Best Fitness Tracker 2019 – Real World Group Test – TechCo

If you’re into fitness in 2019, it’s worth having the best fitness tracker to record all your exercise.

However, with so many wearables seemingly offering the same things – including run tracking, heart rate monitoring, calorie counting, brilliant comfort, great companion apps, and incredible battery life, not to mention a host of smart features – choosing between them can be incredibly confusing.

Here at Tech.co, we’re helping separate the wheat from the chaff by pitting six of the best and most popular fitness trackers against each other. We looked at the latest and most popular Apple Watch, Polar’s new hardcore Vantage M watch, two Garmin Forerunner models as well as the quirky Vivosmart 4, and Fitbit’s ubiquitous Charge 3.

So which is the best? All told, our favorite wearable is the Garmin Forerunner 645 – its hyper-accurate distance tracking, comfy strap, and impressive battery life make it a great choice for anyone looking to get fit. You’ll need deep pockets, though – it starts at $399.99.

If you’re looking at the cheaper end of the market, we’d get a Fitbit Charge 3. The Charge 3 isn’t exactly faultless, but for budding fitness junkies, it’s a good place to start.

Read on to find out all about the models we put to test, or skip ahead to the one you care about:

• Best Fitness Tracker for $100-150 – These trackers will cover the basics of activity tracking but not a lot more
• Fitbit Charge 3 vs Garmin Vivosmart 4
• Best Sports Watches for under $300 – These are designed for serious athletes with performance in mind
• Garmin Forerunner 245 vs Polar Vantage M
• Best Sports Watches over $300 – The most expensive watches are built for anyone looking for excellence across all categories
• Apple Watch Series 4 vs Garmin Forerunner 645

The Best Fitness Trackers for $100-150

While you can get a decent fitness tracker for less than $100, you’ll be unlikely to find one as good as the Fitbit Charge 3 or Garmin Vivosmart 4 for less. However, despite their similarities in price and appearance, the Charge 3 and Vivosmart 4 are quite different devices.

The Charge 3 is a typical fitness tracker – you get heart rate tracking, sleep tracking, mirrored notifications from your phone, waterproofing (without swim metrics), and a week-long battery life. If your typical exercise consists of hitting the gym once or twice a week, and maybe going for a run or two – or if you want to track your everyday activities, like walking on your commute to work – the Charge 3 should suit you down to the ground.

The Vivosmart 4, on the other hand, is designed to offer a more holistic look at your overall health, rather than giving you detailed stats on your weekly workouts. As a result, you can check your stress levels, benefit from more advanced sleep monitoring, and calculate something which Garmin calls your “Body Battery” score – basically an examination of your energy levels over the course of a day.

So which is best?

“The Vivosmart 4 had a very basic design. It’s relatively pleasing on the eye, but certainly aimed at a ‘girly’ audience who don’t want to look like they’re wearing a fitness watch. It’s relatively comfortable, though the strap holes leave quite a significant dent mark in my wrist, even when the watch isn’t done up that tight.”

“Garmin’s app was easy to download and has a user friendly lay out, with all the functionality options and results there straight away. The best part of the watch was the companion app – it was very easy to see what had been achieved that day.”

“I quite like the Fitbit app – it’s really easy to see all your information and history, and adapt the settings of your watch.”

Find out more – Which Fitbit Should I Get?

Fitbit Charge 3 vs Garmin Vivosmart 4 – Battery life

The Charge 3 and Vivosmart 4 have pretty impressive battery life specs – almost certainly as a result of their underwhelming screens.

The Vivosmart 4 claims to give seven days’ battery, and our testers certainly found that to be the case. Similarly, Fitbit also claims that the Charge 3 will last a full week, and our tester – who exercised “almost every day” – was never caught short with a dead device.

Fitbit Charge 3 vs Garmin Vivosmart 4 – Which is the best fitness tracker?

Deciding between these two is hard – the Vivosmart 4 is a bit cheaper, but offers a more compelling look at your overall health. Its mindfulness features, ranging from breathing exercises to stress checkers, are likely to appeal to anyone looking for a better relationship with their mind and body.

However, the Charge 3 is probably the better device for fitness junkies. If you prefer crushing it at the gym to checking your stress levels, the Charge 3 should be right up your street. However, if you’re really keen on getting fit, it might be worth moving up a pricing tier.

The Best Fitness Tracker and Sport Watch for Under $300

Now we’re getting serious. With watches that cost less than $300, but more than $150, you’re looking at more advanced multisport tracking – swimming, cycling, etc. – as well as standalone GPS.

We tried Garmin’s Forerunner 245, which goes big on running features. Built for serious runners, the 245 promises to study your form through its “Running Dynamics” feature. It also offers V02 Max metrics and gives tips on whether on whether you’re stretching yourself with the amount of running you’ve done recently. The 245 is built for serious runners.

We also had a look at Polar’s Vantage M watch, which offers swimming metrics, 24/7 activity tracking, cycle tracking, heart rate zones, and more. If you’re a regular triathlete, or just love variety in your workouts, the Vantage M would be a great choice.

Despite the slightly wider range of applications for the Vantage M, it costs $279.95 – $20 less than the Forerunner 245.

Garmin Forerunner 245 vs Polar Vantage M – Accuracy

This really is the litmus test for an advanced sports watch. You can get away with some iffy metrics on a sub-$100 tracker, but not here.

Pleasingly, on our standardised 10km running route around North London, we found that the Forerunner 245 and Vantage M were pretty close to the mark. The Vantage M recorded a run of 9.93km, while the Forerunner 245 recorded 10.05km.

The Vantage M did have some GPS issues when running outside in wooded areas, although it was bang on the money when it came to swimming.

The Forerunner 245 was also pleasingly accurate when it came to cycling and swimming.

