If you are looking for the Best Smartwatches to buy in 2020, the Apple Watch Series 3 and the Fitbit Versa should be at the top of your wishlist.
The Versa is the best for those that want a complete fitness tracker with a bit of smarts built-in, while the Apple Watch is the best when it comes to Smart Features.
We give you a complete Review and Comparison of these 2 amazing smartwatches so you can understand which one suits you the best.
Contents
Apple Watch 3 vs Fitbit Versa Comparison Table 2020
|
Fitbit Versa  |
Apple Watch 3  | |
| Screen | 1.34” inch color LCD | 1.5” inch AMOLED |
| Resolution | 300 x 300 pixel | 340 x 272 pixel |
| Compatibility | Android y iOS | iOS |
| Int. Memory | 4GB | 8GB |
| Sensors | Accelerometer, Gyro, Altimeter, SpO2 sensor, Heart Rate | Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Altimeter, GPS, Heart Rate |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.0,NFC | Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, LTE optional |
| Battery | 4 Days | 18 hours |
| Price | $169.95 | $299.00 |
| Buy | Link | Link |
Apple Watch 3 vs Fitbit Versa – Pros and Cons
The Fitbit Versa is the best when it comes to Fitness Tracking abilities, but when compared with the Apple watch it lacks on the Smart features.
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On the other hand, its one of the best high-end fitness trackers that also provides cool smart features such as NFC payments, Female health tracking, and Fitbit coach.
It also has a better battery life than the Apple Watch and works both with iPhone and Android.
Pros +
- Complete Fitness Tracker.
- 4-day battery life.
- On-screen workouts.
- Customizable watch faces.
- Women’s health tracker.
- Compatible with IOS and Android.
Cons –
- Doesn’t have a built-in GPS.
- Limited apps to choose from.
- No replies on iPhone
The Apple Watch 3 is one of the best smartwatches in 2019, due in part to the incredible app ecosystem that has years of development with the Apple quality support.
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It’s really customizable, you can simplify your activities to just a few notifications on the watch or run wild with on-screen games, streaming music, direct phone calls, and much more.
Pros +
- On of the best smartwatches in 2019.
- Great App ecosystem.
- Able to make calls from your watch.
- Built-in GPS.
- A big variety of workouts options.
- Native Apple Music streaming.
- Siri support.
Cons –
- Poor battery life.
- A bit more expensive.
- Supports Only Apple IOS
Design
The first smartwatch from Fitbit was the Ionic, and if well revolutionize the smartwatch world with a lot of fitness tracking abilities and some cool smartwatch features, the design wasn’t for everyone. So for those folks that didn’t like the Ionic design, the Versa appears to make it right and compete on the looks department with the king of smartwatches the Apple Watch Series 3
Sporting a cool aluminum case that comes in silver, rose gold, and black and with a curved and sleek body that features the same three-button and touchscreen navigation that the Ionic has. When it comes to looks is pretty similar to the Apple Watch models although they have the distinctive Digital Crown to help you get around, instead of just buttons.
Its true that they are similar in the looks department, but they feel quite different when you have it on your wrist, the Versa is lighter weighing just 30 gr. and with a 1.34-inch LCD display and a width of 38 mm is very comfortable to use, The Apple Watch 3 has a bigger display of 1.5 inches and weighs around 52.8 gr. (1.87 oz) close to double what the Versa weights, it also sports 2 different dimensions with a small model of 38 mm as well and another bigger model of 42mm.
When it comes to the display both smartwatches can deliver quality, you would find on the 2 models the same screen with 1000 nits of brightness. This is exceptionally bright, so at any time that you would like to check your stats on your watch, you will get a bright display at any type of condition even with the sunlight going right into your watch. Both panels offer great color production as well, with vibrant colors.
When it comes to responsiveness the Versa can get a bit clunky, you may need to tap twice or even 3 times to get the response something that you would not have with the Apple watch 3. Another win for the Series 3 is on the raise-to-wake feature that is excellent on the Apple watch but not so good on the Versa. These aren’t deal-breakers but on the day to day use, it can get annoying.
The next big thing is customization, and the Apple watches are known to be the ultimate standard for this, featuring additional bands and tons of third-party brand making even more bands and customizable watch faces, the Fitbit Versa is on the verge of being a fearless competitor.
Just like Apple users can style their watch with leather, metal, and sporty bands, the Clock Faces section of the Fitbit app is getting more and more faces that you can choose from, but you can’t save multiple faces onto the Versa itself something that you can do with the Series 3.
When it comes to design these 2 smartwatches are pretty much alike. On the Series 3 you would get a better build than the Versa, but on the other hand, the Versa is sleeker and lighter. So in terms of looks, there’s no clear winner for us.
Smartwatch Features
This is the area where the differences between the devices really become apparent. The Apple Watch is the most well-known smartwatch on the market. With a few years more than Fitbit on the smartwatch arena, they have way more apps available for its refined operating system, which has been through a number of updates to improve functionality. It’s taken some years to get to this point so its not going to be any day soon that Fitbit can compete when it comes to the app ecosystem that Apple has to offer.
So at the moment, the number of apps available for Fitbit OS is limited. Of course is going to be improving over time and having in mind that this is the second intent into the smartwatch world for Fitbit, (that also bought the Pebble company and has all their developers team on their side) they are going to keep improving while they are learning and understanding from the costumers points of view on how to evolve.
So if you are looking for a wide variety of apps and the best smartwatch experience the Series 3 has the real upper hand, where you would find apps for a range of activities that can go from productivity and games to shopping, all accessible from your wrist.
