Samsung Gear Sport Smartwatch, nur Uhr, schwarz

10 reviews for Samsung Gear Sport Smartwatch, nur Uhr, schwarz

1. Rated 4 out of 5

   TonyL (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

   Excellent smartwatch for Samsung ecosystem… limited apps
   I’ve only had the watch for a few days. I’ve successfully configured it and used it for two workouts. I thought I’d share some of my observations. Before that, let me qualify my review. I paid full price for my watch and I am under no obligation to write a review. This is just an attempt to share my thoughts for others looking for opinions.

   I have a Samsung S8+ and was looking for a smartwatch that would seemlessly integrate with the phone for email, messages and fitness tracking. I normally use my Polar H7 chest strap with iCardio 4 to track my workouts.

   I found that the configuration was fairly straight forward. I watched a number of Youtube unboxing, configuration and review videos before purchasing my watch. Consequently, I knew what to expect and what to do when the box showed up at my house. I would highly recommend you do the same as the documentation is lacking… they know that most people won’t read it.

   I turned off GPS and location services. I am not a jogger/runner/walker… I do not need anything tracking my movement through the gym. I turned the heart rate monitor to monitor continuously. My display is set to "7". Going from fully charged at 6:30am to put back on the charging cradle at 11pm with 58% left on the battery. I get LOTS of emails and quite a few text messages on my phone… all of which were forwarded to my watch; including pictures sent to me by my 7yo granddaughter. So, no problem with battery life for me… 5 stars.

   I didn’t buy the watch for its fitness tracking only. I wanted it for the convenience of getting notifications and email without having to pull out my phone. Not only am I able to see my email and messages, I am able to respond to them as well using S-voice. Since I’m not reviewing S-voice, I won’t tell you how much I wish that Bixby worked on this watch. My wife has an Apple iWatch and quite frankly, when comparing Siri with S-voice, I feel like the poor cousin. However, it meets my requirements for both email and messages… 5 stars.

   I am trying to work with the text entry interface. I am trying to write my message into the screen and the interface recognizes all the U.S. letters and numbers I type. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get it to do anything except upper case letters. I’ll have to research the cause of this and figure out how to make it enter upper and lower case letters. As you can imagine, IT’S RUDE TO ALWAYS TYPE IN CAPS!… So, this feature is not as intuitive as I was led to believe. So, although it recognizes all the letters and numbers, there are some complications… 3 stars.

   As a fitness tracker, it utilizes a proprietary bluetooth interface and therefore, doesn’t integrate with iCardio… a BIG issue for me. If I want to continue to utilize iCardio, I still need to wear my Polar H7 chest strap. Since this is not my primary use for the watch, it is an inconvenience rather than a non-starter. It integrates with S-health, which I find to be somewhat archaic in its design… not impressed with its user interface. For me personally, I will continue to utilize my chest strap for my workouts… 1 star

   There has been some discussion as to the accuracy of the Gear Sport heart rate monitor. Having used both the Gear Sport/S-Healt and Polar H7/iCardo, I can give you some numbers. I did a HIIT workout:

   Gear Sport: 499 Calories, 112 Avg BPM, 143 Max BPM
   Polar H7: 749 Calories, 117 Avg BPM, 156 Max BPM

   I have a theory about the differences and I will share it. I believe the Gear Sport measures heart rates every second. At the same time, it calculates the calorie burn and accumulates accordingly. I believe the Polar H7 measures heart rates more frequently and therefore, gets a more accurate measurement of calorie burn… as well as peak heart rates. To the average person, a one second interval between readings should be accurate enough (assuming the Polar H7 is the gold standard of heart rate monitors). I am a computer software developer myself and most people wouldn’t realize that computers measure things in microseconds… that is 6 digits to the right of the decimial (.000001). As you can imagine, a lot of things happen in the real world and on a computer within a second. When averaging heart rates and calorie burn between intervals, more data points allow for more accuracy.

