Samsung has come a long way when it comes to smart wearables. Ever since the Samsung Galaxy S5 days, Samsung has been pretty hard at work. As years go by, Samsung kept improving their wearable devices and they now bring us the new Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro.
The original Gear Fit was one of the first ever wearable device that we’ve reviewed here at Nasi Lemak Tech. Looking back, it certainly brought us a level of nostalgia – and reflect on just how much Samsung has advanced over the years.
Unboxing
Surprisingly, Samsung kept more or less the same design language when it comes to packaging for all of their current generation of devices. Pretty neat, actually. Everything is minimal in design and covered in sleek, classic black color.
Just be aware of which size the Gear Fit2 Pro you’re getting – the one we have here is with a large wristband. It’ll be indicated at this bottom right-hand corner here.
There are also some feature highlights at the side of the box.
Opening up the box reveals the Gear Fit2 Pro itself, and a bunch of documentation strapped with a plastic wrapper at the side. Underneath the documentation is where a fabric bag is found – which holds the charger inside.
There is nothing else in the box itself other than these 3 items, which is perfectly fine for a fitness band like the Gear Fit2 Pro.
Design
First off, let’s take a look at the design of it. The all new Gear Fit2 Pro is more elegant than before, and Samsung does away with the chromed edge too.
With its curvier design and a much more beautiful screen, the Gear Fit2 Pro now features a 1.5-inch curved Super AMOLED display with 216×432 pixels. This time around, Samsung’s curved design is a lot more naturally wrapped around the watch face and the band itself, making the whole Gear Fit2 Pro looks it’s integrated within itself.
Gone are the days where the wristband is wrapped and hold the watch itself, as Samsung now made a very solid locking mechanism that holds the wristband on both its sides. This little locking mechanism is actually very secure.
Just take the wristband off and strap it with some other design that you like. Of course, there aren’t any other choices available as of now – but more are coming soon.
There are a total of two different colors available now, actually. You can opt for the fully blacked out version with stripes on the wristband, or a black & red color with a faceted wristband that looks like diamond cuts – just like the one we have for review here.
There are a total of 2 buttons on the Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro – both one the right side, with one being larger, and another smaller button. The larger one functions as a “back” button, whereas the smaller button brings up the main menu.
Using the Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro
At first glance, I don’t really have any expectations for it. So I just paired it with my phone, charged it to a 100% and brought it out for a day.
Firstly, I was pleasantly surprised that Samsung removed the boundary that these accessories are meant for Samsung smartphones only. This used to be the case for their early generations of wearables, by the way.
Once paired, I enabled notifications, changed the watch face, and proceeded with my day. The sensors that are built into the Gear Fit2 Pro is now so advanced that the screen turns on and off according to orientation. That’ll definitely save a lot of battery, too.
The screen is very bright and can obviously work perfectly well under direct bright sunlight, too. With that said, the watch face is actually a page – just like home screens on Android OS. Swiping around from the watch face switches to other pages, which are essentially different apps. You can even rearrange these “pages”, just like how you do it on Android home screen launchers. Intuitive for Android users, I should say.
However, the back button on the side is a little offputting. I don’t know why it exists, but it seems like a sorry excuse to not optimize the Gear Fit2 Pro’s Tizen OS to be a fully gesture-based operating system. I’ve observed many people who got their hands on the Gear Fit2 Pro that instinctively swiped to the right or up from below, hoping to go “back”. Instead, there’s a dedicated button to do that.
There are quite a lot of watch faces built into the Samsung Gear app itself – and with lots of variants to those built-in designs too.
Once customized, it’ll automagically reflect on the Gear Fit2 Pro instantly. Take a look at these screenshots from the Gear Fit app.
Also, the new Gear Fit2 Pro actually has a bit of storage in the watch itself. You can transfer music tracks into the Gear Fit2 Pro itself so you can pair your wireless earphones with the Gear Fit2 Pro and exercise without having your phone around!
Speaking of that, the Gear Fit2 Pro transforms into a nice nightstand when docked on the charger. Neat!
That leads us to our next point, actually.
Battery & Charger
The brand new Gear Fit2 Pro’s charger is actually very user-friendly. You can charge by just plopping the Gear Fit2 Pro down. It’s magnetic, so once the pogo pins are nearby, it’ll just get sucked in and snap into place and start charging. Then, the screen lights up to indicate the time and its remaining charge.
When it comes to the charging speed, I’m actually surprised that it can get to 100% charge within an hour through a typical USB 3.0 port from my PC. Once charged, the Gear Fit2 Pro can last for slightly more than 3 days without charging.I’m really impressed by how power efficient the Gear Fit2 Pro is.
And yes, I was traveling for a total of 3 days and 2 nights and was reviewing the Galaxy Note8 together at the same time. During my travels, I didn’t bring the Gear Fit2 Pro’s charger together with my travels, actually.
I’m really impressed by how power efficient the Gear Fit2 Pro is, but at the same time rather disappointed with the size of that charger. Sure, it’s functional and beautiful as a nightstand clock – but not really portable.
Wrapping up the Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro review
Let’s make it simple. The Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro has improved a lot since its predecessor, and it’s sleeker than before. Battery lasts longer than before, too. Functionality wise, I’m not sure if those who are not as active would need to get a Gear Fit2 Pro, as it is a fitness band after all. It looks stylish as a modern LED wristwatch – coupled with notifications and custom watch faces, the Gear Fit2 Pro will definitely catch some attention.
However, the price premium here means that all fitness features will be built-in too. For the price of RM799, you’ll have to judge for yourself if you’ll ever use the features that the Gear Fit2 Pro has built-in with.
Buy it now on Lazada for RM799.
- Pros
- Better battery life
- Stylish and sleek curved, bright display
- Lots of features, widgets, customization options
- Cons
- A little pricey for what it does
- Charger could be more portable
- Unintuitive back button
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