Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsBeautiful watch; less than impressive functionality
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2020
I wanted to love this watch, and I do love some aspects. However... The overall functionality doesn't meet my needs.
PROS
* It's beautiful and it is a small form factor for a smart watch. I have small wrists so ordered the 40 mm (which unfortunately means shorter battery life).
* It has a sleek look and would not look out of place at work or a night on the town. It's classic, not "sporty".
* I like the way the strap end tucks into the inside the watch band so that it is not flapping around or catching on things. A small thing, but nice attention to detail.
* The band itself is a nice material - while not leather, it doesn't have a plastic look or feel like many sports/smart watches.
* Beautiful screen with fully customizable widgets.
CONS
* Battery life is poor. I wore the watch ~24 hours and battery life was down to 45% after being fully charged.
* The watch takes a few hours to charge. When I opened the box, battery life was about 50% and it took a couple of hours to charge to 100%.
* I didn't test it and Samsung is not clear in their literature, but from reading on-line material , battery life with GPS may last only a few hours. I need something that will last 8+ hours for hiking.
* I'm not certain there is any way to view GPS data with the stock app (Samsung Health). It recorded my walk with time, distance, miles, & HR, but there was no data on elevation or a map associated with it (requires a different app, I assume).
* Speaking of apps... really? You have to install Gear, plus the Watch plug-in, plus one other Service plug-in and if you want to view any usable data then you're also going to need Samsung Health or a third party app.
* Touch bezel - meh. Trying to decide if I like it or hate it. It doesn't work when I want it to and does work when I don't want it to.
* Bixby, the voice app, another meh. Seems flaky and we have plenty of smart devices that can answer my dumb questions.
* Replying to SMS or answering the phone on my watch is cool, but no necessary.
* Sleep mode? I woke during the night and it recorded two different sleep events, even though it did show the full amount of hours the next morning. When I was setting up the watch and was sitting for an hour or so, it recorded it as sleeping.
* On my walk, I wore both the Active 2 and a Garmin Vivosport. HR was the same for both watches so both or accurate (or inaccurate, as the case may be). I think the Active 2 may underestimate distance/steps and the Vivosport overestimates.
In the end, the beautiful Active 2 is being returned, and a Garmin Venu is on its way as a replacement. My needs are step & mileage tracking, tracking of a long day's hike, multiple day's battery life, useful GPS data after my workouts.