“[The Vantage M] is a very lightweight watch that sits well on the wrist. When running, it’s pretty comfortable and doesn’t rub. I’m not a fan of the white version, but I think the black version looks pretty good. Considering its a sports watch, the thickness of the watch face is a bit annoying, and I’ve knocked it on a few occasions. I’m also not a fan of this style for road cycling. It’s also got a really wide bezel that seemingly does nothing. It seems strange to make the watch face this needlessly large.”

Unsurprisingly, neither of these watches are designed to be the last word in style – they’re functional devices first and foremost. However, the Vantage M’s serious bulk might be enough to put you off – it’s not the kind of device you’d want to live with day in, day out. The Forerunner 245 is still large, though, so it’s probably worth trying both on before deciding which to spend your hard earned cash on.

“It’s really easy to see everything on the screen while exercising. The screen is well backlit, and the menu uses different colors to make it easier to look at. I struggled a bit to get to grips with the menu layout at first, but once I’d worked it out, it was really simple to navigate.”

When it came to companion apps, however, Vantage M’s Polar Flow seemed to have the edge:

“I think the Polar Flow app is quite good. It’s got a good breakdown of activity in an easy to view graph of daily/weekly/monthly activity. The real advantage of this app is the detail you can go into regarding your recorded training. However, it is slightly annoying that I have to actively press a button to sync the watch to the app. It’s quite slow in doing so as well, but it’s not a massive deal breaker.”

“I really like the Garmin Connect app because of the whole range of stats you can access. Any keen runners will definitely have a lot of fun geeking out with all it has to offer. However, purely from an ease of use point of view, it isn’t quite up to scratch. The app was easy to install and fairly easy to pair with the watch, but the interface itself is not the most intuitive, especially compared to running apps like Strava.”

Garmin Forerunner 245 vs Polar Vantage M – Battery life

Battery life for these devices is huge – after all, you don’t want to be halfway through a marathon when your sports watch dies. Garmin claims a battery life of seven days for the Forerunner 245, and 24 hours with GPS turned on. Polar, meanwhile, reckons you’ll get five days without heart rate and GPS, but 30 hours with both turned on.

So, do they live up to their claims?

The answer is yes – the Garmin gave our tester almost a full week, while the Polar managed six days. Of course, our devices are pretty much brand new, and these figures might decline over time – but they should be more than good enough for most users.

Garmin Forerunner 245 vs Polar Vantage M – Which is the best sports watch?

As was the case with the Garmin and Fitbit earlier, it all depends on what you want.

If you are a serious runner, and we mean serious, you should get the Forerunner. Its wider range of running features will give you a few extra insights, which might help you push yourself that little bit further.

However, if you’re more of a triathlete and are looking for exceptional accuracy and metrics across a wider range of sports, we’d buy the Vantage M and put our spare $20 towards a new pair of trainers.

The Best Sport Watch Over $300

If you’re happy to spend over $300 on a wearable, it’s almost certain that you’re looking at an Apple Watch. And we understand – they’re pretty great. Unless you have an Android phone, in which case they’re useless. That’s right – in 2019, you still need an iPhone to use an Apple Watch.

So, if you have an iPhone, is there a better alternative to an Apple Watch? And, if you don’t have an iPhone, are you actually missing out by not being able to own the most popular watch in the world (according to Apple, for what that’s worth)?

We put the latest-generation of Apple Watch up against Garmin’s Forerunner 645 to find out.

The Forerunner 645 is, genuinely, a great-looking watch. It doesn’t have the heft of other serious sports watches, with a small (but still useable) face and shiny silver bezel. All in all, it’s a classy-looking device.

The Apple Watch looks great, especially with its now slimmer bezels – but you knew that already.

“I like the buttons around the watch, but they do take a bit of time to get used to. I almost deleted some activities by pressing the wrong buttons. However, the screen is big enough so it is easy to read all the information you need – even while doing exercise.”

On balance, the Apple Watch’s top-drawer touchscreen probably gives it the edge over the Forerunner 645 and its penta-button set up.

Apple Watch Series 4 vs Garmin Forerunner 645 – Accuracy

On our standardised 10km route, the Apple Watch recorded a distance of 10.02km – the most accurate in our test. The Forerunner 645 wasn’t far behind, though, recording 9.90km.

While our testers were using both the watches for other activities, they generally found the heart rate readings to be on the money. Like the Polar, though, we did find some issues with the Forerunner 645 in wooded areas.

Apple Watch Series 4 vs Garmin Forerunner 645 – Battery life

This is one area where the Garmin pulls streets ahead of the Apple Watch.

While the Apple Watch can barely manage much more than a day of use, the Forerunner 645 can get through a week without GPS. Our testers also managed to squeeze in a good amount of exercise before having to charge the Forerunner 645 again.

We’re also not convinced that an Apple Watch would last a marathon distance, which for a sports-oriented watch at this price point is a big black mark.

Sure, having to charge your watch every night isn’t necessarily the end of the world, but it doesn’t give you a lot of wiggle room for long days and nights. And having to wear a dead watch on your wrist is a pretty pointless exercise.

Apple Watch Series 4 vs Garmin Forerunner 645 – Which is the best multisport watch?

If you’re serious about exercise tracking, we’d recommend the Garmin. That extra battery life is a boon for anyone looking to really push themselves as an athlete.

If you want a watch that looks great, and is capable of very impressive sports tracking – and you have an iPhone, and maybe some Beats wireless headphones – you’ll be pleased with the Apple Watch.

But are you losing out if you don’t have an iPhone? Not in our mind. Yes, the experience might not be as completely seamless as that between the iPhone/Apple Watch – but with music storage and built-in Bluetooth connectivity, the Forerunner 645 offers a brilliant alternative.