But Fitbit is not the biggest fitness tracking company just by luck, when it comes to other areas not so smart but more on the health and fitness arena the history is totally different. For example, the sleep patterns that Fitbit has to offer can break down how much time you spent awake and in light, deep and REM sleep. The SpO2 sensor was created with the intent of learning from your sleep disorder and detect sleep apnea.
Another big advantage from Fitbit is the female health tracking that is the most revolutionary invention on the smartwatch world, with the ability to give women information on their cycles, but just putting in log details of their menstruation, and receive personalized insights
Apple has not been improving these areas instead they are more into developing a faster tracker than the Series 2 and the newest addition of the LTE that gives you the ability to have a smartwatch that doesn’t need to carry the phone for listening to music, answering calls, receive messages and more.
When it comes to one of the most important smartwatches features both trackers can deliver, and we, of course, are talking about contactless payment, or paying directly from your wrist!. The service in the US is almost the same, you can pay connecting the smartwatch to the biggest credit and debit card companies such as Visa, American Express, and Master Card. When paying outside the US the Apple Pay has the advantage with more options for international accounts.
As you can notice when it comes to smartwatch features the Apple Watch has the upper hand, but Fitbit is doing a really good job and is improving overtime to give you the best experience possible, with features such as the Quick replies, for example, that gives you the ability to respond with five customizable responses to your notifications.
Is true that is not as powerful as the Apple watch when it comes to smart features, that will let you type out replies and generally pulls in notifications more consistently than Fitbit’s smartwatch, but is a good starting point
Another advantage that you will get on the smart department with the Series 3 is that you can use Siri for quick replies to messages, audio dictation and quick settings of timers and alarms, and that is something that you will definitely not get with the Versa.
Although the Fitbit Gallery is getting new apps and improving itself is not even close to the App Store, but they are starting a bigger thing that it will take time but is going to be there at some point.
For our money, the Apple Watch Series 3 is the on to go for the most rounded smartwatch experience – especially if your motive to buy is exercising with it. However, if you want a tracker to improve your health and fitness and delivers amazing tracking and encourage you to take things to the next level the Versa is the one to go.
Apple Watch 3 vs Fitbit Versa – Activity Tracking
On the smartwatch department the advantage of the Apple watch is clear, but when it comes to Activity or Fitness tracking the tables turn around.
Both smartwatches are big players and have all the important features to deliver a good activity tracking just like step counting, move reminders, calorie burn and round-the-clock heart rate monitoring. But when you start to look a bit deeper the differences start to be more clear.
Fitbit is well known to be the number one brand for Fitness and health tracking so the Versa has all the best of the best. Of course, you will get day and night accurate activity tracking, but you will also get the latest Fitbit OS 2.0 that will give you a quick and clear view of your stats for steps and resting heart rate.
Another great feature that the Versa can deliver is the automatic exercise tracking feature that it will start to record and track your exercises without to need of you to input any information. You will also get the amazing Fitbit Coach that will help you and advise you on how to work out and give you complete routines to follow right from your wrist!
One thing that the Apple Watch can deliver is the built-in GPS that you would not get with the Versa, you can use your phone GPS but you will need to carry your phone with you, on the Series 3 you are good to go phone free. You will get a really consistent and accurate GPS tracking on the Series 3 with no need of using any other device, and the Apple Watch’s GPS locks on within seconds making it a great companion for those days that you just wanna get up and go.
Another advantage that both smartwatches have is the ability to stream music from your wrist, that is great when working out or out for a run. You would need to add some Bluetooth headphones in both cases but you can get all your best tunes when exercising. The only difference is that the storage capability from the Versa is 4 G and the Series 3 is 8G but with the Apple Watch you can use only the Apple Music to stream your music.
Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch 3 – Battery life
The Series 3 is cool when it comes to LTE but another win for the Versa is when it comes to Battery lifespan, with more than double of juice that the Apple Watch the Fitbit Versa can go up to 4 days without the need of a charge and if you don’t use it too much it can even hold up for 5 days.
On the Apple Watch case the battery can hold up to 18 hours and with no much use up to 2 days on the best-case scenario. But when you turn on the LTE and GPS the battery can hold up to 5 hours, so its one of the weakest points when comparing with the Versa.
Price
Another area where the Versa takes the win is on price.
The standard version of the Versa that comes with all the features that we mentioned here and more (Check our full review) cost $169.95 and the special edition that comes with a woven strap instead of a silicon one, retail at $190.97. There almost no other smartwatch that can compete with this price range, and with the advanced features that come along on the Versa there is absolutely no other smartwatch that can compete on this price tag
On the other hand, the Apple Watch Series 3 (Check our full review) has a wide range of prices, that can go from $199 without LTE, $299 with LTE, and from there they go up depending on your taste on casing and straps.
So having in mind that the biggest deal with the Series 3 is the LTE and that the cost of this version is double of what you would pay from the regular Versa, there’s a clear difference. So for those looking for an advanced fitness tracker and don’t care that, much for the extra smartwatch features, LTE and the variety of apps that you can get with the Series 3, then the Versa can be definitely the one to go.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the Apple Watch is the best when it comes to being a full smartwatch in comparison with the Fitbit Versa. With the LTE version that is the most expensive one you will have a smartwatch that can work independently from a phone, but for us, the big price difference is not worth it.
For people that don’t have an iPhone or an iCloud account, the Series 3 (and any series actually) is going to be useless. Android users will find that the Versa is more convenient and even better for tracking exercises and sleep than any wearOS device, and the addition of quick replies makes the Versa a more full-featured experience for Android users.
In terms of battery lifespan, fitness tracking, and women’s health tracking, the Versa is the one to go. But for people that are Apple fanatics, or that already have an iPhone or are part of Apple’s ecosystem, the Apple Watch will offer a better experience.
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- Fitbit Ionic vs Apple Watch
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