   In any case, I don’t really care about calorie counting… I am more interested in getting a workout completed in the correct heart rate zones. I consider the heart rate monitor to be important and calories burned to be of monumental inconsequence. I’ve measured my heart rate on three different pieces of hardware at the same time; the Polar H7, Precor Elliptical and my blood pressure cuff. All were within a couple of BPMs. Consequently, I consider the Gear Sport to be close enough to keep me in my heart rate zones and therefore, it gets 4 stars. I would give it 5 stars for this feature if it were a bit closer (less than 5 difference).

   To summarize, the apps I needed (Messages, Email) work fine. The fact that I can control my Spotify is a plus. As a fitness tracker, the hardware keeps me in my zones however, the software (S-health) is truly lacking. I’m hoping that Samsung is able to get more developers working apps for their Gear products.

   Suggestions to Samsung would be:
   1.) Provide customized workout types on the watch. Kettlebells, Weights, HIIT, Core… etc. Seriously, who does crunches as a workout???
   2.) Provide the ability to measure recovery after the workout is complete… measure and track heart rate for a two minute recovery window.

   Overall: 4 stars… limited number of available apps.

2. Rated 5 out of 5

   Brianna (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

   I’m in absolute love. A few of the things I really researched … plus update 2 years later
   After days of researching smartwatches, I landed on this one and it had everything I wanted in a smartwatch except an Android OS. I was very nervous about trying Tizen but after owning this watch for a few days, I’m in absolute love. A few of the things I really researched were:

   Apps. They are limited but there are apps for almost anything you need. Not everything but close. I have yet to use the GPS apps (yes apps -plural- because there’s more than just one GPS app unlike what most of the reviews I read caused me to believe) but I will be trying that app out in the next week.

   Faces. There are so many watch faces that I’m not sure where to begin. I’ve used Mario, Zelda, and Goldeneye (I love my video games). Any watch face I’ve searched for, I’ve also found. Some may cost $0.99 and up but there are a ton of free ones to choose from. I haven’t paid for any faces yet. I’m very happy with the free ones available.

   Watch Bands. I wanted the Android OS so bad that I almost bought the Moto 360 Sport. This would have been an incredible mistake. You can’t change the band on the Motorola but you can on the Samsung. I’ve already got a new watch band on the way.

   Battery Life. I’ve had this watch for 3 days. I received it, synced it, played around with it, then I fully charged it (I received it with 67% battery life). I just had to charge it for my first time. It lasted me maybe an hour short of 3 days with average use. I’m thoroughly happy with this considering I was used to the Fitbit Blaze which didn’t last more than 1 day. The difference is that the Fitbit’s heart rate sensor stays on all the time. The Samsung Gear Sport has 3 settings for this. Off, frequent, and always on. I left mine on frequent so it checked my heart rate every 10 minutes instead of constantly.

   Water resistance. I’m not a sporty individual. I work in the medical field though so I wash my hands a lot. I also give the occasional shower to help my patients. So this was important. It’s lasted through at least 4 showers in 3 days and my continuous hand washing. So far, no issues whatsoever.

   Steps. I love seeing how many steps I can get in a shift. A lot of my friends like to see who can get the most. This makes the day fly by so the step accuracy is nice. After using this a few days, I noticed my step count dropped a bit compared to the Fitbit. Then I learned why. I can shake my Fitbit and get steps (almost like an old school pedometer) but the Gear Sport isn’t fooled. It knows when you’re getting steps verses painted a wall or just shaking your watch. I LOVE that it knows the difference.

   A few bonuses I’ve noticed: it tracks my sleep and how well I rest at night. My fitbit did this and it was a feature that wasn’t easy to give up so having this on my new Gear Sport too was a huge bonus. I also love that I can keep up with my water/coffee intake straight from my watch instead of having to use my phone. Healthcare management doesn’t care for Nurses pulling their phones out at the desk or the hallways. I can also reply to texts and emails straight from my watch. The handwriting thing is pretty nice but it needs a bit of work to be perfect (it’s constantly changing my words into all caps). Although you can’t make a call from the watch, you can accept and ignore calls straight from your wrist, as well as, send the caller a quick text saying that you’re at work or busy, etc.

   There’s so much more that I haven’t discovered on this watch yet and I can definitely tell this is my first real smartwatch but I’ve already had a ton of compliments on it.

   And just for the record, the bezel makes navigating the Gear Sport so easy!

