hi everyone welcome to wesknows tech news and reviews!
i do have to apologize about my hair today but it's raining it's windy and i just can't do much
about it! anyway we're here today to talk about fitbit inspire 2. so this is the cheapest tracker
in the fitbit lineup but this is not the amazfit or the huawei on the honor cheap - oh no! this is the
fitbit cheap at 89 pounds or a hundred dollars cheap! i don't know.. does it have a lot to offer?
maybe, let's see it in the review! if you're new to wesknows tech news and reviews, we talk about the
latest tech news we do brutally honest reviews and share hacks and tricks along the way. so make sure
to hit that subscribe button and bell notification so you don't miss out! another thing about
fitbit which does rub me the wrong way is the fact that when you actually buy a tracker that's not it,
you also have to pay a premium membership or subscription fee and that's no small fee.
it's actually eight pounds a month or 80 pounds a year or 10 dollars a month and eighty
dollars a year. i think that's quite a hefty amount of money to be asking after you've actually spent
so much money to get the tracker or fitness watch. well i think there are alternatives like
garmin, polar which have amazing ecosystems like polar flow, garmin connect but they don't
charge you to use that. for example garmin, they offer garmin coach and it's all free and dandy!
invest into the tracker and you're free to use the tech and you're free to use the ecosystem but with
inspire 2 fitbit has actually heard the people out there and they made the first yearly subscription
absolutely free! so technically it's a gift of 80 pounds or 80 bucks not bad so you're paying 89
pounds you get 80 pounds for the subscription technically for the first year of ownership
this tracker costs you only 10 quid. we're not going to talk about much later after that because
after that yearly subscription is finished and you have used all those lovely benefits
of the premium subscription you are still going to be paying quite a lot of money. so in summary,
let's do a recap of what is the fitbit inspire 2, what can it do well! the core functionality is it
tracks your steps, your distance, calories burned, it does 24 hour continuous heart rate monitoring,
it also tracks your sleep and there's silent alarms, there's a stopwatch, excellent! but any
tracker does that, right? you can even get a tracker for 15 quid and it will do exactly the same thing.
is there anything else here and yes there is! well what you actually get with the fitbit
inspire 2 is 20 exercise modes, they are goal based and on top of that you get to use a smart
track technology. what is smart track? well smart track technology actually does auto activity recognition
across a number of sports. basically any sport with continuous high intensity movement like tennis,
football, it can also recognize you're walking, you're running, you're biking, you're swimming
and quite a bit more. but we'll talk about it slightly later, another really cool thing with
the inspire 2 is that it is waterproof up to 50 meters, so go to the pool, go in the shower, go and
do and whatever you want to do! if it's water, it can do it! 50 meters that's quite hefty,
the fitbit inspire 2 looks quite similar to the original inspire and inspire hr but now has a
quick release band that makes it easier to switch to a new look, plus a more rounded case design. the
case is plastic, not much more to say here, it's feather light though at only 8 grams without the strap
and 20 grams with it. the screen is not scratch resistant which is a shame, knocks and bumps are
common and i would not want to wreck this pricey activity tool! the tracker face is not small
dimensions are 37.3 by 16.8 millimeters, while the thickness is 12.7 millimeters, so it does sit quite
high up on your wrist. the display is oled meaning it's bright and crisp and white! that's right it's
black and white, there are no other colors here. another let down is that the screen is minuscule!
there's at least 10 millimeters of space wasted above and below the display. in essence the screen
display to body ratio is probably less than 50 percent, thank god it's not a mobile phone!
in summary, i really do enjoy the design of this thing. it's small, the screen is small, it's not
a color display but there's just something about it. it's stylish and fitbit always gets the style
right, well maybe not always but in 90 percent of the cases, in my opinion at least. choose
from over 20 goal based exercise modes to get real-time stats during your workouts.
smartrack automatically recognizes and records your exercises. the 20 in this generation is actually
five more than in the inspire 1 and the inspire hr, the previous generations.
so what's smart track? smartrack recognizes activities with continuous movement or high
movement. these are walking, running, aerobic workouts, elliptical workouts, outdoor biking,
swimming and other high movement sports like tennis, basketball, soccer, zumba and even more.
the default setting for smartrack to kick in after 15 minutes of doing an exercise but you
can actually adjust the setting in your fitbit app. and that's quite easy to do, so you can change it
from anything from 10 minutes to 90 minutes. we all know that fitbit is quite advanced, it does offer
some functionality which is pretty cool and you won't find on just the usual or any other tracker,
and even on its most basic model it managed to add something cool! so if you own an android phone
and you have it paired to your watch you will be able to send out quick replies just from the face
of the actual fitness band. okay so we've run through all the positives and some of my rambling
but this is an honest review and we really have to touch upon the cons of owning a fitbit inspire 2.
so here goes! well the fact is there is no fitbit pay and even though fitbit pay is a
more advanced feature but really 89 quid is not free. that's quite an expensive tracker.
anyway let's talk about music downloads, so it is unlikely for you to have storage on
a fitness band to download music to, but you would at least expect to have music controls,
the inspire 2 doesn't have that! and let's just touch upon subscription, again. you see the fact is
subscription is a double-edged sword and with the inspire 2 is too. so yes first year you're getting it free,
lovely, but what about the year after that? what about the third year down the track?
so you splashed out 89 quid but you know that a year down the line you're gonna have to splash up
another 80 to get the features that you're used to. so who is this tracker for? well i think that's a
really tough question because if you are into style, you like to personalize your tracker,
then yes this tracker is for you! it's really good looking, it's really light, quick release straps
you can adjust to your fashion, you can put on leather straps, steel straps, whatever you want it's got it
all! but let's not forget that you're buying this for a purpose - fitness tracking. okay so it's got
smart track auto activity recognition, excellent, you've got 20 exercise modes, that's also good.
but there are some downfalls, there's no inbuilt gps, there's no music controls, the screen on this thing
is tiny, it's really minuscule and then of course there's no bright colors, it's just black and white!
maybe that's a good thing because in sunlight you'll be clearly able to see the screen.
but black and white? it's 2020! i'm just not so sure and another thing there's no fitbit pay.
and at this price point at 89 pounds i think that's a lot of dosh!
i think that there are other alternatives on the market and at this price point some potentially
offer a bit more value. but at the end of the day it's for you to decide if you like this, if
you're in love with the shape, the design, the functionality, go out and get it because it is
new and it does offer quite a bit of kit. by the way thank you to everybody who has
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