Last week, Samsung has just launched a new wearable, the Gear Fit 2, a new wrist-worn fitness tracker which combines the best bits of a fitness tracker and a smartwatch. The Gear Fit 2 is an attractive new product that brings a lot of improvements to its predecessor the Samsung Gear Fit.

Launched two years ago, the Samsung Gear Fit has known some success thanks to its clear use case : tracking your workouts. Since that time, Samsung has also launched its Gear S2 one of the best smartwatches on the market. With that experience, Samsung has brought a lot of improvements to the Gear Fit 2. But, is it worth spending money to upgrade ? To help you to make your choice, Samsung has published a great infographic listing the main differences between the Gear Fit 2 and Gear Fit.

GearFitvsGeatFit2
Whereas the screen of the Gear Fit 2 is smaller than the screen of the Gear Fit, the wider form factor of the Gear Fit 2 is more ergonomic. Besides, like the Gear Fit 2 is more curved, the device will feel nicer on the wrist as well like you can see on the following images :

gearfit2_wrist

 

The main difference between Gear Fit 2 and Gear Fit is probably on the hardware part. Indeed, the Gear Fit was incredibly basic for a modern smart device with only 8MB of RAM, 16MB of storage and a single-core 180MHz processor. At the opposite, the Gear Fit 2 has specifications that are very close of a smartwatch or even a very low-end phone with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage and a dual-core processor clocked at 1GHz.

The original Gear Fit ran a generic “Real Time Operating System” (RTOS) that Samsung didn’t even brand. For the Gear Fit 2, Samsung has embedded its homegrown operating system Tizen.

A biggest addition on the Gear Fit 2 is also the presence of a built-in GPS receiver and the ability to function as a standalone music player which is really essential for a product that must be used during your fitness sessions. With your Gear Fit 2, you can finally leave your smartphone at home when you will go to run.

To attract the greatest number of users, Samsung offers three color options : black, blue and pink when the Gear Fit was just black. Furthermore, there are also two wrist sizes offered : small and large.

Finally, the essential new thing is may be on the compatibility domain. The Gear Fit was locked to be compatible just to the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem. It was a really bad decision for consumers and also for Samsung’s sales. With the Gear Fit 2, Samsung has learnt from its errors. The new wearable is compatible with most Android smartphones running Android KitKat (4.4) or higher and having at least 1.5GB of RAM.

The Gear Fit 2 is a great new wearable from Samsung that should be a better success than the Gear Fit. And you, are you convinced by the Gear Fit 2 ?