After the big smartphone reveal that was the Samsung Galaxy Note8, the South Korean electronics giant is now unveiling their latest lineup of gadgets that have fitness on their mind. Here’s Samsung’s IFA Berlin 2017 roster: Meet the Gear Sport, Gear Fit2 Pro, and all-new Gear IconX.
Samsung Gear Sport
Of the two fitness watches, the Gear Sport is definitely the one that looks more like a smartwatch. In fact, it bears a lot of similarities, aesthetically, as the Samsung Gear S3 Frontier edition. It’s got a 1.2-inch Super AMOLED display with Gorilla Glass 3, military-grade durability, and support for standard 20mm watch bands. Users can also utilise this watch to control Samsung’s IoT devices, as a remote control for the Gear VR headset, and even for mobile payments via Samsung Pay (though, only NFC payments).
However, it is a fitness-centric watch, so its primary function is to track fitness metrics and workouts as well as receive nutrition management alerts and activity recommendations. This watch comes with a heart-rate monitor for real-time heart-rate monitoring which is pretty much standard on fitness-centric wearables these days. It’s also got auto activity tracking and personalised motivations for those of us who are more potato than human (myself included).
Besides that, the Gear Sport is also capable of swim tracking because it’s rated up to 50m (5ATM) for water resistance. Users can also use the Speedo On training app to track their swimming metrics when in the pool. Samsung has also partnered with Spotify and Under Armour, plus a whole bunch of fitness apps to give you a more holistic fitness experience.
Other specs include built-in GPS, WiFi b/g/n, a 300 mAh battery, wireless charging. 4GB of internal memory, 768MB RAM and a dual-core 1.0GHz processor. It’ll also run on Tizen, as is expected.
Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro
If you prefer the fitness band form-factor more, you can instead opt for the Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro which is an update to the already excellent Gear Fit2. We already saw this device leak earlier so not much is a surprise here. It shares a lot of similarities with the Gear Sport including the 5ATM water resistance rating, built-in GPS and all its fitness tracking features.
The biggest difference is that the Gear Fit2 Pro’s screen is a 1.5-inch Super AMOLED rectangle. One nice update with the Gear Fit2 Pro over the Gear Fit2, though, is that the band is a proper railroad one instead of a snap-on.
Samsung Gear IconX
Finally, we have the updated Gear IconX. Part of the rare truly wireless earbuds crowd, the Gear IconX didn’t get the best reception from us last year. This time, Samsung’s updated the design to make it lighter and more ergonomic which should translate to a more secure fit in the ear. It also has Bixby support now so you have more options to interact with your fitness tracker.
Probably the best update, though, is the improved battery capacity. Samsung has almost doubled the battery capacity to 82 mAh and they even bumped up the charging case’s capacity to 340 mAh. Samsung says this means the new earbuds have up to 7 hours of standalone playtime and up to 5 hours of Bluetooth playtime, which is a big upgrade from the 3.8 hours standalone and 1.5 hours Bluetooth listening time of the original.
The Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro will hit Malaysia in September while the Gear Sport and Gear IconX will arrive in November of this year. There is, however, no information on the pricing and exact availability dates so far. We will keep you posted when we learn more.
