Apple 5 vs. Samsung Galaxy vs. Fitbit Versa 2

What’s in the box

Watch	40mm or 44mm ceramic or aluminum watch	40mm or 44mm aluminum watch	40mm or 44mm aluminum watch
Charger	Magnetic charging cable	Wireless charging cable	4 pin charging cable
Band	Comes with one band, style and size depending on what your purchased	Comes with a small and large band. Style depends on what you purchased	Comes with a small and large band. Style depends on what you purchased

The Apple Watch 5 is the most expensive, at around $400. What’s in the box? Along with the watch, you’ll find a magnetic charging cable and adapter, as well as the band of your choice (you choose the band color, style, and size during checkout on Apple’s website).

The Samsung Galaxy Active 2 is the medium entry watch at roughly $250. In the box, you’ll find the Active 2 Watch and a wireless charger, and a small and large wristband (style depends on which model you purchase).

Lastly, the Fitbit Versa 2 comes in with the most experience, and the lowest price at just under $200. For that cost, you’ll get the Fitbit Versa 2 Watch, a 4-pin charging cable that you just lay the watch on to charge, and a small and large wrist band.

Phone compatibility

Android compatible	No	Yes, full compatibility	Yes, full compatibility
iOS compatible	Yes, full compatibility	Yes, but limited compatibility (more below)	Yes, full compatibility

Whether or not your smartwatch works with your personal phone is a pretty big deal. Otherwise, you’re better off wearing an old-school analog watch. At least you won’t have to worry about charging it at least once a week.

The Apple Watch 5 does not work with Android

If you own a Samsung Galaxy, Pixel or another Android phone, you can pretty much narrow down your shopping to just the Samsung Active 2 or Fitbit Versa 2.

Most of the Apple Watch’s apps are ios only. In other words, you’d be missing out on the majority of basic functions, such as GPS, activity monitoring and so on.

The Samsung Active 2 works with iPhone and Android (for the most part)

Own an iPhone, but prefer the beautiful round design of Samsung’s Active 2 watch? We can’t blame you. For the most part, you won’t have a problem using your watch with your iPhone. Activity and sleep tracking, music control, GPS, and so on, it’s no problem. However, features like replying to texts or watching YouTube, won’t work with iPhones.

The Fitbit Versa 2 works with iPhone and Android

Then there’s the Fitbit Versa 2. It works like a dream with both iPhone and Android. This is mainly because the majority of the functionality lives inside the Fitbit app, which is supported on both Android and iOS.

Design

Screen size	Available in 40mm and 44mm	Available in 40mm and 44mm	Available in 40mm and 44mm
Display	OLED, highest quality	OLED, highest quality	OLED, highest quality
Watch face	Many built-in and third party watch faces	Decent amount of watch faces	Many built-in watch faces, including personalized bitmoji watch face

When it comes to quality and beauty, all three smartwatches are comfortable and beatiful. Considering all three are available in aluminum, there’s not a big material difference.

Both Apple, Samsung, and Fitbit share the same high-quality OLED display, which ensures a beautiful crisp image.

If a personalized watch face (what your default watch home screen looks like) is important to you, you’ll be glad to know that every watch offers many watch faces, both built-in and third party.

Fitbit Versa 2 Bitmoji, by Business Wire

However, Fitbit is the currently only smartwatch that integrates a Bitmoji in your watch face.

And no, not a dull static Bitmoji that’ll get old the next day. Your Bitmoji will change based on the time of day, and your activity!

Talk about taking personalization to a new level.

Battery life

Battery life	18 hours with always on display	24 hours with always on display, 48 hours without	Up to 5 days with always on display, up to 7 days without
Charge time	2.5 hours for 100%	2 hours or less for 100%	2 hours or less for 100%

Not a routine person? You may get frustrated with the Apple Watch 5’s battery pretty quick. Having to charge your watch every day can get inconvenient, very fast.

That may be the biggest negative about the Apple watch 5. The battery lasts about 18 hours. You can basically wear it all day, but you’ll have to charge it in the evening if you want to track your sleep.

The Samsung Galaxy Active 2 is a bit more forgiving when it comes to charging your watch. With a 48 battery life, you can forget about charging it every single day.

Lastly, the Fitbit Versa 2 features the longest battery life, up to 6 days. However, many reviews say they reach about 3-4 days.

Sleep tracking

Sleep tracking	Not built in, but available in 3rd party apps	Built in, great tracking	Built in, excellent tracking
Sleep reports	Dependent on 3rd party app	Good information	Detailed information of sleep stages

Apple Watch 5 does not come with sleep tracking built-in. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t excellent third-party apps available. Furthermore, since the battery only lasts about 18 hours, it’s tough to use it as both a daily watch, as well as a night tracker, without running into a dead watch at random times.

The Samsung Active 2 does include sleep tracking and provides easy to understand reports, just like Fitbit’s. When it comes to accuracy though, Fitbit Versa 2 takes the crown. It often amazes me just how accurate my Fitbit sleep tracking is. It also reports different sleep stages, such as light, deep and rapid eye movement sleep.

It’s most likely because Fitbit has had over a decade of sleep tracking improvements, where Galaxy has only been in the sleep-tracking game for a bit over a year.

Activity monitoring

Activity modes	15 activity modes	7 activity modes	15 activity modes
Heart tracking	Excellent tracking	Excellent tracking	Excellent tracking
Calorie tracking	Excellent tracking	Excellent tracking	Excellent tracking
GPS tracking	Has GPS for detailed walk, run and biking routes	Has GPS for detailed walk, run and biking routes	Does not have GPS, but can utalize your phone’s GPS

Working out has never been as rewarding as with a smartwatch. Calories, intensity, heart rate, everything is automatically tracked and pushes you to do better.

While Fitbit has become a smartwatch over time, its main purpose was to make activity monitoring easier and more convenient. And they still do it very, very well.

Which of the three is best? They all track equally great, so it really comes down to which interface and reporting you personally prefer. To me, the Fitbit app is extremely intuitive, easy to use, and contains all the information I need.

The Apple Watch 5 and Fitbit Versa 2 offer 15 activity modes. Samsung Active 2 has 7 activity modes. All three include the basic walking, swimming and “other” workouts, which is basically just an intensity tracker, but it works great for your own favorite workout, such as boxing, dancing and so on.

Conclusion

So what smartwatch should you choose? It depends on a few things, such as:

• your phone
• battery life
• main purpose

If you have an iPhone, and you’re ok with charging daily, you can go with any of the three watches mentioned here, although you won’t get 100% functionality from the Samsung Galaxy Active 2. The Apple Watch will provide the most features and 3rd party apps, if that’s important to you.

If you have an Android, forget about the Apple Watch 5, and go with a Samsung Galaxy Active 2 or Fitbit Versa 2. Which is best probably comes down to the main purpose, for activity, health and sleep tracking, I would recommend the Fitbit Versa 2.

For a more smartwatch purpose, such as GPS, watching YouTube, 3rd party apps, I would recommend the Samsung Galaxy Active 2.

I hope this post was helpful to you! Do you have feedback to share on your Apple, Samsung or Fitbit watch? Drop a comment below!