Samsung has once again stepped into the spotlight with the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy Fit 3, a smart fitness band poised at the intersection of innovation, style, and health. This latest addition to Samsung’s fitness wearable lineup raises a compelling question: Can the Galaxy Fit 3 replace the traditional Galaxy Watch that has become a staple on the wrists of many tech enthusiasts and fitness buffs alike?
In this context, the Galaxy Fit 3 stands out as a potential game-changer that embodies the essential qualities users seek: simplicity, elegance, and a comprehensive suite of health-centric features packaged in a lightweight, wearable device. This review aims to delve into the nuances of the Galaxy Fit 3, exploring its design, features, and what you can expect from a fitness band, all while considering whether it can indeed take the place of the more traditional smartwatch offerings from Samsung.
Design and Build Quality
The Galaxy Fit 3 boasts a minimalist design that speaks volumes about Samsung’s approach to wearable devices. The device’s elegant aluminum frame is a significant departure from the plastic bodies commonly found in the fitness band market. This choice of material lends the device an air of sophistication and durability and ensures it can withstand the rigors of daily use without compromising on style, also contributes to its lightweight profile, making it almost imperceptible on the wrist during extended wear. The matte finish of the frame complements the overall aesthetic, reducing fingerprints and smudges to maintain a clean look throughout the day.
The fitness band’s simplicity is its hallmark, with a design that eschews unnecessary embellishments for a cleaner, more streamlined appearance. The build quality of the Galaxy Fit 3 is nothing short of what you’d expect from a leading brand like Samsung. The aluminum frame provides a sturdy foundation for the device, offering protection against bumps and scratches. This resilience extends to the device’s screen, which is crafted from a scratch-resistant material that maintains the clarity of the display even under adverse conditions. The curvature of the device’s body is meticulously engineered to fit the natural shape of the wrist, minimizing discomfort during long periods of use.
One of the critical aspects of any wearable device is its comfort level, and here, the Galaxy Fit 3 truly excels. The band is made of a soft silicone material that feels gentle against the skin, making it suitable for all-day wear. The Fit 3 remains comfortably secured on your wrist. The band’s adjustability ensures a perfect fit for a wide range of wrist sizes. A notable feature of the Galaxy Fit 3 is its innovative band detachment mechanism. Borrowing from the design cues of the Galaxy Watch 6 series, the Fit 3 incorporates a simple button mechanism that allows for quick and easy band changes. Additionally, the band’s water-resistant properties mean it can withstand activities such as swimming, showering, and intense workouts.
When compared to its predecessors and competitors, the Galaxy Fit 3 stands out for its refined design and superior build quality. Unlike some fitness bands that prioritize functionality over form, the Galaxy Fit 3 manages to deliver on both fronts. Its elegant design and robust build place it a cut above other fitness bands.
Display and Customization
The Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 stands out in the fitness band market, primarily due to its display. At the heart of its appeal is the vibrant AMOLED screen, measuring 1.6 inches. This display sets a benchmark for clarity, color saturation, and brightness, making it a standout feature for a device in this category. The AMOLED technology ensures that the content is easily readable under various lighting conditions. The display’s resolution and pixel density are high enough to render text and images sharply, contributing to an overall premium user experience.
Customization is another area where the Galaxy Fit 3 excels, offering nearly unparalleled control over the look and feel of the device. Beyond the pre-installed options, Samsung has provided a wide selection of watch faces, with around 100 options to choose from minimalistic to data-rich, or playful, there’s likely a watch face that matches your taste. Moreover, the ability to create a custom watch face using personal photos adds a layer of personalization that’s both fun and unique.
The customization doesn’t stop at watch faces. The Galaxy Fit 3 allows you to tweak the display settings, such as brightness and contrast, directly on the device. This capability is particularly useful for ensuring that your chosen watch face looks perfect in any lighting condition. The intuitive editing tools within the Galaxy Wearable app make these adjustments straightforward. In comparison to other fitness bands on the market, the Galaxy Fit 3’s display and customization options place it at the forefront. While many competitors offer some level of customization, few can match the depth and quality of Samsung’s offerings.
User Interface (UI) Experience
The Galaxy Fit 3 operates on a custom UI, designed specifically for Samsung’s wearable ecosystem. Unlike devices running on Google’s Wear OS, the Galaxy Fit 3’s interface is tailored to provide a seamless experience deeply integrated into the Samsung ecosystem. The UI is characterized by its simplicity and fluidity, making navigation through menus and features effortless. The responsiveness of the touch screen is on par with the higher-end Galaxy Watches, ensuring that swipes and taps register with minimal latency.
The Galaxy Fit 3 is equipped with a suite of applications including a comprehensive health application, Samsung Health, underscores the device’s focus on fitness and wellness. It tracks a variety of workouts, monitors sleep patterns, and provides insights into health metrics such as heart rate, stress levels, and blood oxygen saturation. The detailed tracking and intuitive presentation of data encourages to engage actively with their health and fitness goals.
Smart features extend the functionality of the Galaxy Fit 3 beyond fitness tracking. Applications like media controller, Find My Phone, weather updates, and camera controller enrich the user’s experience, allowing for control over various smartphone functions directly from the wrist. The camera controller, for instance, is a particularly convenient feature, enabling one to take photos remotely—a handy tool for group pictures or selfies from a distance. Safety features such as fall detection and the emergency SOS signal introduce an added layer of security. These features are typically found in more expensive smartwatches.
