My inital impressions on the Gear Fit.
I decided on the fit over the full watch because I feel it's seriously handicapped with Tizen. If and when someone hacks full Android on it maybe I would consider one, but by then the Moto or google, or maybe even Apple's smartwatch would be out. Another reason is that the HR monitor seems to be much more accurate if worn with the sensor on the inside of the wrist, and that's an important feature for me. Thirdly I wanted to keep my existing watch and this way it just looks like I have a watch and a bracelet on the other hand instead of 2 watches.
Initial impressions are it's very cool. We went out for mothers day brunch with the family and everyone was impressed with it. My 2 brothers usually have some kind of fitness bracelet on so they understood the concept. Even my mom liked how you could get notifications on it. Getting emails and texts was super nice, very streamlined and you don't realize how convenient it is to leave your phone in your pocket until you have the ability to do so. The HR sensor was kind of meh, I had to stand still for it to be accurate. But someone else had mentioned that it's much more accurate when facing the inside of the wrist, I'll be trying that this afternoon when I do my sprint HITT interval training and put it to some serious grind.
The screen is very nice, BUT I'm a bit bummed as I can't really see it with my polarized sunglasses, which isn't a problem with my Note 3. Are polarized sunglasses really that rare where manufacturers don't care about them? Overall appearance is nice, if a bit thick but it doesn't bland badly. I'd rather not have the chrome surround though and would have highly preferred an innocuous black surround. Other gripes are the latching system, or lack of it. You just have 2 metal pegs that push into holes on the plastic band, not the most secure system. I've already popped it off my wrist my accident a couple of times. The band is ok, I wish it didn't have a large "Gear" imprint on it, but oh well.
Vertical orientation is SUPER nice. It brings me laughs at the debate we had months ago when someone was crying that the horizontal orientation was unreadable. This is a non issue.
Overall I'm pretty happy with it, and I don't think there is anything else out there like it in terms of the screen itself, package and information you can get from it. Will be a nice little toy until the Moto, Google or Apple watches come out.