SOLVED: A Complete Comparison of Fitness Tracking Bands Under $175

We were interested in sourcing a few fitness tracking bands for staff Christmas presents, corporate client give-aways and our personal use.  Nearly all of our staff have used some sort of tracker in the past so we had some considerable experience with them but no one had bought a new one in the last two years.  Much has changed; most notably Chinese products and lower prices.

After watching and reading a few dozen reviews we decided that to the ONLY way to make an informed decision was to create our usual product evaluation grid.

What Is The Best Fitness Tracker of 2020?

As detailed as this comparison is there are still details for you to think about.  For instance, nearly all of these trackers come with different color bands, some have super cool charging ports and some of them show the edges of their screens more than others.

Also, “best” for me is not “best” for you.  The point of this article is to provide you with all of the basic specification about these devices so you can then perform your own educated search on the two or three that fit your requirements.

Our staff are still arguing their aesthetic preferences but it is clear that the Amazfit Band 5 which has Alexa Voice Assistant is one heck of a competitor:

“…It feels like it’s pretty much a no brainer as to which budget band you should be going for…

The Amazfit has the extra SpO2 sensor and Amazon Alexa and promises a day more in battery life than the Mi Band 5. There’s doesn’t seem to be a huge reason to spend just a little less on the Mi Band, when just spending a little more will get you some pretty big features…”  SOURCE

 

How To Evaluate Fitness Trackers

We have 3 grids to show you.  Each one is has a list of features and competitors that gets reduced as you scroll down the page.

NOTE 1: You can copy/paste these fitness tracker feature comparisons into Excel if you want to manipulate them yourself

 

Manufacturer	Amazfit	Google	Google	Google	Honor	Honor	Samsung	Samsung	Samsung	Samsung	Xiaomi
Model	Band 5	Fitbit Charge 4	Fitbit Inspire 2	Fitbit Inspire HR	Band 5	Band 5i	Watch Active2	Galaxy Fit	Galaxy Fit-e	Galaxy Fit2	Mi Band 5
USD Price	$50	$170	$130	$130	$55	$45	$300	$100	$70	$131	$55
Weight	12g	30g	30g	20g	23g	24g	42g	23g	15g	21g	12g
Screen Size	1.1″	1.0″	1.4″	1.0″	.95″	.96″	1.4″	.95″	.74″	1.1″	1.1″
Color Display	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Real Life Charge	9 Days	7 Days	6 Days	4 Days	6 Days	6 Days	2 Days	7 Days	4 Days	3 Days	10 Days
Heart Rate	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ECG	No	Yes	No	No	Maybe	Maybe	Yes	No	Maybe	Maybe	No
SPO2  (Blood O2)	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Perspiration Monitor	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Accelerometer (Stairs)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Elevation Tracking	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Pace Tracking	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Sleep Tracking	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Auto Activity Detection	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Step Count	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Distance Tracking	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
GPS – Route Tracking	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Calories Burned	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Swim Stroke Count	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Womens Health Tracking	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Voice Controls	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Camera Controls	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Phone Controls	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Add on Apps	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
IP68 Water & Dust	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ATM 50 Water	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cellular	No	No	No	No	No	No	Option	No	No	No	No
NFC (Payments)	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Compass	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Replaceable Band	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Barometer	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
Apple iOS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Google Android	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Windows	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Comments	Alexa						Round

Why Include the Samsung Watch Active 2?

As you can see we did include two high end devices, the Samsung Active Watch 2 and the Google Fitbit Charge 4.

The Active Watch2 really does not fit because in addition to it being $300 it is the only fitness tracker with a round watch-like screen. We included it to give you (and us!) some sense of what the next category up in pricing would buy us and while the Watch 2 was nice it really was just too expensive for us to seriously consider.

How To Simplify The Evaluation?

To reduce clutter, we removed:

1. the Samsung Active Watch 2 because it was too expensive
2. the FitBit Charge 4 because without a color screen and the ability to control the phone, music…, it could not justify the price either
3. All of the feature rows did not provide a difference between products (ie. all of them have a step counter and work with iOS and Android)

Simplified Smart Band Fitness Tracker Evaluation Grid:

Those three simplifications got us down to this grid which was much easier to understand.

Manufacturer	Amazfit	Google	Google	Honor	Honor	Samsung	Samsung	Samsung	Xiaomi
Model – Click Link for Review	Band 5	Fitbit Inspire 2	Fitbit Inspire HR	Band 5	Band 5i	Galaxy Fit	Galaxy Fit-e	Galaxy Fit2	Mi Band 5
USD Price	$ 50	$ 130	$ 130	$ 55	$ 45	$ 100	$ 70	$ 131	$ 55
Weight	12g	30g	20g	23g	24g	23g	15g	21g	12g
Screen Size	1.1″	1.4″	1.0″	.95″	.96″	.95″	.74″	1.1″	1.1″
Color Display	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Real Life Charge	9 Days	6 Days	4 Days	6 Days	6 Days	7 Days	4 Days	3 Days	10 Days
ECG	No	No	No	Maybe	Maybe	No	Maybe	Maybe	No
SPO2 – Blood O2	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
Elevation Tracking	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Pace Tracking	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Auto Activity Detection	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Swim stroke Count	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Womens’ Health Tracking	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Voice Controls	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Camera Controls	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Add on Apps	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

From that we ruled out:

1. The FitBits because they did not have a color display
2. The Samsung Fit-2 and Fit-e because their battery life was too short
3. The Screen Size and Color Display rows because they are all about 1″ colour displays
4. The Swim Stroke Count, Pace Tracking and ECG because all of the remaining devices had the same entries

A Very Simplified Fitness Tracker Feature Comparison Grid:

All of those changes got us to this much more manageable list.

Click to expand the these product photos

Manufacturer	Amazfit	Honor	Honor	Samsung	Xiaomi
Model – Click Link for Review	Band 5	Band 5	Band 5i	Galaxy Fit	Mi Band 5
USD Price	$ 50	$ 55	$ 45	$ 100	$ 55
Weight	12g	23g	24g	23g	12g
Real Life Charge	9 Days	6 Days	6 Days	7 Days	10 Days
SPO2 – Blood O2	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Elevation Tracking	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Auto Activity Detection	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Womens Health Tracking	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Voice Controls	Yes	No	No	No	No
Camera Controls	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Add on Apps	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

What Did We Buy?

As we said at the start of this article, our staff are still banging it out but I do think we are going to give the Amazfit Band 5 a try.

We found the Band 5 online at B&H for just CDN$58 and USD$45 .  We ordered one to test and found that a B&H had put these on sale for just USD $35 so we asked them for an adjustment and without any hassle, the refunded us $10.  Good on B&H!

If you decided to buy a fitness tracking band online, do not forget to check the seller with the help of Spokeo reverse phone lookup to avoid online shopping scam.

Note that none of the companies or brands listed here have paid us, provided any products or given us any other incentives; this is an honest evaluation.