Setup and Connectivity
Upon powering the Galaxy Fit 3, you are greeted with an intuitive connection process that epitomizes simplicity. It offers an almost magical pairing experience with Galaxy smartphones. The moment the fitness band is activated, a popup appears on the smartphone, recognizing the device and prompting you to connect with a single tap. This seamless interaction is facilitated by the Galaxy Wearable application, which acts as a central hub for managing the band’s settings, watch faces, and applications.
The Galaxy Wearable application serves as the command center for the Galaxy Fit 3, offering an extensive range of customization and management options. From this app, users can easily access and modify watch faces, adjusting them to their liking, including choosing personal photos for a more customized look. This app also provides a straightforward platform for managing app notifications, setting up health tracking preferences, and exploring the various features available on the Galaxy Fit 3.
The Galaxy Fit 3’s connectivity extends beyond mere smartphone pairing. The device is designed to work in harmony with your Galaxy smartphone, offering features such as media control, find my phone, and direct access to weather updates. Moreover, the Galaxy Fit 3 enhances the user’s experience by providing smart notifications, allowing for a glance at messages, emails, and calls directly from the wrist.
Health and Fitness Tracking
The Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 emerges as a contender in the bustling world of fitness wearables, aiming to carve out its niche by offering a blend of health-centric features with smart connectivity. Its health and fitness tracking capabilities are central to its appeal, the Galaxy Fit 3 distinguishes itself with the ability to track over 100 different workout types. From common activities like running, cycling, and swimming, to more niche exercises such as pilates, dance, and various forms of strength training, the device ensures that virtually every form of exercise is accounted for.
At the heart of the Galaxy Fit 3’s tracking capabilities are its advanced sensors. Utilizing the same technology that powers Samsung’s fingerprint sensors, these are designed for high accuracy. The device monitors heart rate, calories burned, and more, providing feedback that helps you adjust your efforts in real-time. Particularly noteworthy is its sleep-tracking feature, which is less obtrusive than wearing a full-sized smartwatch to bed. The Galaxy Fit 3 measures sleep duration, quality, and even snoring, offering insights that can lead to better sleep hygiene.
The accuracy of these sensors is paramount for those who rely on their fitness tracker to inform their health decisions and workout adjustments. Early testing suggests that the Galaxy Fit 3’s sensors are on par with, if not superior to, those found in other Samsung wearables and competing fitness bands.
Beyond workout tracking, the Galaxy Fit 3 boasts a suite of health-centric features that cater to a holistic view of wellness. Blood oxygen monitoring and stress tracking are increasingly common in wearables, but the Galaxy Fit 3 leverages Samsung’s ecosystem to offer personalized insights and suggestions. The device’s ability to provide meaningful data on sleep patterns, coupled with personalized coaching, empowers one to make informed changes to improve sleep quality.
In a first for Samsung’s fitness bands, the Galaxy Fit 3 introduces fall detection and emergency SOS features. These additions are particularly beneficial for the elderly or those with health conditions that may put them at risk of falls. In an emergency, the device can automatically alert emergency services, providing an extra layer of security.
Battery Life and Charging
One of the most critical aspects of any wearable device is its battery life, as it directly impacts the user experience and the device’s practicality for daily wear. The Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 boasts a promising battery life, claiming up to 13 days on a single charge under certain conditions. This impressive figure is based on Samsung’s internal lab tests, which include a typical usage pattern scenario with the device connected to a Galaxy smartphone via Bluetooth. The tests account for receiving 52 notifications, conducting 4 minutes of text checks, 9 minutes of time checks, and engaging in 30 minutes of workouts over 24 hours.
In real usage, the battery life you experience can vary significantly based on several factors, including the intensity and frequency of your interactions with the device, the types of notifications you receive, and whether you use more power-intensive features. You might find that the Galaxy Fit 3 offers about 6 to 7 days of battery life with moderate usage, which is still commendable for a device packed with a wide range of features. This estimation takes into account the practical usage patterns of an average user, including continuous heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and receiving a moderate volume of notifications throughout the day.
The Galaxy Fit 3 comes with a proprietary charging cable, allowing for quick and convenient charging. Reaching a full charge from zero typically takes under two hours, making it easy to recharge the device during short periods of downtime.
Conclusion: Can It Replace a Galaxy Watch?
The Galaxy Fit 3 emerges as a robust contender in the market of fitness bands, endowed with a plethora of features that bridge the gap between a basic fitness tracker and a full-fledged smartwatch. With its sleek design, customizable watch faces, and an impressive suite of health-centric capabilities, including over 100 workout modes, sleep tracking, and new safety features like fall detection and SOS alerts, the Galaxy Fit 3 is a compelling option.
The device’s seamless integration with Galaxy smartphones, coupled with a vibrant AMOLED display and a user-friendly interface, enhances its appeal. Moreover, the extended battery life, touted to last up to 13 days under certain conditions, addresses a common pain point among wearables, offering a significant advantage over more power-intensive smartwatches. However, the Galaxy Fit 3 does have its limitations. The absence of LTE connectivity, the inability to make or receive calls directly from the band, and the lack of a speaker for audible alerts differentiate it from the Galaxy Watch series. These features may be pivotal for those who seek a wearable that can operate more independently from their smartphone, offering a comprehensive suite of communication tools on the wrist.
Therefore, the Galaxy Fit 3 stands as a powerful fitness band that closely mimics some smartwatch features but doesn’t fully replace a Galaxy Watch for those who demand the latter’s broader communication capabilities and more advanced smart features. It is, however, an excellent choice as a lightweight, health-focused wearable that still benefits from a strong connection to the Samsung ecosystem.
