Between the Samsung Gear Sport and the Gear Fit2 Pro, I personally prefer using the Gear Fit2 Pro to work out in, primarily because it is lighter and more workout-friendly.
When you purchase the Gear Fit2 Pro, you can choose between a Small or Large band, so you cannot share it with your spouse or boyfriend. (I wouldn’t want to share it anyway LOL). This is compatible with both iOS and Android, but it is easiest to pair with Samsung; especially with the S Health app which allows for seamless tracking of vital stats.
With a similar design to its predecessor, the Gear Fit2, the Gear Fit2 Pro comes in two colour combinations – black/red or black/black. You know I’m a fan of colours, so I took the black/red one. I have quite a small wrist, but I think those with smaller wrists might find the size of the screen a little oversized.
Day-to-day activities like daily steps taken, calories burned, heart rate and water consumption are in the watch by default, but you can also add others like coffee intake and number of flights of stairs climbed. Of all the fitness watches I’ve used, the Gear Fit2 Pro has the most number of physical activities I’ve seen – running, walking, cycling, hiking, elliptical trainer, exercise bike, step machine, treadmill, swimming, lunges, crunches, squats, star jumps, Pilates, yoga, rowing machine and other workout. These are already in the watch when you get it.
To be honest, you won’t use all, but I tried some for fun anyway. For Pilates and yoga, it will just track how long your session is and based on your heart rate, it will calculate your calorie burn. For lunges, crunches, squats and star jumps, it will calculate reps based on detection of your movement – for example, up and down for squats. It wasn’t that accurate though.
I use this watch mostly for running and I like how it automatically detects when I start running. But this also means that the watch sometimes tracks workouts that aren’t workouts – for example, when I’m moving heavy stuff and my heart rate goes up, the watch tracks that as a workout. I guess you can consider that as exercise and hey, extra calorie burn! Oh yes, you can view your running data on S Health (if you’re on Samsung) or apps like MapMyRun after. The inbuilt GPS tracks the distance quite accurately.
Also, the Gear Fit2 Pro is now water-resistant, of up to 50 metres, so you can take it into the water. Yes, it can track swimming too – but besides setting the pool length (normal for all sports watches), you have to set the Target Length (how many laps you intend to do) and then Guided Intervals (how many laps is your intervals or how long is each interval). This is alright if you have a fixed set of intervals, like 10 x 50m (1 lap), but if you are doing mixed intervals then it gets tricky. The Speedo On app is pre-installed, so you can use that to help track your swims too.
Like the Gear Sport, this Gear Fit2 Pro has offline Spotify support. I was raving about this before and I’m gonna continue raving about it now. I love how you can download your Spotify playlist to the watch so you can run without your phone (you need to have a premium Spotify subscription though). Like with the Gear Sport too, I took some time to download Spotify into the watch. It could only be downloaded via wi-fi while the watch is disconnected from the phone, so I got a bit confused. It would be perfect if the watch could come with Spotify pre-installed!
Although the Gear Fit2 Pro is more of a fitness watch than a lifestyle watch, you can still receive notifications of your calls and texts, as well as from Instagram and Facebook. I think that’s good enough; if you’re only using this watch for workouts most of the time, you won’t need to respond to your calls or texts in the middle of your workout anyway. The notifications are just there to inform you if anything urgent crops up. The battery life is pretty good too, lasting for about three days with daily fitness activities.
If you are considering a watch that is mainly for your sports and fitness activities, then I would suggest the Gear Fit2 Pro. If you prefer something that you can wear all day – from bed to workout to work to sleep – then the Gear Sport is better suited (if you don’t mind it being slightly heavier).
For more information, head over to www.samsung.com/sg/wearables.
*This post is sponsored by Samsung.
