Gadgetory

although a few activity bans have been released with OLED and other colorful displays none of them I feel has perfected what consumers are desiring today the garmin vivoactive worked well but the display was dark and not as vibrant and the polar a360 was indeed bright and very smooth to use but it lacked true message notifications not to mention the HR sensor from my test was very off today we're looking at the Fitbit blaze it's priced at 199 dollars retail as of this video but for more updated pricing click on my link in the video description below for the most up-to-date prices so without further adieu and sorry about the slight delay here and getting this video out to my followers but I really want to thoroughly test the place for you guys now I'm Jimmy with Jim's review room and my channel is here to help you make a purchase decision welcome everyone to another review going over the physical features first the very familiar texture returns offering a simple yet unique modern feel the band comes with a very secure watch like buckle to latch into place and the entire time of wearing this it's been very comfortable and secure from my experience wearing this with long sleeve shirts hasn't been an issue as it doesn't snag too much as some activity bands are just too thick and it gets caught on the cuff small large sizes are available with no medium since there's a good amount of notches to accommodate most wrist sizes but for me the small size barely fit I would suggest looking into the bigger model if you need to now one other feature that I always love to see there's quick release pins on the rear here offering you to swap out different styles even to a metal band but I'll mid wearing stainless steel on the wrist could be a bit pricey for some coming in at a hundred and thirty dollars nonetheless having the other options though I'm really diggin it the bezel now is stainless steel very durable against wearing scratches but for those who don't know the brains of the Fitbit is fitted inside this frame to charge the device there is the nuisance of taking the tracker out and putting it into the proprietary case charging from a dead battery to fall from my test had taken about an hour and a half which isn't too bad when comparing with the competition and putting the tracker back in you would have to align all sides equally before pushing in and for first-timers let's just take a little bit more consciousness than many other bands I don't think it's a deal killer since Fitbit is claiming you only need to do this up to every five days and that's how long the battery lasts but for my testing from a full battery till it died it proved the blaze lasted five days twenty three hours and two minutes to be precise the average for all activity bands have been around five to seven days so the blaze is somewhat in the middle to lower and regarding battery life nonetheless compared to smartwatches the average of those lasts about a day and a half to two days looking at the rear of the tracker is the heart rate sensor utilizing pure pulse technology which appears to be marketed as an improvement in their heart rate readings I'll detail my heart rate test a little towards the end of this video but overall and in general the physical side of things that's built well from my time of testing buttons are very tactile the wear factor so far has been impressive and my screen hasn't shown any signs of scratches just yet but before getting into this and to be fair and to set up proper expectations for my viewers this is not a SmartWatch although this has some SmartWatch like features you guys have to understand this is an activity or Fitness watch first and foremost you're unfortunately not getting weather updates you can't respond to text messages like some smartwatches you're also not getting those powerful Snapdragon processors we find on say a moto 360 or huawei SmartWatch but let's do a quick walk through and see all the features now similar to smartwatches the display remains off to save battery and with a flick of the wrist pointed at your face the display turns on and it turns out as well and as accurate as most other smartwatches on the market the main face that shows your time and with a ring here that progresses as you've taken more steps throughout the day and with a smaller info area in the bottom for the date pulse distance calories burned floors climbed and your total steps you can change the display with any of these four options currently available you can pause the screen if you need to to check these out here but while on the main screen swiping from the top down offers you to turn notifications from your smartphone and media controls which confirm to work with my Android devices so Iping from the bottom up this is where you can review all of your notifications and testing this this does review an entire message and not just a summary like I said earlier this is a fitness band first with some SmartWatch features being second now don't expect being able to send messages back from the blaze or any fitness band at the moment at least the ones that I'm aware of now back on the main screen scrolling right offers of your stats so far for the day including steps your heartbeat and your resting heart beat distance calories burned and your floor's climbed backing out and moving into the next greenness exercise enabling you to track your runs cycling weightlifting sessions treadmill use elliptical time and general workouts if you go into your Fitbit account online you can add the following on your screen here onto the band as well now regarding running and cycling the Fitbit blaze does rely on your phone's GPS and I know many we're bummed about this especially for those who don't carry their phones for music already sadly the GPS feature isn't built-in now from my testing I did one run with GPS on and also have my polar m400 which has GPS built in and stopped after I did a mile both were within range by a difference of point zero 1 of a mile so that's very accurate now I did test two with no GPS on theblaze same distance in the band recorded 0.96 miles for every mile that I would do without the GPS I was around 200 feet off it's not much but for those running very long distances the variation does add up but if you do have GPS and getting back onto the display this is what your screen would look like real time heart rate which is sampled every second your duration pace average pace your calories burn so far steps taken the time and last is distance and if you're into weightlifting which a lot of fans on my channel ask for there's heart rates again real time duration calories burned and the time are displayed and moving back to the main area we have fit star which is essentially coaching sessions on your wrist here if you're into that kind of thing there's a good bit of instructions for each and once you start each exercise they'll play an animation to demonstrate each one here if you don't know what they're talking about now fit start works great but it would