If you have had a Galaxy Fit 2 and want to stay in the Samsung ecosystem at a much higher cost than Chinese smart bands, you will not regret buying the Galaxy Fit 3; But I don’t think many people are going to upgrade now. You probably either want to know which one to choose for your first smartwatch, between the Fit 3 and the Xiaomi Smart Band 8, or you want to know if you can spend more than half the price of the Galaxy Watch 6 and get all the features and functions that make this watch one of the best. Has the market smartwatch become accessible or not?

Before we go to the features, let me tell you about the feel of the Galaxy Fit 3. Samsung’s new smart band with an aluminum body weighing only 18.5 grams is very light, comfortable, and well-made, and although it has relatively large dimensions, it fits well on narrow wrists.

The Fit 3 silicone strap, which you can get in three colors, black, white, and rose gold, is very soft and high-quality, and it has changed from the previous generation’s integrated mode, where the screen was placed inside, to a more standard two-piece model. Fastening the strap and connecting it to the wristband is done easily; Perhaps the only fault that can be found is that there are not enough holes on the strap to firmly fasten the body on narrow wrists.

Having said that, if you are the type of person who wants to monitor your health status 24 hours a day, even while you sleep, the Galaxy Fit 3 is a more logical choice of watch, because apart from the lower price (albeit at the expense of fewer features), it is smaller and weighs less. Almost half of the Galaxy Watch 6; So it won’t bother you when you sleep.

In addition, Galaxy Fit 3 benefits from the highest certificate of resistance against dust penetration (IP68) and resistance up to 5-atmosphere pressure (50 meters depth) against water penetration so that you can easily use it to record information related to swimming in the pool.

Like the previous two generations, Galaxy Fit 3 uses the open-source operating system FreeRTOS, which can be considered a lighter and simpler version of WearOS. Samsung has preferred using FreeRTOS for its smartwatch because cheaper and less powerful chips can handle it well and do not lag. In addition, the life of the battery increased many times; Fit 3’s battery lasted about a week in my daily use, while continuous monitoring of heart rate, stress, and sleep was active, but Always-on was disabled, and I spent 30 minutes exercising and 15 minutes checking the time and notifications. With a day or two of charging, the Galaxy Watch 6 is fantastic.

The FreeRTOS user interface is similar to WearOS in many ways, and even the application icons are almost the same; But unlike WearOS, it does not support Google Play and the ability to install external applications, and you have to go with the same default apps; including health application, music control, phone finder, weather, calendar, timer, alarm, stopwatch, world clock, calculator and camera shutter control. Galaxy Fit 3 has almost all smartband applications; However, the possibility of downloading favorite applications may not be pleasant for some users.

Leaving aside the limitation of FreeRTOS in installing applications, during the time I was testing the Galaxy Fit 3, the operating system performed very smoothly and even appeared as good as the Galaxy Watch 6. Fit 3’s user interface is also very simple and straightforward. By pressing the physical home button once, you will return to the main screen. Pressing the button twice will open the list of workouts, where you can choose another application for this command from the Advanced Feature section of the smartband settings.

Unfortunately, on the Galaxy Fit 3, unlike the Galaxy Watch, there is no possibility to reply to a message, and at best, you can only send predefined replies, which are not very useful. I think it’s time for sending messages from smart watches and wristbands to become a standard, not to remain exclusive to luxury devices.

Galaxy Fit 3 does not lack in the watch face department; From the Wearable application, you can access more than a hundred watch faces with various designs and colors. If none of the watch faces catch your eye, you can use your favorite images and edit them with the application’s tools, and even change the color of the time display for better readability on any background. Samsung also lets you switch between watchfaces you’ve created by saving multiple images in the Watchfaces section and tapping on the Fit 3’s home screen.

Galaxy Fit 3 has almost all the health and sports features of Galaxy Watch 6 (except ECG and irregular heart rate measurement, which is not available in Iran), but in some features, it shows different accuracy; For example, in the heart rate test, the Fit 3 was about 5% different from the Watch 6. While I was sleeping, with both devices strapped to my wrist, the Galaxy Watch 6 reported that the blood oxygen level dropped below 90%, but the Fit 3 reported everything as normal. In the stress test, Watch 6 showed a slightly lower stress level.

Galaxy Fit 3 has over a hundred workouts to cover almost any sport you want. For some sports activities, including walking, running, elliptical, and swimming, which have just been added, it has an automatic detection mode so that if you forget to start the workout, the smart band will start the corresponding workout after a few minutes. Fit 3’s pedometer was also about 10 steps different from reality and is generally accurate.

By activating Emergency SOS and selecting a person as an emergency contact, you can send your location to this person by pressing the button 5 times. If you have already entered your medical information, it will be displayed on the screen of the smart band.

The Galaxy Fit 3 is now equipped with an ambient light sensor to adjust the screen brightness according to the environment. Samsung hasn’t announced the Fit 3’s maximum brightness, but it seems to be around the 600 nits we’d expect from this price range.

Samsung’s new smart band uses two interesting features in the security department that may come in handy; First, you can choose a pin code for it; As long as the smart band is on your wrist, you don’t need to enter a passcode, but as soon as you remove it from your wrist, the device is locked and a PIN code is required to unlock it.

The second feature, which is enabled by default, prevents the display of notifications as long as the smartband is not attached to your wrist. For example, if you put the Galaxy Fit 3 on the table and leave it behind the table, another person cannot read the messages; Of course, if you notice that the notifications are not displayed even when you wear the smartband on your wrist, disable this feature from the security section, because there is probably an interference between the skin of your hand and the sensor.

So far, we talked about the features and capabilities that seem to put the Galaxy Fit 3 almost at the level of the Galaxy Watch 6; But the Samsung Smartband lacks some of the basic functions of the Galaxy Watch, including built-in GPS, speaker, and microphone for answering calls, sending replies to messages, installing additional applications from Google Play, Wi-Fi connectivity and LTE options, and models with different sizes to better fit the size of the watch. Different wrists. In terms of appearance, the Galaxy Watch has a more luxurious and attractive design and is more similar to a classic watch.

Considering the differences, the Galaxy Fit 3 cannot be considered a replacement for the Galaxy Watch 6. If answering calls and messages, internal GPS, installing applications and the classic appearance of the watch is not your priority, and at the same time you want the device to be attached to your wrist all the time, the battery life is satisfactory, and to spend half the price of the Galaxy Watch, the Galaxy Fit 3 at a price of about 4 4.5 million tomans is a more appropriate choice in the Iranian market; But if you don’t care about staying in the Samsung ecosystem and a bigger screen, and you just want to get a smart band for your Android phone with all the health and sports features, including swimming, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 with a price of around 1.5 to 2 million Tomans seems like an attractive option. .