   So yes, I give this watch 5 stars. But I also know that things can change so my review may change but as of right now, I’m in love!

   Update: 2 years later and the watch is still going strong. I’m a Nurse so this watch has seen it all including deep hand washing, PPE sweat, etc and no problems at all. Just today, I realized it was time for an upgrade. All-in-all, I’m still incredibly pleased with this watch. I’ve put it through everything and it’s still going.

3. Rated 4 out of 5

   Pamela (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

   Does not use heart rate data for calorie burn…
   I recently switched from an iPhone to a Galaxy S9 and I’ve been so incredibly happy with it, I expected the best from this watch. I was gifted a Garmin Vivoactive 3 for Mother’s Day, but I decided to return it and try out this Gear Sport. Given the "Sport" name, you would think that it would function as a decent activity tracker. However, after 2 days, I’m returning it.
   First of all, it only checks your heart rate every 10 minutes when your not working out unless you choose always (but that kills the battery). The watch does not use this heart rate information to calculate your calorie burn while you are working OR during daily activity. Instead, your calorie burn is calculated based on your BMR. So if I don’t workout at all, it is my BMR plus however many calories they estimate I might burn by the number of steps that I take. If I do workout, they calculate the calorie burn of the workout based on the activity, my age, and weight. So if you get on the elliptical and workout for 30 minutes, you will have the same calorie burn as if you tell it you are on the elliptical but instead go sit on the couch.
   Now, one solution that I found was the Under Armour App. Yes, it does include the heart rate data when it calculates your calorie expenditure. It also has more choices for activities and it syncs with Samsung Health. However, the watch lost ALL CREDIBILITY when I tried this test:
   Today, I chose the option for "Basic Workout," just like I did yesterday during my 1 hour long circuit workout. During my workout yesterday, I was breathing heavy and drenched in sweat. It said I burned 430 calories. Today, I used the same option, but I didn’t workout. I got in my car and drove for exactly 1 hour. During the drive, I often glanced down at the watch to check my heart rate. EVERY TIME it was 150-170. Apparently it estimates heart rate too. Now, I was in no hurry, just listening to music. No road rage. Just relaxed and driving. It said I burned 430 calories. So even with the Under Armor app, who knows if the heart rate data is anywhere close??? Returned to Amazon.
   Apple Watch, Fitbit, Polar, and Garmin all added heart rate monitors to increase the accuracy of the calorie burn. They include the heart rate data in their calculations. I have used trackers from all of these brands, and while they use different calculations, they have all been reasonable.

   EDIT: After returning this watch, I found it at the bulls-eye store on sale for 229, making it about $40 cheaper than the Garmin Vivoactive 3. I decided to give it another chance. This time, I wore my Polar H7 chest strap at the same time as the Gear Sport for a workout. I used the Under Armour app on the watch. Surprisingly, the heart rate was spot on; it was a pure cardio workout. During strength training, the heart rate didn’t always keep up, but that was the same experience I had with the Vivoactive 3. When the workout involves a lot of arm movement, like push-ups, bench press, etc, the optical monitors don’t do a great job. With both watches, I found that the screen takes a second to refresh. So when I initially looked at the watch, the hr was wrong, but within a second it caught up. Neither watch is great for a Hiit workout. I can pair a chest strap directly with the Garmin Vivoactive 3 OR I can use the Under Armour App on my phone with my chest strap, which syncs with S-Health.
   While I wish that this watch used HR in calorie burn calculations, the truth it that I don’t use those calorie estimates for anything anyway. The Gear Sport has more features, an amazing display, and a higher quality feel than the Vivoactive 3. I like that the watch casing is all stainless steel, so any 20 mm band would look great with it. The Vivoactive 3 was lighter weight and had a longer battery life, but it was severely lacking in features at that price. (With the new hands-free laws, I’m loving the Here We Go app!) Given that the heart rate monitors were so similar in terms of accuracy, I’m going to stick with the Gear Sport.

4. Rated 3 out of 5

   J. Clayton (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

   Great fitness tracker, terrible runner’s watch
   I kept this watch for nearly the full thirty days hoping I could make it work, but I ultimately decided to return it.

