touch sensitivity might be a little spotty at times though as I was sometimes forced to press a button multiple times until I finally got in I found the landscape orientation a little odd at first prompting me to suggest that you wear the gear fit backwards on your wrist for better reading comfort but that has been helped by the added ability to make the display go into portrait mode which is semi-permanent on my unit now when you view your notifications you are able to set it to go landscape whenever you open one but reading a whole notification in landscape can lead to some uncomfortable stretching of the arm and wrist there's very little to take away from the wonderful screen that is found on this wearable and it makes us think that if Samsung is able to put a nice curved display on a wearable as easy to put on as this then we're kind of excited to see where this form factor will go given how much or in contrast how little the gear fit is supposed to do its performance was never really in question swiping between functions was smooth and there were never any issues getting to what I needed as far as battery goes it is capable of going a couple days before needing a charge but a couple days is a little bit dwarfed by the other fitness bands out there that because they are more minimalistic can go for many more days on end also be careful with the charging module that snaps onto the back of the unit it's really small and just looks like a hunk of plastic meaning that if you're not careful you might lose it pretty easily ultimately it always comes down to usage and in this case we do have some SmartWatch capabilities on top of fitness capabilities but unfortunately the gear fit falls under the usual Samsung Trobe it tries too hard to be multiple things at once without ever being very great at any one of those things let's start off with the main component fitness functions for a fitness band like this include tracking steps sleep and distance based activities you won't be getting much more use than that so those of you who let's say exclusively lift won't probably get much use out of the gear fit the pedometer as a required feature of any fitness band is unfortunately pretty inaccurate with the gear fit I was walking around the LA Arboretum for a camera shootout one day and it yielded me over 3,000 steps in just one hour which seemed to be way too inaccurate the other issue with the pedometer and also the sleep tracker is that you have to actively turn them on and off before you actually do or complete your activities tracking Fitness on the other hand with the fit allows for the recording of your distance traveled how long the workout was and also the general amount of calories you may have burned and all of this data goes into the s health application which is pretty robust on its own but anyone looking for more in their workout data might not be satisfied with this particular suite and finally the heart rate monitor which takes on the same motif as the one found on the galaxy s5 itself when you use the straight heart rate map it will only give you single readings now I typically use a polar rate monitor that constantly tracks my heart rate and when used up against it I did find that the gear fit was more or less accurate depending on how the gear fit is snugly fit on your wrist it might have a little bit of trouble getting an accurate reading as long as you have it maybe just a little bit tight so that it's not really moving around too much then you should be able to get an accurate reading you also have to make sure that sweat is not getting in the way of the heart rate monitor looking through your skin in order to find what that is now you are able to have the heart rate monitor on throughout a workout which is great for the gear fit and this is achieved by turning on a coaching mode which will monitor your heart rate and tell you if you should take it easy due to a high bpm for the most part though you should have a little bit of information to know how fast you should be going what your heart rate should be it will mostly ballpark exactly what your heart rate needs to be so I would say consult a little bit of extra information to make sure that don't take the gear fit as the gospel truth but ultimately the holes in operation are what make the gear fit a less than favorable companion for anyone out there really into fitness it requires a lot of personal input to make its functions work the data that it tracks for workouts and for let's say sleep are ultimately basic and ultimately minimal and while the always firing heart rate monitor during workouts does garner at some points the gear fit doesn't necessarily bring a whole lot else to the fitness band game than just a pretty screen and finally we'll end by looking at the other side of the coin as a gear device SmartWatch capabilities are also available you can of course tell the time and get a quick look at the weather with the home screen the background of which can be cater to a specific image using the gear fit manager found in your galaxy phone find my device is available if either of your devices go too far from one another and of course the media controller is also there for you to skip songs or change the volume on the fly which was used most often in my experience notifications are the marquee function provided by having a nice screen but like I alluded to before it's far from a great implementation when using the gear fits in portrait mode notifications that come up are often scrunched up due to the formatting issue of having the small screen and like I said before you can read your current notifications in landscape but it does require a lot of scrolling and it is also hard to read without pretty much straining your arm in order to line it up correctly and of course the notifications are on a view only basis you're able to set up quick templates for responses but basically you're going to be reaching for your phone more often than not and so there you have it the Samsung gear fit I can't help but think that this is only the beginning yes it falls short of being a great fitness tracker it also falls short of being a decent SmartWatch but this screen on this wearable does show that we have quite a bit to go when it comes to wearable tech and this is not a bad start and shows the potential for our wearable tech this is the first wearable capable of SmartWatch capabilities that is as easy as it is to put on and wear all day and having it on will definitely help your geek cred but the moment you realize you forgot to personally turn on the pedometer is when you realize this is more geek than Fitness chic the first order of business is fixing the current holes and then we can only hope that Samsung will unlock the potential of what was an exciting development in the world of wearable tech so as always thank you guys very much for watching I hope you enjoyed this review of the Samsung gear fit unfortunately it is not everything that we were hoping it to be but it does show the potential of wearable tech especially once in this interesting form factor size so keep it tuned to Android or thority for all of the best coverage 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