Samsung held a press conference in Berlin today ahead of the official opening of IFA 2017, and unveiled its two new wearables that we’ve been expecting for some time now — the Gear Fit 2 Pro and the Gear Sport. Here’s everything you need to know.
Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro
The Gear Fit 2 Pro first popped up online on August 14 with an initial design and specs leak, and before the wearable’s proper announcement, Samsung accidentally published a product listing for the gadget on its official website. This left little to the imagination leading up to today’s event, but even so, that doesn’t keep the Gear Fit 2 Pro from looking like an excellent alternative to the Fitbits and Misfits of the world.
Samsung’s Gear Fit 2 Pro is available in two colors — black and red — and this year’s model ditches 2016’s Gear Fit 2’s snap band for a more secure and traditional watch clasp. The display measures in at 1.5-inches with a resolution of 216 x 432, and the curved Super AMOLED technology continues to impress as much as it did last time around.
The wearable can keep track of your steps, count calories you’ve burned and consumed, record a variety of different workout routines, map runs with the built-in GPS, and even keep tabs on your swimming activity thanks to the 5 ATM water resistance (up to 50-meter submersion).
Other specifications for the Gear Fit 2 Pro include a 200 mAh battery, 4GB of storage, 500MB RAM, Bluetooth 4.2, and a weight of 34-grams. Samsung says that the Pro should be able to last around 3 to 4 days with “typical usage” with its 200 mAh battery, but actively using the built-in GPS will reduce battery life down to around 9 hours before needing to charge up.
The Gear Fit 2 Pro will be available for pre-order on Thursday, August 31 and cost $199 —making it slightly more expensive than the $179 MSRP for the regular Gear Fit 2. You’ll be able to purchase the Gear Fit 2 Pro at Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo, Macy’s, and Samsung’s official website. Certain retailers will also include a free pair of Samsung’s U Flex headphones with your purchase.
Samsung Gear Sport
The Samsung Gear Sport is another wearable with a focus on fitness, but unlike the Fit 2 Pro that’s designed to be a powerful fitness tracker and not much else, the Gear Sport is a proper smartwatch that also happens to be really good at keeping track of your health and physical activity.
At first glance, the Gear Sport’s metal body looks a lot like a smaller version of the Gear S3 Frontier that was released last year. To be perfectly honest, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The front of the Gear Sport is home to a 1.2-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 360 x 360 (something we confirmed last week). Surrounding the display is a rotating bezel for interacting with the Tizen UI, and you’ll find two physical buttons on the right.
The Gear Sport measures in at 42.9 x 44.6 x 11.6mm, and without the band attached, weighs in at 50-grams. To put things into perspective, the Gear S3 Frontier has dimensions of 46 x 49 x 12.9mm and weighs 62-grams without a watch band. As someone who really loved the idea of the Gear S3 but couldn’t wear one due to the extremely large size, this is incredible news.
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- Samsung Gear Sport
However, a small body isn’t everything that the Gear Sport has to offer. Along with expected support for notifications and third-party apps, the Sport also offers 5 ATM water resistance that allows for swim tracking, Samsung Pay for NFC transactions, a 300 mAh battery, replaceable 20mm watch band, and an improved heart rate sensor that’s more accurate than previous Gear devices (also present on the Gear Fit2 Pro).
Samsung says that the Gear Sport will be available this holiday season, and while pricing details have yet to be announced, our guess is that the watch will cost around $250 USD based on the Fit 2 Pro’s price and what the Gear S3 currently sells for.
More Samsung Stories:
- Samsung Galaxy Note 8 goes official with 6.3-inch display, dual-cameras, 6GB RAM
- Gear Fit 2 Pro pops up early on Samsung’s website; confirms design and specs
- Samsung’s Bixby Voice is available in 200+ countries, but still falls behind Google Assistant
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