Samsung Gear Fit set to trim UK tummies from April
Witness the Fit-ness! Samsung's gorgeous new exercise tracker is also an incredibly cool smart watch.
Samsung's throwing its considerable weight behind the fitness gadget craze, announcing the Samsung Gear Fit exercise-tracking wristband tonight at its Unpacked event at Mobile World Congress.
The Gear Fit will go on sale here in the UK in April, although the Korean giant hasn't yet mentioned a price. It joins the Galaxy S5 smart phone and Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smart watches as new Samsung products out in Barcelona.
Unlike the sadly humdrum Galaxy S5, the Gear Fit looks really cool. It has a gorgeous curved 1.8-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen, with a 432x128-pixel resolution. Its 250-pixel-per-inch display explodes with colour.
You can swap its bright plastic strap for a new one when your first gets all manky, and it's so thin the whole thing only weighs 27g.
Under the screen is a wee sensor unit with an accelerometer, a heart rate detector and Bluetooth 4.0 to stream all your bodily data back to your smart phone. Its 210mAh battery should last for three or four days of typical use, Samsung reckons.
But it's not just a tracker for your physical exertions. It functions as a pretty decent smart watch too, with notifications for phone calls, emails, texts, alarms and the S-Planner calendar. An API means third-party developers can get in on the Fit action too.
The downside here is it only works with Samsung phones -- a major bummer if you're not packing a Galaxy.
For tonnes more hands-on detail, check out CNET.com's first take here, or watch my energetic colleague Jessica witness the Fit-ness in this video.