Gadgetory

well what does it look like when you combine a fitness tracker and a SmartWatch if your Samsung it looks like this 199 dollar gear fit is Samsung's first attempt at a wrist worn fitness tracker and it borrows a lot of elements from the company's line of gear smartwatches it's by far the most handsome of Samsung's wearables with an attractive design and slim enough profile it's made of rubber and plastic so it's definitely not premium but it's not a bad looking device at all the real star of the show here though is the fits gorgeous curved touchscreen display it's bright vibrant and has incredible viewing angles it's also easy to read outdoors which is really important for a fitness device the fit is the first device I've seen where a curved display actually makes sense and fits in with what the product is supposed to do the fits rubbery band is comfortable to wear and the clasp is easy to close which I can't really say for competitors like the Fitbit force or flex but for all the nice things I can say about the fits hardware unfortunately that beauty is only skin-deep the main problem with the fit is that it's just not a very good fitness tracker and not a very good SmartWatch the fits horizontal layout proves to be pretty hard to use by default the display is oriented horizontally which makes it awkward to read when you're wearing it there's an option to switch that orientation to vertical and that's what I ended up using most of the time but then text is condensed and reading anything on the display requires a lot of swiping the touchscreen isn't always responsive either requiring me to tap at it repeatedly at times the fit does do the things that you'd expect from a fitness tracker it can count your steps track your sleep and even has a built-in heart rate monitor but the step counter proved to be wildly inaccurate awarding me far more steps and it should have for many activities likewise the heartrate tracker is painfully slow and gives me readings that don't always line up with my state of activity or lack thereof using the fit to track your activity is also a chore unlike the Fitbit flex or basis band you have to actually tell the fit to track your steps if you forget to turn the pedometer on it just won't record your activity likewise the sleep tracking requires you to remember to tell the fit that you're going to sleep and that well you've woken up in the morning with every other fitness tracker offering these functions automatically it just seems like a real oversight by Samsung with the fit the fit pairs with Samsung's s health app on your smartphone to organize all of your Fitness data but s health proves also be lacking in many areas there's also a built-in fitness coach that's designed to give you challenges to meet your goals throughout the day but there's no way to view my sleep activity and Samsung just doesn't do a great job of tying all of this data together into something I can actually use on the SmartWatch side of things the fit can show you basic notifications from your phone including those from third-party apps but there's little you can do with those notifications other than just clear them you can set up message templates for quick replies to text messages or to reject incoming calls but aside from that the SmartWatch functions are quite limited and the fact that the screen isn't always on makes it a poor replacement for an actual watch finally the fits battery is also just disappointing requiring a charge every two days or so it charges through this awkward USB adapter that will most surely get lost and even though the fit has a small battery it takes a lot longer to fully charge than I expected or really wanted to wait for there's going to be a lot of smart watches on the market this year in addition to a lot of fitness trackers the gear fits limitations price and the fact that it only works with Samsung devices put it at a disadvantage right from the start and I have a feeling that those who are patient will have much better options in the near future