The Gear Fit 2 Pro has a beautiful, slim design with a curved AMOLED display that shows weekly charts and smartphone notifications. It also has automatic exercise detection, sleep, and all-day fitness tracking and onboard music storage with a capacity of 1000 songs, heart-rate monitoring and GPS. Runners and walkers love the inclusion of the GPS functionality.

Flip the device over to see the heart rate monitor. The technical name for the manner in which the wrist-based heart rate is photo plethysmography. Green LEDs and infrared light blasters are used to track the blood flow rate.

Testers felt the tracking of the heart monitor accurate but still recommend a Bluetooth-connected chest strap for impressive feats such as a marathon. The monitor allows the user to see how much time was spent on different heart rate zone levels. It is a useful feature for intensive training. The user views and responds to notifications from the Android phone on the wrist.

When ‘Fit’ appears in the name of a device, there is an expected level of fitness features. Those expectations include automatic exercise detection, smartphone notifications, GPS for tracking distances and pace when running, heart-rate and all-day fitness tracking.

It doesn’t look as though much has changed. Samsung learned the improvements needed to make the device a better value. The Gear Fit 2 Pro has features users may not have considered such as caffeine and water tracking and onboard music storage.

Samsung built a Facebook share button that allows users to boast to their fitness ‘friends.’ The Gear Fit 2 Pro followed the Gear Fit 2 model. It is the most recent model. What is surprising is the new features of the Pro do not offer what current Gear Fit 2 owners want.

Samsung opted for an operating system of its own that works with Android phones that run KitKat or above. It is also compatible with any iPhone that runs iOS 9 or above. The tech spec overhaul of the device resulted in high power even when tracking exercise and receiving an overload of notifications.

The Gear Fit 2 Pro features fitness-centric apps that are pre-installed, such as Endomondo, UA Record, Speedo Go, and MapMyRun. The benefit is the user gets moving a bit faster.

The Gear Fit 2 Pro steps up in almost every way. With the hardware, Samsung’s new product makes the original Gear Fit look bad. The dual-core Exynos 3250 clocks at 1.6 GHz, which is significantly more than the custom M4 processor running at 160 MHz of the Samsung Gear Fit.

The 512MB RAM and 4GB of onboard music storage and Samsung made apps installation exceeds the predecessor’s 8MB RAM and ROM storage of 16MB. The Samsung pride and joy, Tizen, is used to run the Gear Fit 2 Pro operating system.

The Samsung opened to a greater audience. To start a few apps are needed to set up and update the Gear Fit 2 Pro periodically. The S Health app digs into more fitness metric details. They are relatively simple to set up.

Testers were not fond of the two app requirement. The Gear Fit 2 Pro shows notifications from a smartphone, but the smartphone is not required to operate. Without pairing the device to a smartphone, the Gear Fit 2 Pro offers a relatively useful and intuitive read-out of daily fitness metrics.

Calories are broken down in an illustrated timeline format that indicates movement intensity throughout the day. Many users find that top-level knowledge to be sufficient. The Tizen OS fitness-centric adaptation has slides dedicated to various fitness methods.

Each offers a surprisingly detailed, compact glimpse into recent progress. The experience grows when paired with Android smartphones. When the Samsung Gear is installed to a compatible iOS or Android smartphone, the device automatically feeds the user’s fitness metrics.

The many notifications that come through when connected to a smartphone are the most significant change, aside from the increased depth in detail. The Gear Fit 2 Pro displays them and provides a dedicated space for them to reside by accessing the home page.

A Spotify app is built-in. Spotify allows the user to control and access playlists from the wrist. A phone connection is required to use it. The 4GB of space allows loading as many as 1000 songs on the device. A tester felt the feature was a bit outdated and would have preferred being able to load Spotify playlists on the device to be used offline. The Fit 2 Pro syncs with the Strava app that is popular with runners and cyclists, but unfortunately, it cannot upload heart-rate data.

A wearable must be comfortable to be motivational. The Gear Fit 2 Pro has a grand feel. It fits on the wrist similar to the original that puts a plug through a hole but has a strap loop that ensures it stays in place when exercising. Day-to-day experience is pleasant. The Tizen OS, the hardware capabilities, and the comfort each play a role. The curved screen of the AMOLED display feels comfortable when worn and has an appealing look.

By mixing the ingredients of the new and old, the general aesthetic was kept and made better. It is more capable and easier to use. The drastic shift of building materials used to make the Gear Fit 2 came together seamlessly. It is more elegant than some of the competition. Fitness trackers are seldom beautiful or glamorous. They usually have a boring strap made of silicon, one or two buttons, and perhaps a screen.

It is backed with water and sweat resistance where the device touches the wrist. The Gear Fit 2 Pro provides reliable feedback. An exception occurred when a tester wore the device in the shower. Contact with water temporarily interferes with the sense of altitude detected by the barometer.

