Samsung Galaxy Fit3 Review

The Samsung Galaxy Fit3 is a good fitness tracker at a great price. Despite costing a fraction of most other trackers in our lineup, you'll still get accuracy activity and sleep tracking, significantly better than most other trackers at a similar price point. We also appreciated the size of the Fit3; it's ideal if you want a slim watch while still being able to view data like the time or your activity stats, without constantly scrolling on a tiny watch face.

Activity Tracking

Despite not having the most robust lineup of activity tracking features, the Fit3 tracks the basics of your activities easily and accurately. It's perfect if you're just looking to record your activities, not obsess over metrics.

Cardio Tracking

For most people, the ability to track your distance, pace, and heart rate while on a run or ride are the metrics that matter most. The Fit3 is impressively accurate here, considering that there is no built-in GPS like many other trackers. Our distance was normally a little short, missing maybe 5% of the total distance. We also noted that the real-time pace on the Fit3 fluctuates greatly, much more so than other trackers. Still, our average pace was in line with our baseline.

Impressively, the Fit3 does record several other more advanced metrics like running cadence and elevation change, the latter using its built-in barometer. We were again impressed with this, as few watches at this price point or even more expensive have a built-in barometer. Swimmers will be pleased to note that the Fit3 can track distance, total lengths, and strokes per length.

Within an activity, the data on the Fit3 is easy to view, with all our key metrics visible on the main screen. We didn't struggle to see or read data across a variety of running conditions, including both rainy and bright sunny days. You do have the ability to customize two data screens to your liking, which is a great feature as well.

Workout Tracking

Though you are able to track workouts and strength activities on the Fit3, there are no rep or set tracking features. We didn't really miss this feature since it's not usually very accurate on most watches. There are a couple of workout plans through the Samsung Health app, like basic yoga and core workouts, and you can follow along with a video on your phone. The Fit3 will auto-start a workout based on that, but you'll still need the phone for exercise guidance. If you're looking for a watch to guide you through workouts, you'll want to consider options like the Garmin Venu 3, which allows you to select from custom or premade workouts from your watch itself.

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Auto Detect for Walks/Runs

The Fit3 does autodetect workouts, which is great for those times when you forget to start your watch when you head out on an adventure, or for impromptu lunch break walks. The Fit3 states that it auto detects a handful of different workout types, many more than most other trackers we tested — only the Whoop 5.0 and Oura Ring Gen 4 auto-detected more types of activities. The Fit3 states it takes a few minutes of consistent activity to kick in, and we felt like it was a little more than a few, but it did pick up when we went out on runs. You'll miss a few minutes of data, but it will save you from missing the entire workout.

Other Tracking Features

The Fit3 has a large number of different workout activity types. They're as specific as individual exercises like high knees or lat pull-downs, and as broad as “other workout” or “machine workout”. We were surprised there isn't a generic strength workout, but there are niche activities like hula hooping, archery, pilates, and even yachting. For the majority of these workouts, the Fit3 tracks duration, calories, and heart rate.

Lifestyle Tracking

For the most part, we were very impressed with the Fit3's accuracy of tracking metrics like heart rate, sleep, and other basic health stats.

We measured the Fit3's step tracking on a half-mile walk, counting our steps with an analog counter. After a half mile and over 1,200 steps, the Fit3 was only off by a single step. Heart rate accuracy is impressively accurate as well — real-time, max, and average heart rate readings were within a few beats of our chest strap monitor.

Sleep scores on the Fit3 are consistent and relatively accurate as well. We did feel that they were a little low compared to how we felt in the morning, but nothing outrageous. You can view a good bit of data right from the watch, including your overall score, stages and timeline, trends, and even snore data.

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The Fit3, when you sleep with your phone next to you, is supposed to track snoring as well. It does record total time snored, which is interesting, but not necessarily something we were able to do anything about. There's some debate among our testers' household about whether the snoring was from a human or their dog.

Data & Dashboards

The Fit3 provides a basic snapshot of your steps, activity minutes, and calories burned right on the watch. The display is not unlike the famously finicky health rings of the Apple Watch 10 rings.

The Samsung Health app is simple, but easy enough to use. It's quite customizable, so you can add quick views for things such as sleep coaching, medications, mindfulness, food, cycle tracking, water, and blood glucose, along with the basic activity, sleep, heart rate, and stress tracking. We were impressed to see that the Fit3 does track blood oxygen too, and it is relatively close to the stats we received from other devices that tracked blood oxygen, like the Garmin Forerunner 265.

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Within most metric tiles, you can tap in to view details, trend charts, and even brief explanations on what each metric is and what ideal levels might look like. These charts were simple enough to understand quickly, but lacked the detail of other models we tested.

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Features & Ease of Use

The Fit3 has a few quirks, but is overall easy to use.

Pairing the Fit3 to our Android phone was a bit of an adventure, and not the fun kind. We had to download three separate apps to pair it and view data. Even during the course of our testing, one of the apps required to pair the watch with our phone went through such a major update that it unpaired our watch, and we had to re-download the app. To pair the watch again, we had to reset it and erase all our data first.

Once paired and on our wrist, it was relatively smooth sailing. For a fitness tracker, we felt it should have been slightly easier to start an activity, but as it is, it requires a few more swipes and taps than other options. That said, once we picked up the learning curve of the different screens on the Fit3, it started to be a little more enjoyable to use.

The Fit3 has a reasonable amount of smart features, but again, the whole device is only available if you use an Android phone. You can receive texts and send quick reply messages, view weather and calendar apps, control music, and the ever-helpful Find My Phone feature works great too. We're always happy when devices don't require a subscription to use them, and the Fit3 is happily on that list. If smart features are just as important to you as fitness tracking, the Samsung Galaxy Watch FE is a fully-featured smart watch for Androids.

Wearability

Thanks to an efficiently sized screen that is in between what we'd consider a large screen and a small screen, the Fit3 provides enough screen space to view all your critical metrics at once, without being a nuisance on your wrist. It's easy to swipe through different data fields or access other apps, too. Though it does have a slightly sporty style, the Fit3 is sleek and slim enough to fit in no matter where you are.

Battery

Samsung states that the Fit3 has a working battery life of 13 days. During our testing, we were relatively pleased that the watch lasted almost that amount of time consistently, despite tracking activities every day. The one downside to battery life is that the screen timeout on the Fit3 feels painfully short. Though you can set it longer, you might get notifications about detrimental battery impacts.

Should You Buy the Samsung Galaxy Fit3?

The Fit3 is a great option for people with an Android phone who are curious about whether or not a fitness tracker is for them. At an unbeatable price point, the Fit3 offers a surprising amount of tracking capabilities and features, certainly well beyond that of other trackers in this price range. Though it's not without its faults, for the price, the Fit3 makes a great entry-level tracker, or even a tracker for someone who just needs the basics.

What Other Fitness Trackers Should You Consider?

Since the Fit3 is a great budget buy for Android users, if you have an iPhone, you'll need to look elsewhere. The Amazfit Band 7 clocks in at the same price point, and only slightly less performance than the Fit3. While the Amazfit does have some great data and dashboards, we struggled to use the watch; it is challenging to fit correctly and almost impossible to view the screen in direct sunlight. For a step up in cost, the Fitbit Charge 6 is one of the simplest fitness trackers we tested, perfect for lifestyle metric tracking. Fitness enthusiasts may find it lacking, though, so if activities are your passion, we recommend the Garmin Vivoactive 5. This watch offers exceptional performance at a reasonable price point, and can take you all the way from the couch to your first 5k or even marathon with ease.