Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My review for this so-called fitness watch is a bit funky, as I am not a fitness nut, and I am not actually using (m)any of the fitness apps. There are about a million other reviews that talk about the fitness apps, so if that's what you're mostly interested, I encourage you to look at those as well. I'm going to rate this smartwatch to do its smartwatch things, that is, tell time and show notifications. I already own several smartwatches: A Sony SW2, a Samsung S2, and a Fossil Q Explorist. These all use the traditional watch face shape (big and round or big and square) and all have their plusses and minuses. I have a preference for the Fossil mostly because it uses Google's Android Wear operating system, which is extremely well supported across the entire Android ecosystem. The Sony and the Samsung use their own proprietary operating systems, which introduces compatibility problems outside of their own phone ecosystems (see more on this below). This watch, the Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro, isn't appreciably different than the Samsung S2 in terms of software. You still need to install Samsung's own apps on your phone to work with Samsung's proprietary Tizen operating system. But this watch adopts the FitBit sports watch style, with a watch face that is far longer than it is wide (see photos for a comparison with the S2). I wasn't sure I'd like that, but I find that I LOVE it. It's sleek and not too showy. More significantly, the synthetic band that comes with this watch is FAR superior to the thick, uncomfortable, and ugly band that comes with the S2. When I got the S2, I IMMEDIATELY replaced the band, because I couldn't stand either how it looked or how it felt. The band on this watch, on the other hand, is possibly the most comfortable rubber-ish band I have ever worn. I put the watch on and very quickly forgot I was wearing it. It's not stylish enough for the boardroom, but for casual wear it is fantastic. Obviously, since this is a waterproof sports watch, it makes little practical sense to couple it with a metal or leather band. The display on the watch is crisp and bright. The included watch faces (which you can easily switch) are mostly only OK for someone like me who is more interested in telling the time and getting notifications than in knowing how many steps I've walked or my heart rate. I wish more of them included info like the date with the time, for example. But beyond that, they look nice. Another good feature is that most of them have a low energy passive version that displays if you put the watch face option to be "always on" and haven't activated the active mode. Which is an option I would strongly recommend. Nothing is more annoying than looking at your watch and seeing...nothing. I know that the gesture of moving your wrist to look at your watch to see the face is supposed to cleverly turn it on but...it just doesn't a lot of time...trust me on this. Now the downside of turning the watch face to be always on is that your battery lifetime takes a very serious hit. Samsung claims this watch can run for "days" on one charge. Not a chance if you have the face in "always on" mode. Then you can expect about 14-18 hours on a charge. Which is more than enough for one day, but you just have accept that you'll be charging up every day. And I'm OK with that. The downside of charging is that this uses a proprietary charger (see photos), rather than micro-usb or the wireless Qi charging that the S2 uses. So if you forget that charger while traveling...well, welcome to life without a watch for a few days :-) In terms of notifications, the watch is good, but could be better. Notifications are only provided for applications supported by the Samsung OS, so that means, for example, if you third party music apps other than Spotify (which is supported), you may see nothing on your watch to ID songs or control playback. (The watch does nicely integrate with Spotify, allowing you to download songs via Spotify premium and listen to them via Bluetooth from your watch, even if you don't have your phone nearby--handy if you don't like to take you phone with your running or swimming...With the standard set of apps installed, you have about 2Gb of storage left for music). Many other apps are also not supported on the phone, including Google Maps--a shame since the watch has GPS built in. The notifications the watch DOES provide are easy to read and showed up without issue, but there's a gotcha: The watch only shows the latest notification from certain apps. So, for example, if someone sends you several text messages in a row, you'll only see the last one and you'll be prompted to look at your phone to see more. That's not so terrific if your idea is to use the watch so you don't have to conspicuously take your phone out of your pocket. As noted, the watch has GPS. It also has wireless. So you can use certain functions without proximity to your phone. Since it's also waterproof, one situation might be while swimming or taking a shower. I tested the watch in the shower, and it emerged in perfect condition--as expected. Setup is straightforward with a severe caveat: As noted, this smartwatch uses Samsung's proprietary software. So you have to download that software to your phone. Now, per their own spec requirements, Samsung's software basically works with Android 4.4 or higher as long as your phone has at least 1.5gb of memory. No problem there, right, because just about every phone from the past several years meets those specs. Well, not so fast...As it turns out, Samsung has chosen to offer their software in the Google Play Android market based on a "whitelist" of compatible phones. Why? Who knows. But anyway, this means that if your phone has not been whitelisted, you are not going to be able to download and install the NECESSARY software to use the Smartwatch. I have personally encountered this with the Droid Turbo phone (essentially a Nexus 6 with a smaller screen). This phone WAS whitelisted with Android 5 (Lollipop). However, when the Droid Turbo was upgraded to Android 6 (Marshmallow), Samsung neglected to whitelist the phone with the upgraded operating system. So if you have one of these phones and try to download the necessary software...you can't--at least not from the Google store. Fortunately, there is a workaround. You can "sideload" the Samsung software onto your phone. To do this, you have to find a third party site that hosts the Samsung software, turn on the flag on your phone that says "trust third party sources", then download and install the software. There are 2-4 pieces of software you'll have to install this way. It isn't hard to do, but it's a pain in the neck, and when Samsung updates their software, you'll have to do it again, because the "sideloaded" software won't upgrade on its own. But the truth is this: A $200-300 smartwatch should not require you to hack the necessary software on your capable modern Android phone. This is the Achilles Heel of using a proprietary operating system, and one reason I prefer the Android Wear system that Google supports on Android. On the whole, I absolutely LOVE the way this watch feels and (for a casual watch) the way it looks. Battery life is sufficient (charge every night) and notifications work fine (although with some caveats and missing apps). The need to sideload the required software on my phone is inexcusable, but for me it's just an annoyance. If you are afraid of the word "sideload" then you might find it a deal breaker. See my attached photos for screenshots of the watch, a comparison with the S2, etc.