have been much much better if it also counted reps considering it has motion detection every fitness band does but sadly this doesn't do that now some of the very last items there's a separate screen for a stopwatch and one for a countdown timer which are self explanatory silent vibrating alarms are next that displays what alarms you have set previously and you can turn it on from here but you can't set which day or time though that has to be done through the app now the vibrations after testing so many bands here the blaze felt to be a moderate sensation but not the strong wrist but not the weakest either I'm a light sleeper though so keep that in mind and last are your settings which are all self-explanatory here when I scroll through the screens for you as you probably can tell already the display isn't as fluid as a SmartWatch because of its Fitness band processor and when I first bought this the screen would sometimes stutter on occasion but after a week of using this the stutters are gone but the touch sensitivity for some odd reason as I'm demonstrating gear and why the past min of this video has been pretty choppy the blaze has a somewhat difficult time with reading my taps the first time now I'm hoping a firmware update can adjust this issue right away but giving credit where credit's due compared to all other activity bans most of the market doesn't have a display like this they're just black and white or just really lackluster in general and you're really paying for this beautiful display that they have here but regarding brightness and my camera isn't doing the best job here but surprisingly this is mostly visible in direct sunlight you shouldn't have an issue in nearly every environment that you'll be in and the band is only splash proof and you weren't thrilled to hear that so you can't wear this to swim nor submerging it is the best idea but simple test here and does verify and prove that is water-resistant on my end so let's take a look here at one of my most favorite apps here of any activity band the Fitbit app this works for both Apple and Android but also on windows phones and you can connect this directly to your PC for uploading and syncing now on the main page very simple to read here with a huge list of all your metrics you need to review there's progress shown by numbers with your goals designated on the right side and almost all of your metrics has a color-coded bar here going horizontally changing color as you progress steps are shown beats per minute are displayed and if you are not in an activity the blaze samples your heart rates every 5 seconds now when you are in an activity it will read and display your heart rates at every second now resting heart rate is displayed which is a very great indicator of heart health and for me personally it did read a bit higher though than what I've been measuring myself and from my under armour fitness band it's on average about 8 to 10 beats higher for some reason regarding heart rate accuracy it's still not perfect like the previous Fitbit products are reviewed however there seems to be some promise though when running colder weather around 40 degrees it's been a bit off and this happens several times and unfortunately I don't have the graphs on those however it's been warming up lately and the results did improve a good bit but not hundred-percent the initial start of each run about two minutes in are always off oddly but the rest of the chart compared to the chest strap here proved to be very close with each other no chest steps are still the most accurate but seeing an improvement in fitbit's risk trackers is in the right direction now going back to the app we've touched on steps and heart rate the next is distance floors climbed calories burned active minutes as the band knows if you've been walking for 15 minutes or longer it'll then record that data as an activity for you there's track your exercise your weight the amount of sleep that you have and you can manage your food intake just like my Fitness Pal and last you can log-in your water intake manually here but looking at all these categories on an individual basis clicking on steps for example Fitbit has always provided so much data for anyone to review a very easy to read bar graph up top to compare your week below are your absolute numbers and stars indicating if you beated your goal or not and if that goal is adjustable another tab breaks it down by the hour for your review and now going back out here and go into the heart rate section a linear graph showing your resting heart rate again it was higher than what I've tested on myself but your heart rate is shown throughout the day below tapping on each breaks it down further and gives you an idea if you're burning fat versus cardio versus maxing your heart rate now going back to the main screen distance floors climbed calories burned and active minutes looks practically the same but I want to touch base on sleep it's for the most part accurate with basic sleep analysis detailing how long you slept for how many times you woke up and moments you were Restless the data is good for a generic tracker as most trackers displays very similar information but those looking into something much deeper look into the jump on up 3 or the basis peak other than looking at the hard core metrics so you can compare yourself over time which is highly beneficial and why you would buy any of these fitness trackers Fitbit does offer a good variety of extra features in the third-party menus you have challenges you can try to overcome and earn badges and random accolades backing out if you have friends with Fitbit so you can compare your numbers with theirs and the only other area I would want to show you are these silent vibrating alarms now this works great and surprisingly other activity bans don't even offer this you can schedule individual days while the other bands again can only be set for weekdays or just weekends again with Fitbit you do have more flexibility so overall from my opinion this still doesn't seem like a big leap bridging the gap of activity bands and smartwatches but this has to be the closest it's been into the new garmin vivosmart HR that is released and we'll see how that one goes for the time being fit bits are still not 100% accurate but I can say this is a serious improvement overall when comparing to the previous generations if you don't need GPS or if you're fine carrying your phone for GPS while running the blaze I think is a great band in general now Fitbit has always in my eyes been able to offer some of the most well-rounded experiences for the average consumer and some fitness enthusiasts so that's it for the review please take your time to comment below and tell me what you think of the Fitbit blaze be sure to LIKE and subscribe if you haven't already and follow me on Facebook Twitter and or Instagram I'm always posting stuff on there and again I'm Jimmy with Jim's review room and my channels here to help you make a purchase decision you guys take care the next year