The Gear Fit 2 Pro is rated as IP68 which is not fully waterproof. It can be worn during workouts, doing dishes, or out in the rain. The device is not recommended for the shower because water pressure levels vary from a shower head to shower head. It will probably not break if the user forgets occasionally.

The GPS takes minutes rather than seconds to acquire a signal. On the back, there is an optical heart-rate sensor that measures heart rate every ten minutes all day long. The measurements are typically accurate unless the user is running. During workouts, heart-rate data is captured at one-second intervals. Measurement can be off by 20 to 30 beats each minute, especially during hard runs. The provided information is inflated.

The renowned curved touchscreen of the Fit design is back. It is as shiny and vibrant as ever. The shape is slightly different. The rectangular display is wider than before. It offers more screen real estate that fits additional information such as a full map of a run provided by a built-in GPS function, a better media player, and additional notification words.

The touch-sensitive AMOLED display is 1.5 inch and boosts the pixel density to 332 PPI. The original has a 245 PPI display. The bezel surrounding the screen has been reworked. Reducing it gave the Gear Fit 2 Pro more of an edge-to-edge appearance.

The rectangular, curved screen has frosted metal trim in a color of the user’s choice. There are various appealing watch faces from which to choose. There is a problem with the beautiful screen. It has a unique outdoor mode meant to increase brightness and make it easy to see. The screen is not always on. It comes back on when the arm is moved to the face. That maneuver is not easy when running.

The mode isn’t very responsive. Only one data point is deployed on each screen. Crucial running information is not available at a glance. One swipe displays distance. Two more swipes are required to see the pace. Sweaty fingers can make the process frustrating and increasingly difficult.

Traditional strap clasp is a good improvement The most significant physical difference here is the latch strap has been replaced with a standard watch clasp. A silicon band is attached. It comes in many colors that include black as a band to switch the style. The silicon band feels good next to the skin.

Two buttons located on the side point toward the hand. One navigates back within a menu. The tracker is turned on and off with the other. The second button also brings us the settings menu. The power button is programmable to execute tasks with a double-click. There is an assortment of options.

A customizable alert reminds the user to move around if he or she is inactive for too long. There is an ‘inactive timer’ on the home screen. It tracks how long the user has been stationary. A bundle of sensors that include a barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, and heart rate monitor is used to track lack of movement. Some light yoga, lifting, running, and walking are independently detected without any input from the user. If the notifications become annoying, the user can turn the vibration effect off that each trigger.

Most notifications are FYI. Limited action can be taken on some of them. Gmail, as an example, allows replying, archiving, and deleting with a short list of primary responses. As part of the notification service, the device displays texts and notifies the user of calls coming through. Text replies can be tweaked to fit the personality of the user so that quick text replies to missed calls seem as though they were typed and not as robotic as the default options.

The way the Gear Fit 2 Pro charges is among the most significant improvement over the original design. People dislike having to carry cables that are unnecessary. The 2014 version needed a proprietary connector.

The Gear Fit 2 Pro requires a proprietary connector also. It gulps electricity through a charging block that is more forgiving. The device can rest on the on the dock in any position. No effort is required to line up the pins. Landscape mode activates the screen to affirm it is charging.

Without GPS, the battery lasts a little more than three days. With the GPS activated, it lasts about two and a half days when used every day for a 30-minute workout. The battery life is not the worst that is available but if far from the best. Continuous battery life is approximately nine hours.

When the Gear Fit 2 Pro first hit the market, it had a price tag of $199. It is currently available from Amazon for $183. Testers say it is available for $130.

* Built-in GPS map activity
* Compatible with iOS and Android smartphones
* Connection with Spotify allows storage of favorite music
* Tracks sleep quality, heart-rate, calories burned, step count, and more
* Two band sizesBuilt-in GPS map activity
* Compatible with iOS and Android smartphones
* Connection with Spotify allows storage of favorite music
* Tracks sleep quality, heart-rate, calories burned, step count, and more
* Two band sizes

The feature-packed Gear Fit 2 Pro looks great, but the design is not ideal for hardcore workout warriors. Testers rated the following features on a scale of one to ten as - Design 8, Battery 6, Performance 7, Software 7, and Features 9.

The Fit 2 Pro is more of a mini fitness smartwatch than a fitness tracker. If the battery life of the Gear Fit 2 were better, the device would rank higher on the list of solid sleep and fitness trackers.
There are better GPS watches and fitness trackers available.

Those who opt for the Fit 2 Pro because of the curved design need to be aware of its limitations. Novice runners may not encounter the frustration that avid cyclists and runners found when measuring distance, speed, and pace. The device is not designed for serious athletes.