   What I like:
   The screen is fantastic. The colors are bold and the images are crisp. There are some really great watch faces you can download for free.

   The bezel is a great way to navigate your way around the watch. It’s really responsive and has a great feel to it. The touch screen is also really responsive.

   I like that you can respond to texts from the watch. You can use S voice (I haven’t used it but it doesn’t have great reviews), write on the screen with your finger, or use a predictive keyboard. The last two options work great.

   The sleep, stairs climbed, and step trackers all do a nice job.

   The watch looks great. I got a number of compliments on it with several people asking if I was using an Apple Watch.

   The 20mm bands are super easy to swap out so you can change the look of the watch.

   The do not disturb feature is nice. It turns off the acceleraometer so your watch light doesn’t turn on while your trying to sleep and it keeps you from getting vibrations from notifications. You can set it to turn on the do not disturb feature at a particular time every night and then off again at a designated time in the morning. This also extends your battery life because the accelerometer is turned off for those hours.

   I personally like that there is no speaker.

   It has a “water use” option that keeps the screen from going crazy while you’re taking a shower or playing in the water.

   I love the reminder widget. It was probably the feature I used the most. It’s super easy to set the reminder, check it off, or change the time if you haven’t finished the task and want a second reminder.

   What I didn’t like:

   The constant heart rate tracking and 10 minute tracking did not work for me. It tracked my heart rate fine while I was sleeping and while I was working out (sort of) but the rest of the day it wouldn’t really take my heart rate. I called Samsung and they told me to reset the watch. That worked – for about a day.

   The “always on” watch face isn’t very bright and drains the battery by a significant amount. More importantly, it’s just a basic watch face. I thought it would keep the screen on so I could easily look at my running data. It doesn’t. I ended up turning it off. (You can download the Flaunt widget which will keep any screen of your choosing on for 30 minutes but it drains even more battery life than the standard always on feature. In my opinion, it’s worth the drain so you can see your stats when you’re running.)

   Here’s the deal breaker for me. It’s an abysmal running watch. If you just want to log that you went running, for how long, and a fairly accurate distance, this watch will work fine for you. If you want to know your average pace in any practical way while you’re running, you’re out of luck with the Samsung health app. It gives you your average pace over the last 10 seconds or something like that. I’m not really sure what it’s doing. It will tell you your average mile pace at every mile but that’s not the least bit helpful while you are trying to pace the mile.
   You can try the map my run app and it might give you a better average pace, but I didn’t bother because reviews say it suffers from another deal breaker issue the Samsung app also suffers from (which makes me think it’s a watch issue not a software issue) – The GPS stinks. It acquires a signal very quickly but it lost the signal several minutes into every outdoor run I went on (admittedly only a few because it’s so stinky hot right now but still) and never reacquired the signal. I don’t have complete GPS data for a single outdoor run.
   Also, the heart rate monitor is way off on intense runs. It seems to do fine in the resting and aerobic ranges, but it gets way off when you go into the anaerobic range. My heart rate was in what I would guess was the high 160’s to low 170’s and the watch would tell me it was as high as 200bpm. There is absolutely no way my heart rate was that high. That would require a mild cocaine overdose or something.
   Turning the screen on using wrist motions almost never worked while I was running. It’s like the extra motion of running confused the accelerometer and it couldn’t tell I was turning my wrist to look at the watch face. (See Flaunt app above for a work around). When I’m running trails, I just want to be able to glance at my watch and get my eyes back on the uneven terrain. I done want to flip my wrist 10 times until the screen decides to turn on or have to hit a button to get it to turn on.

   Overall:
   If you’re comparing this to a Fitbit Versa or some other fitness tracker smart watch, I think this is a great option. I can pretty much guarantee you will love the user interface.

   If you’re hoping this is a great looking running watch like I was, it’s not. I think I might get the Vivoactive 3. The screen won’t be as beautiful and the user interface probably won’t be as nice, but Garmin knows how to make a running watch. Plus, you can pair a chest strap so you can get the most accurate heart rate data.

