DESIGN

Which tracker best balances sporty substance with cocktail-bar style?

The Super AMOLED screen is simply amazing for a tracker

There’s a risk that as the race for fitness-tracking features reaches Olympic levels, the devices become too cumbersome to be comfortable. Likewise, if they’re to be worn 24/7 for maximum tracking data, are they subtle enough for those who don’t want to shout about their calorie counting?

The water-resistant Samsung Gear Fit2’s Super AMOLED screen is simply amazing for a tracker. It’s bright, colourful and intuitive, and can be customised with several watchface options. It’s also curved, which adds to its sleekness and viewability outdoors. The strap is soft, malleable and purr-invokingly comfy against the skin, and comes in small and large sizes. The unit is the lightest on test (by 1g), and you soon forget you’re wearing it.

The Fit2 has two buttons, but the perfectly responsive touchscreen gets more of the action. The large screen enables it to display more information than its rivals, and, combined with the bright colours, this makes it very easy to use. Overall, the device is subtle and sleekly stylish, yet also eye-catching enough to prompt curiosity from others.

When it comes to style, the Fitbit is more functional than the Samsung, but more sassy than the Garmin. The crisp, customisable and decent-sized non-colour OLED screen is impressive, while the interchangeable silicone band is comfy (there are quality leather straps, too, for $119.95). The Fitbit comes in three sizes.

Garmin’s Vivosmart HR+, also waterresistant, feels chunky on a slim wrist. Like the Samsung it comes in two sizes, but this unit is significantly bigger and never quite felt as comfortable. Aesthetically, there’s little pretension towards wine-bar acceptability, but the rugged design is deceptively thoughtful. The 160 x 68-pixel, non-colour screen is fairly small and seems dull compared to the Samsung, but it’s easier to read in direct sunlight. Notifications take a fair bit of scrolling to read through, but then trackers aren’t designed for reading lots of text.