Much more than just time tellers

Apple Watch Series 2

The Apple Watch Series 2 is, for the most part, indistinguishable from its predecessor. It’s still square, and it still comes in two case sizes, 38mm and 42mm. The only difference physically is an imperceptible 0.9mm increase in thickness and some new markings on the case back, specifically: “Series 2” and “GPS. WR-50M”.

Those last two markers are what makes the Series 2 Watch such a big improvement over the first generation model. The first Apple Watch did not have GPS capability, so users who wanted to map their exercise routes had to bring their iPhones along. Now, the Apple Watch Series 2 uses a combination of its built-in GPS, Wi-Fi, and locally stored satellite data to quickly identify your location and map your workouts.

The first Apple Watch was also only splash resistant, but the new Series 2 Watch is water resistant up to 50 meters. In other words, you can finally wear your Apple smartwatch while swimming. To achieve this, Apple has re-engineered the speaker in the new Series 2 watch so that it can generate vibrations to eject water out of its enclosure. To complement its new water resistant build, the Series 2 Apple Watch now has additional Swim modes for its Workout app.

Apple says it has developed algorithms to accurately track swimming activities by testing on over 700 different swimmers of varying abilities. Battery life is slightly better on the Apple Watch Series 2, but still only lasts just over a day, which means you’ll have to charge it every night. With GPS tracking turned on, expect to get about five hours at the most.

Finally, two hardware improvements worth mentioning are the new S2 dual-core processor and brighter display. The new S2 processor is said to be 50% faster and offers two times better graphics performance. The display on the Series 2 watch is significantly brighter. It’s rated at 1,000 nits, which makes it more than twice as bright as its predecessor and also the brightest display on any Apple device ever.

ASUS ZenWatch 3

The latest version of the ASUS ZenWatch is a pretty big departure from its previous square models. It’s now a round smartwatch with a 45mm case made from jewellery-grade 316L stainless steel with a diamond-cut bezel. You get a stitched Italian leather strap, which adds to the premium feel, although rubber strap options are available if you want something sportier.

At 9.95mm thick it’s quite chunky, but still substantially thinner than the other two round watches in our shootout, the Moto 360 Sport and Samsung Gear S3. The ZenWatch 3 is available in gunmetal, silver and rose gold. All three colors are beautiful, although it does look very similar to the 2015 Huawei Watch.

One thing that differentiates the ZenWatch 3 from other Android Wear watches are the three buttons along the right side, reminiscent of the buttons usually found on chronographs. For the ZenWatch, these are instead used for navigation. By default, the top button launches the ASUS ZenFit fitness-tracking app, which ASUS says can track activity to 95% accuracy across a wide variety of workouts including pushups.

However, the ZenWatch 3 lacks both built-in GPS and a heart-rate monitor, and it’s also only IP67-rated, which means it will survive a heavy rainfall, but not recommended for swimming. Without these features, it’s not the most comprehensive smartwatch for fitness. The ZenWatch 3 is the first to use Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor.

Its power efficiency gives the watch roughly two days of battery life, and Hypercharge technology means you can charge it to 60 percent in just 15 minutes. Inside, you get the standard Android Wear specifications of 512MB RAM and 4GB of internal storage.

The 1.39-inch display is a perfect circle (no flat tire here like the Moto 360 Sport) and has a 400 x 400 pixels resolution (287ppi), which makes it better than both the Moto 360 Sport and Gear S3. The display is bright and easy to read under direct sunlight.

Fitbit Blaze

Fitbit’s first smartwatch, the Blaze, is a black plastic square module that snaps into a 42mm stainless steel frame with a removable rubber strap. It’s not the most attractive design, and definitely looks more geek than chic, lacking both the luxury of the ASUS ZenWatch 3 and the premium craftsmanship of the Apple Watch and Samsung Gear S3.

Having said that, while the Blaze isn’t much to look at it, it is comfortable to wear thanks to its thin 7mm profile. The Blaze has a 1.25-inch color touchscreen with a 240 x 180 pixels resolution. It runs on Fitbit’s own UI, compatible with both iOS and Android, and will show incoming call and message notifications for both.

Despite having a square display, the home screen is a circular analog watch face that shows the time and date, with a progress marker around it that shows how many steps you’ve taken today. Tapping the screen cycles through steps taken, heart rate and calories burned. Alternatively, there are three other watch faces to choose from. From the watch face, you can swipe right to access the Blaze’s other apps: Today, Exercise, FitStar, Timer, Alarms and Settings.

Today shows you a summary of today’s activity progress, including steps, total distance, flights of stairs climbed, heart rate and calories burned. If you want to track a workout, the Exercise app is where you do it. Here you’ll find options for tracking 17 different workouts, ranging from biking to yoga, golf and tennis.

While the Blaze does have a 3-axis accelerometer, optical heart-rate monitor, altimeter and ambient light sensor, it’s missing built-in GPS, which means you’ll need to bring your smartphone with you to track your exercise route. It’s also not waterproof, and is only rated ‘splashproof’ which means no swimming.