5. Rated 5 out of 5

   juan carlos (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

   Excelente
   Excelente salio genial y los materiales son muy buenos

6. Rated 4 out of 5

   Allen Smith (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

   Good basic smart watch
   I really liked this watch. Its functionality is quite limited in that it doesn’t have great sleep quality tracking or spo2. But if you’re just looking something to track your steps and heart rate at the gym and also easily review all your phone notifications and control your Spotify then it is a decent watch for the price.

7. Rated 3 out of 5

   J. Boutilier (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

   Good for Samsung Phone Owners
   Prior to purchasing this Samsung Gear Sport, I’ve owned/used several other smart watches over a number of years, including a Pebble, Moto 360 V2, Samsung Gear S2 and iWatch. While I think smart watches still have a way to go to meet their full potential, they do get better each year, and can be well worth their price depending on one’s needs.

   Sadly interoperability is the most significant limitation with smart watches. If you have an Apple phone, only an Apple watch makes sense (and vice versa). If you have a Samsung phone, a Samsung watch usually makes the most sense. And if you have a non-Samsung Android phone, likely an Android Wear watch makes the most sense. Crossing those boundaries limit/change the functionality to varying degrees and except for Apple, manufacturers are not clear on what changes and what you lose across a boundary. Just about every model has a proprietary charging system. And most have a proprietary strap system.

   If you are still reading this, you likely have or are considering a Samsung phone, or you really, really, value a particular feature of this watch over other features. So here is the review…

   The Good
   • The combination of rotating bezel, touch screen, and two buttons give this the best user interface that exists in any smart watch
   • The 1.2" AMOLED display has best in class efficiency, brightness and clarity
   • The watch can have best in class battery life. This can dramatically vary with use and configuration but with a similar use an configuration it’s significantly better than most of the competition. Figure several weeks in watch only mode, 2-3 days typical, and 1-2 days under worst conditions.
   • 50 M Water resistance so you don’t have to worry about water damage swimming, showering, washing your hands, being out in the rain, or exercising
   • Great fitness and health features combined with Samsung’s Fitness application. I don’t think this is much different than you would get with Google Fit on an Android Wear watch though.
   • Great build quality and fit and finish with a stainless steel case, relatively small size, and relatively light weight.
   • This watch uses a standard 20mm watch bands so there are a huge number of styles and types of replacement bands offered at relatively low cost
   • How notifications are handled are quite different than Android wear and I much prefer this system under the Tizen operating system (not everyone will though). In Android Wear every notification goes into the same list and you spend a lot more time looking through the list to get to what you want or get rid of many notifications. In Tizen each category of notifications have a separate list and you can go to each list and look or clear individually or clear a whole list or all lists. I find this much more efficient but not everyone will like it. Some other reviews mistakenly say you only see the latest notification but that is not true, all notifications since you last cleared them will be available (at the bottom of the first notification in a category there will be a number and you tap on that number to see the rest)

   The Bad
   • This is very much personal taste, but I find almost all of the built in watch faces hideous. Limited configurability, and not very readable (either bizarre format/colors or too much detail making reading at a glance difficult)
   • The setting menu can be confusing with respect to navigation, selection, organization and visibility. Settings where you would not expect them, same settings in multiple places, not obvious when clicking on a setting would result in changing that setting or open up a list of more settings, a setting in one place causing a setting in another to be greyed out or invisible). Thankfully once you get it set up to your liking, you might not have to go there much and there are some quick settings for the stuff you change most often, but overall it’s about as friendly as on a Samsung Phone which is to say NOT.
   • No speaker so no taking phone calls as I could on an iWatch or Gear S3

   The Ugly
   • S Voice / Bixby – at the moment only S Voice is available on the watch (not Bixby) and it (either actually) are nowhere near as speedy, accurate, or usable as the Google equivalents
   • The watch requires a number of proprietary Samsung applications and processes to be running on the phone for full functionality. These tend to be power and resource intensive with low/slow performance in many cases. Not all of them may run on every phone and where they will not run you will lose watch functionality to varying degrees
   • The watch store application you need to obtain any watch face or application not built into your watch leaves a lot to be desired. Its poorly organized, very slow, and the search feature is abysmal (often not finding something that IS in the store). If this application does not run on your particular phone you are limited to the watches build in faces and applications.
   • The quantity and quality of watch faces and applications are not anywhere near that of the Android wear. Many are very buggy and can significantly degrade your watch and or phone battery life. Most remain unreviewed so there is no way to know how good a particular item may be. Most are more expensive than their Android Wear counterparts.

