Samsung had announced its compact fitness tracker Galaxy Fit in February alongside the Galaxy S10 smartphones. The affordable fitness tracker has now become available for purchase. If you are a Samsung fan and want to buy a new fitness watch, you might be wondering whether to purchase the Galaxy Fit or the recently launched Galaxy Watch Active. Let’s find out how the Samsung Galaxy Fit stacks up against the company’s own Galaxy Watch Active.
Samsung Galaxy Fit vs Galaxy Watch Active: Design
The Galaxy Fit is a thin and lightweight fitness tracker with an elongated display similar to the Gear Fit. Samsung claims it weighs only as much as a single strawberry. Its touchscreen AMOLED display is curved around the band to ensure that it fits comfortably on your wrist. It has a proprietary charger that magnetically attaches to the back of the device.
The Galaxy Fit has a heart rate sensor underneath it. It relies on touching and swiping for navigation, which is not always convenient because of the small screen. The Fit has a side button, but it offers limited functionality. It takes you back to the main watch display or lets you quickly start a workout session. Samsung has launched the Galaxy Fit in silver and black color options.
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Both the Samsung Galaxy Fit and Galaxy Watch Active have 5 ATM water-resistance rating, meaning they can withstand being submerged in up to 40 meters deep water.
The Galaxy Watch Active has a circular and sporty design, and it sits flat on your wrist. It comes in black, silver, green, and rose gold colors. It’s slimmer and lighter than last year’s Galaxy Watch. It features a 1.3-inch AMOLED display with 360 x 360 resolution. The screen is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3.
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The Watch Active doesn’t have the rotating bezel that we have seen on previous Samsung smartwatches. The device has two physical buttons on the side for interaction and navigation.
Tech specs
Samsung has removed a lot of features from the Galaxy Fit to bring its price down. It doesn’t offer music playback or storage. It lacks NFC to facilitate mobile payments. You can’t integrate it with third-party fitness apps. There is no GPS and no swim tracking. Compared to the Galaxy Watch Active, it offers only basic features.
Samsung claims the Galaxy Fit battery is good enough to get you through a week on a single charge. By comparison, the Galaxy Watch Active lasts only two days. The Fit packs a 120mAh battery with a proprietary charger. The Watch Active sports a 236mAh battery with support for Qi wireless charging.
The Watch Active runs Samsung’s own Tizen OS instead of Google’s Wear OS software. The Tizen OS is smooth and has a pretty good collection of apps. The Samsung Galaxy Fit runs FreeRTOS instead of Tizen. The Watch Active is equipped with 4GB of internal storage, allowing you to store music for offline playback. It runs a dual-core Exynos 9110 processor with 728MB of RAM.
Neither fitness watch supports 4G LTE connectivity, meaning they rely on WiFi. The Watch Active comes with Bluetooth 4.2 while the Fit features Bluetooth 5 Low Energy. The Watch Active gets NFC, allowing you to pay for purchases at stores via Samsung Pay using the wearable device.
The Watch Active offers built-in GPS to let you go running without your smartphone. It also brings Spotify integration to let users download Spotify songs for offline playback. It doesn’t have a speaker, so it relies on haptic vibrations for notifications. Users can respond to messages using their voice or an on-screen keyboard.
Health features
The Galaxy Fit offers heart rate tracking, sleep tracking, stress level tracking, and activity workout tracking such as biking, walking, and running. The stats quickly appear on the screen. Users can swipe to see the daily stats such as distance walked, heart rate, calories burned, sleep time, and more.
The Galaxy Watch Active is jam-packed with health and fitness tracking. It is Samsung’s first wearable device to detect your blood pressure using the My BP Lab app. It is capable of tracking 39 different physical activities, many of them automatically. In contrast, the Galaxy Fit offers support for 90 different exercises.
The Watch Active comes with an auto pause function. It also has an optical heart rate sensor underneath to analyze your sleep, calories burned, and stress levels.
Samsung Galaxy Fit vs Galaxy Watch Active: Price
The Galaxy Fit has been priced at $99. You can buy it directly from Samsung’s website or other retailers. The Galaxy Watch Active has a price tag of $199, but you can get it for around $175 at online stores.
Unless you have a limited budget, the Galaxy Watch Active is better than Galaxy Fit in almost every way. It’s both a smartwatch and fitness tracker. It offers tons of important features that are missing on the Galaxy Fit.
