That said, if these limitations don’t matter to you, the SE 3 is an excellent choice, especially with current promotions making it $50 less than the Series 11’s discounted price.
The Best Smartwatch for Android Owners
The Google Pixel Watch 4 is the best smartwatch for Android users. As the first repairable smartwatch from Google, you can swap out the battery and the gorgeous, domed display if necessary, using parts from iFixit. The wellness features—including heart-rate tracking, blood oxygen sensing, and the revamped sleep tracking—are accurate and highly reliable. With the cellular version, there’s even support for satellite messaging during emergencies. According to editor Julian Chokkattu, the best new feature is the Raise to Talk with Gemini. There are also a few features exclusive to Pixel phones, like AI-powered smart replies and call screening. The battery performance is great, lasting around a day and a half, and with quick charging, you can easily gain over 50 percent power in just 15 minutes.
The Best Smartwatch for Samsung Loyalists
The Galaxy Watch 8 stands out as the best choice for Samsung owners. Its distinctive “squircle” design makes for a big, bright display that strikes an aesthetic balance between Apple’s square and Google’s round designs. It shines in health and fitness tracking, including dependable heart rate monitoring, solid sleep tracking with sleep apnea notifications, and accurate automatic workout detection. New features, like the Antioxidant Index and Vascular Load, are intriguing but somewhat dubious. Plus, there’s dual-frequency GPS for accurate mapping and access to the Gemini assistant.
A Discounted Smartwatch for Outdoor Activities
If you love running or hiking in the great outdoors, this is the fitness tracker for you. It has a super-long battery life, bright mapping, and the navigation tools you need to be phone-free while exercising outdoors. This model is ideal for athletes because you also get support for nearly every sport, most notably Garmin's proprietary off-grid maps, which include SkiView for ski resorts and golf course maps. There are leak-proof buttons and useful extras like a built-in flashlight, speaker, and microphone for hands-free use with voice commands. This model even serves as a mini guide with dynamic routing—you just need to enter how far you want to run or walk, and the watch creates a route that gets you back to your starting point on time. —Molly Higgins
A Discounted Fitness Tracker for Beginners
Even after all our testing, we still think the Fitbit Charge 6 is one of the best entry-level fitness trackers because it offers basic health-tracking features without overwhelming a newbie with data. Its heart rate tracking works as well as more expensive models, and it can even connect to compatible gym equipment like Peloton bikes and NordicTrack treadmills. Although it's a few years old, it's still a solid option if you want a tracker with a screen, built-in GPS, and basic health data. —Molly Higgins
A Fitness Tracker That Looks Like a Classic Watch
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