   Conclusion

   I find the "Good" compelling enough to purchase and keep the product (for a while at least). The "Bad" things are not a huge problem for me. And as long as I have a Samsung phone, I can live with the ugly. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone without a Samsung phone, but other than that, folks will have to decide if its particular blend of functionality and flaw are worth the price to make a purchase. I’ll most an update in a few months.

   ** UPDATE after about 3 months **

   On the great side, when the always on display featured is turned off, and your activity does not trigger an automated workout, and you use a power efficient watch face, you can get up to FIVE DAYS on a single charge. Or possibly even better, you can wear the watch 23.5×7 and can top up the charge in less than half an hour a day. This allows for pretty full tracking of both exercise/activity and sleep.

   Unfortunately there are many watch faces that are not power efficient, and rather than draining 15%-20% in a full 24 hour period, some can fully deplete the battery in less than 16 hours. Workout mode, either manually selected or auto detected also produces high battery drain that can eat 30% of your battery in less than an hour. Unfortunately many of the weather watch faces (that I find most useful) frequently stop updating, and sometimes only uninstalling and re-installing the app and or service can restore correct weather reading and updates.

   And also unfortunately, the accuracy of activity and sleep tracking is highly variable. It’s pretty good at step counting, but often misses actual workouts or detects them in error or detects the wrong type of workout, and stair climbing (height change) activity is absolutely abysmal. Sleep tracking is often pretty good, but in a significant minority of cases misses tracking it, or hours of it, and often if you get up in the middle of the night is somehow splits your sleep and the mornings statistics report half a nights sleep (although you can often scroll back to the previous day and see the first half of your sleep).

   New conclusion:

   So, this is still not where it needs to be for activity tracking. And my favorite watch faces are often unreliable. I subtracted one star, and yet another failed smart watch goes in a drawer. Maybe next year!

8. Rated 5 out of 5

   coradj76 (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

   By far the most bang for the buck on the market
   Strengths:
   Health and fitness tracking
   Quick change band/selection of bands
   Rotating bezel selection
   Customizable in just about every way
   Magnetic charging

   Weaknesses:
   Battery life – this one comes with a caveat, the battery life is very good for the size and power of this watch, I always wear a watch and hate that I have to take this thing off every third night to charge it. It would be great if Samsung could design an easily replaceable battery so you could have a second battery on the charger.

   I almost don’t need my phone. This watch is not fully functional without the phone (calls, internet, etc.), but pretty close. I’ve downloaded playlists to the watch and gone for a run without my phone, which is the whole point. I do wish it had the Pandora app as I’ve been using Pandora for years, but Spotify has been fine thus far. It accurately tracks distance, pacing (Only tested in open areas, not downtown NYC) and heart rate. The quick release band design is so simple I don’t know how we didn’t have this 100 years ago, but it is awesome. I can switch bands in under 30 seconds, so I can go from my rubberized band for working out to a metal band for work in the same amount of time I would have used in changing watches. And when I get home I can swap again to a leather band to go out to dinner with my wife.

   I was skeptical about the sleep tracker as I was always showing the same sleep pattern after the first 10 days, but then I got the flu and noticed a massive shift in my sleep pattern via the watch, it looked like I felt. While I wouldn’t bet the house on it being perfectly accurate, it definitely defines your sleep trends and allows you to adjust as necessary.

   I have yet to use it swimming, but I am headed to the beach in the spring and am looking forward to trying it out in the ocean. And I swim when from spring through fall (live in AZ) and this was the only watch in the price range that was actually submersible.

   I like the messaging capability and ability to see who is calling without digging out my phone. This is especially useful when you’re in a meeting and need to know if you need to take the call or if it can go to voicemail. Just set the watch and phone to vibrate and glance at the watch.

   The PowerPoint controller works fantastic. I was expecting to be able to move slides forwards/backwards, but the watch lets me move the pointer as well so you can follow hyperlinks or point out specifics.

