Samsung Galaxy Fit review

Not quite fit enough

Samsung Galaxy Fit
Image credit: TechRadar
(Image: © Future)

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Battery life

  • Wireless charge dock
  • 120mAh battery
  • 7-8-day official battery life

The Samsung Galaxy Fit has its issues, but it also uses one of the neatest chargers among sub-$100/£100 trackers. Its charge dock is a little magnetized plastic crib with wireless charging.

You don’t have to plug anything into the band or line up any connector points. The Fit just slots in and doesn’t fall out too easily either.

The battery inside the Galaxy Fit is a 120mAh cell. Samsung says it lasts 7-8 days of 'typical' usage, but this is presumably with the default settings applied.

Image credit: TechRadar

Image credit: TechRadar (Image credit: Future)

A few of the tastier parts are turned off as standard, such as constant heart rate tracking and the mode that keeps the display lit when exercising (even this does not keep the screen lit the whole time, though).

As the Galaxy Fit’s sensors barely use any power, longevity depends almost entirely on how much the time the screen spends lit.

During one display-on tracked run we managed to run down 19% charge in an hour. But if you keep the display as-is, you should see at least five days of use between charges, even with semi-regular notifications coming through. Samsung claims that with 'low usage' you can get up to 11 days.

The Samsung Galaxy Fit’s battery life is very good overall. It outlasts the Fitbit Inspire HR, if not the Honor and Huawei alternatives.

Verdict

The Galaxy Fit is arguably the first Samsung fitness band that goes head-to-head with ultra-mainstream choices from companies like Fitbit, Xiaomi and Huawei.

It’s a bit of a mixed bag. There are nice touches to the design like a glass-topped display and metal elements, but we’re not big fans of the strap.

Battery life is good, and it seems to have the right box-ticking features. But its distance tracking is terrible, at launch anyway. At this price you can also get rival bands with either connected GPS or full GPS, which are important for any semi-serious training.

Image credit: TechRadar

Image credit: TechRadar (Image credit: Future)

Who’s this for?

The Samsung Galaxy Fit suits someone who wants a tracker that might get them out exercising a bit more. It works well as a step counter, and long battery life makes it fairly low maintenance.

Should you buy it?

Until Samsung sorts out its distance tracking algorithms, the Galaxy Fit is hard to recommend. And even when it does, there are more fully-featured options at the same price, or less.

First reviewed: July 2019

TOPICS
Andrew Williams

Andrew is a freelance journalist and has been writing and editing for some of the UK's top tech and lifestyle publications including TrustedReviews, Stuff, T3, TechRadar, Lifehacker and others.

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