One weird quirk is that you have to remove the tracker from its steel frame when you want to charge it, as that’s the only way to get it into its plastic charging shell. On the plus side, battery life is very good at about five days per charge.

Motorola Moto 360 Sport

The Moto 360 Sport is basically a fitness-friendly version of Motorola’s second-generation Moto 360 smartwatch with mostly the same internals, but with a different design, display, and most importantly, built-in GPS. The Sport ditches the luxury stainless steel and Horween leather of the original Moto 360, replacing it with a rubber one-piece case and band. The strap isn’t removable so you’re stuck with whatever color you buy.

Like the regular Moto 360, there’s a button at the 2 o’clock position that’s used to dim the display and access the app menu. It’s worth noting that while the 360 Sport looks more rugged than the regular Moto 360, it has the same IP67 rating. The main watch body is quite large, with a 45mm diameter, and is also pretty chunky at 11.5mm thick.

The 1.37-inch display has a 360 x 325 pixels resolution (263ppi) and uses a new type of LCD technology called AnyLight, which switches between a full color LCD display under most lighting conditions and a monochrome transflective-style display that looks similar to the Pebble 2’s E-paper display when it’s very bright, or when the watch is idle.

This gives you the benefit of an always-on display to see the time. Unfortunately the display still has an unsightly flat tire at the bottom where the ambient light sensor is located. The 360 Sport’s built-in GPS means you can go running without your smartphone, tracking your route and distance with Moto’s pre-installed Moto Body software, which will also track calories burned and steps taken.

While running, you can swipe through various screens, showing basic metrics on distance, pace and heart rate data. You can free run, or set yourself various goals to achieve. Specs-wise the 360 Sport is what we’ve come to expect from Android Wear smartwatches, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. The 300mAh battery inside it will last about a day on a full charge, but with GPS turned on, expect about three or four hours at most.

Pebble 2

With Fitbit’s acquisition of Pebble, this is the last ever Pebble smartwatch. It’s not the most attractive or luxurious, with a rectangular shape, thick bezels, monochrome 144 x 168 pixel screen, plastic build and silicon strap, but if you’re into geek chic, and don’t want to spend too much on a smartwatch, it might be just what you’re looking for (if you can still find one for sale).

It’s slightly smaller and slimmer compared to the original; there’s Gorilla Glass 3 protecting the display now, a built-in microphone for voice-responding to text messages, and an optical heart rate monitor. The Pebble 2 also has 30M water resistance, which means you can go swimming with it. Like all Pebble smartwatches, it is fully compatible with both Android and iOS.

The Pebble 2 has the same button layout as its predecessors with a back button on the left side and three buttons on the right. The top button shows you a quick view of your health stats (steps, sleep tracking and heart rate), the center button launches the app menu, while the bottom button shows current and upcoming events.

By default the Pebble 2 will automatically track your sleep patterns steps taken, distance and heart rate through its Health app, syncing with your phone and presenting graphs to show how you’re doing throughout the day. You can also launch the new Workout app to start tracking walks, runs or generic “workouts”. Unfortunately, there still isn’t a swimming workout.

For now, Pebble remains the king of app availability, and even with Pebble shutting down, there’s over 15,000 different third-party watch faces and apps on the Pebble app store. Like the original, the Pebble 2 has a monochrome e-paper display.

It doesn’t look as nice as the AMOLED displays on other smartwatches, but it’s highly legible, even under bright sunlight. Thanks to this, the Pebble 2 also has amazing battery, lasting about seven days between charges.

Samsung Gear S3

There are two Samsung Gear S3 models: the Classic and the Frontier. The Frontier has a sportier design with a gunmetal case and markings around the bezel. It also comes with a more rugged silicone strap. The Classic is a cleaner look, with a leather strap and a brushed stainless steel case. Both models are significantly bigger than last year’s S2, with a bulky, oversized 46mm case.

Like the S2, both S3 models have IP68 resistance, however Samsung does state that they’re not suitable for swimming or diving. The S3 has a 1.3-inch Super AMOLED screen with a 360 × 360 pixels resolution (278ppi). The display is bright, with deep contrast and vibrant colors. Best of all, it’s now an always-on display, which means that the screen dims, but leaves a watch face visible at all times.

And unlike the Moto 360’s monochrome always-on display, the S3’s is in full color. There are two buttons on the right side of the S3, the top one is the back button and the second is the home button. But the main way you’ll navigate menus is through the rotating bezel. The notched bezel on the Gear S3 rotates left and right, with a satisfying click when you rotate it, letting you easily scroll through its circular menus.

When you get to what you want, you just tap the screen to select it. We loved this navigation system on the Gear S2 and it’s still the most intuitive way to control a smartwatch. The S3 runs on Samsung’s own Tizen OS instead of Android Wear, which means its app ecosystem isn’t as robust but, for the most part, Samsung fills the gaps with its own apps.

S Health covers most of your exercise essentials and the Gear S3 packs a ton of sensors for tracking your workout including an altimeter, barometer, accelerometer, built-in GPS, and an optical heart rate monitor. The Gear S3 has a 380mAh battery, which gives it about a day and a half of battery life. If you have GPS on though, expect significantly less than that.