   The bezel selector is awesome, much better than trying to select icons with your finger on a small watch face. Solid yet fluid movement. It makes the menus easy to access and simple to navigate.

   Size: I have smaller wrists (7 inches around) and was worried the watch would look too big and get in the way. Not an issue at all. I sleep with the watch on with no problems. Just turn the wake-up gesture off. It is very comparable to my Citizen EcoDrive in size.

   I highly recommend this watch unless you want to be able to use it fully without your phone nearby, then you need to upgrade. For anyone who’s fine with a watch that does everything but make phone calls and access the internet without a phone/Wi-Fi nearby, this is the watch for you. And let’s be honest, how often are you not in range of Wi-Fi/cell phone anyways?

9. Rated 3 out of 5

   DrCraw (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

   The Gear Sport is a jack of all trades and master of none.
   This was a gift to myself to replace my FitBit Charge 2. After a week of wear and working out, my general impression is…meh.

   PROS:
   – Razer sharp display.
   – Good selection of watch faces, free and otherwise, on the app store. Some better quality than others
   – Heart rate seems fairly accurate when compared with a manual measurement. But see below.
   – Band is of good quality and material. Comes with both a "large" and "small" and since it’s a regular 20mm band, you can replace it with just about any standard watch band.
   – Bezel control is awesome! It’s a great way to navigate the interface.
   – It’s nice to finally have a smartwatch that can go in the shower with me (Catch up, Fitbit!)
   – Spotify. Finally, a watch that allows streaming and storing music to stream to bluetooth headphones and it sounds great. (Note: must have spotify premium to stream and download, otherwise, you can only remotely control your phone’s spotify app)
   – Samsung Health (with an *). The stock exercise program works well and collects a lot of stats. It provides programmable exercise updates and encouragement via connected bluetooth headphones, which is handy.
   – Widgets. Lots of useful widgets. I really like the stock weather widget which comes in very handy. They also sync to their phone counterparts so you get reminders, calendar reminders, email, etc.

   CONS:
   – Storage. Samsung advertises 4gb of storage, but out of the box 2+gb is already taken up with bloatware and the OS. So for downloading Spotify, you are really left with about 1.5 or so gb to work with. At best, you can download a few playlists.
   – App ecosystem. Since Samsung uses its proprietary OS, the apps are limited. For exercise, you’re stuck with either Samsung Health, a few Under Armor apps (MapMyRun etc), or a handful of 3rd party (and frankly rudimentary) apps.
   – Samsung Health works well, but is not as well rounded as FitBit’s ecosystem. It sort of expects you to log each exercise separately rather than as a group (i.e. bench press, squats, rows vs. weights). For example, there are dozens of individual apps on the Android app (e.g. rowing machine, lat pull downs, elliptical, squats, run) and the watch app has 17 or so if these items. But, unless you’re seriously into logging each individual exercise, it’s sort of a pain. If you just want to work in the weight room, you have to use "Other Workout", seriously? To get more granular, you need to switch to the Under Armor suite (yes several!) of apps. But…
   – Under Armor apps. There are at least four UA apps that Samsung markets as sort of next level fitness apps, which is true, if this were 2011. These apps are basically copies of each other. UA Record is supposed to replace Samsung Health as a fitness dashboard, but doesn’t seem to collect data as well, doesn’t talk to Samsung health beyond limited generic information, and has the most ridiculous food log ever (did you eat a little, some, or a lot? Huh?). It is great at trying to sell you UA products like shoes with built in pedometers and heart rate monitors. MapMyRun used to be a great running app, and still is, but now requires a premium subscription to unlock its best features. It will log exercises other than running and had a large panoply of options. But, when it transfers that information to Samsung Health, all you get is the generic "other workout" and basic stats like average heart rate, duration, etc. The stock Samsung Health provides many more metrics, even as it offers fewer exercises. Also, on today’s indoor track run, MapMyRun completely locked up my watch (prompting me to write this review). I’ll give it one more try, but will likely delete it.
   – Spotify. The app works well, when it works. In my experience, it frequently freezes up and sometimes says I have no playlists even when connected to a strong wifi signal. The download function is a little buggy. I once tried to download two playlists at once; it locked up the app then told me I had "25415/251 songs" downloaded (no, that’s not a typo). I was downloading about 40 songs. When working out, even with downloaded music, it sometimes just stops for a minute or two.
   – Heart rate monitor. Accurate, even generally at high BPM (which is tough for any wrist based monitor), but the Gear Sport defaults to "Frequent collection" mode which is supposed to save battery by only collecting your heart rate every 10 minutes WHEN INACTIVE. So, if you’re moving around doing your day to day business, it records nothing. I’ve gone 6 hours with no hr recorded. You can switch it to continuous, which supposedly impacts battery life, but it seems to do so only slightly.
   – WiFi. If you have a strong signal, it’s great. You can import your wifi settings from your phone so you don’t have to re-do any of your passwords. But, it’s a weak antenna. My gym has a separate "legs" room attached to the regular weight room. The signal in there is slightly weaker than in the rest of the gym, but my phone has no problem in there. The watch cannot keep up. The wifi goes dead, totally screwing up Spotify if you’re streaming music.
   – Bluetooth. AKA the battery killer. It’s the most effective way to connect to your cell phone (you can also connect via the cloud, but with less functionality). I find it best to keep it off most of the time, but they don’t have a direct button to turn it on/off on the quick setting pull down shade, so you have to deep dive into settings each time. That’s a foul.
   – Battery. Samsung advertises 4-5 days on one charge. This is probably true if you keep the GPS, wifi, bluetooth, or heart rate off and the screen brightness low…and you never look at it throughout the day. If I’m not working out that day and only have wifi on auto, continuous heart rate monitoring, and using the watch only occasionally, I’m down to about 75% by the end of the day when wearing from 0730-2200. I worked out for 1.5 hours this morning streaming music and running MapMyRun and I was at 45% at the end of the workout (GPS turned off) from a full battery. I have no hopes of wearing this watch to bed.

10. Rated 4 out of 5

    Charles (verified owner) – 10. Mai 2023

    because I wear a Gear S3 Classic and love it. The NB is a good watch
    I bought this to replace a New Balance RunIQ for my wife, because I wear a Gear S3 Classic and love it. The NB is a good watch, but it has several issues with its ability to properly track runs and with charging. The charging design of the Run IQ is horrible. The charging pads on the watch get sweat and grime in them and they’re near impossible to clean, and the band prevents the watch from sitting on the charging station properly. The Gear Sport has none of those issues.

    Tizen is a GREAT wearable OS. She has had ZERO issues with the watch losing its pairing, unlike the occasional issue she had with the NB, and has had with every single FitBit and other fitness tracker she’s had over the years. While given my experience with the Gear S3 I expect she may lose pairing from time to time, re-pairing it is always super simple for me, and I’m sure will be for her, too.

    Battery life is great with this watch, especially compared to the NB. She gets 2+ days out of it regularly.

    She likes the smaller profile this has compared to my S3, as she was afraid it was going to be bulky and heavy, which it has not been her experience at all.

    The final thing she really likes about the watch is that it tracks her run really well. The first weekend she had it she ran a 1/2 marathon and it tracked the route precisely. Her NB never got the route quite right. Since she was in race conditions, she wasn’t carrying her phone, so she was quite pleased with that capability. While it doesn’t sync to Strava, she never got a lot of good syncs with the NB, and she just doesn’t get why everything in life has to be ’socialized‘ now, so she’s actually glad that sync is not there, even though I offered to sync S-Health with it for her.

    She loves the rotating bezel and how easy it has been for her to figure out on her own how to add widgets. Android Wear is nowhere near as simple to use or adjust. She’s not a technical person, really, and struggled to get things going properly with Wear, and the update to 2.0 frustrated her exceedingly. Tizen is so much simpler to make changes to that she set the watch up almost 100% by herself and she has never been able to get a wearable working with her phone on her own to her satisfaction. While I don’t like a lot of what Samsung does on the phone side, on the wearable side they are rocking it.

    An added bonus for her was the fact you can swim with this. She likes to swim in the spring/summer, and being able to track her laps and lap times is something that she is looking forward to, as she’s not had a wearable that did that well, either.

    Great device all around.