There is a large segment of people in India who want to invest in a good fitness tracking accessory without having to buy a smartwatch.
Companies like Amazefit and Goqii have tried to offer fitness tracking smartwatches in the budget segment while the under Rs 20,000 category still remains untapped.
The Fitbit Versa has been in the market for a while now and has set a benchmark as a good fitness tracker with added smartwatch features. However, premium watch maker Fossil has recently dived into smartwatches and is offering the Fossil Sport for under Rs 20,000.
We tested out both of these to find out which of the two offers more utility and is a better bet under Rs 20,000.
Design & Display
The Fitbit Versa offers a square design and comes with three colour options although silver and black seem to be the pick of most customers. The finishing on the strap is premium and overall ergonomics deliver a very sporty look to the smartwatch.
The haptic feedback from the touchscreen is also responsive though the screen after a few swipes transforms into a canvas for fingerprints and smudges.
The Fossil Sport on the other hand offers a round watch face. The polished aluminium finish on the watch adds a bit of a premium look to it. The silicon straps hold the watch well on the wrist.
The 1.19-inch AMOLED display is vibrant and performs well even under harsh lighting conditions. I would recommend you be extra careful with this watch.
A hard bump on the edge of a door handle left me with a tiny scratch on the tempered glass. A harder knock could bring you a lot of damage.
I would give bonus points to the Versa just because it looks more premium.
User Interface & Performance
The Fitbit Versa offers a bevy of choices for fitness tracking activities.
It comes loaded with various exercise modes that can be customised according to the user’s preferences.
One also gets coaching tips via a separate app in the watch and it comes with in-built memory to store music if required. The activity tracking feature is automatically activated once the watch picks up any exercise.
The Fitbit ecosystem is vast which is where you get your money’s worth. The fact that it lets you interact with friends and compete with them to achieve goals is another form of motivation one can look forward to.
The Fossil Sport connects via Android’s Wear OS which brings forth some of Google’s fitness tracking features. It offers fitness tracking for almost all the sports. Yes, almost all of them.
I struggled with some of the fitness tracking options as it was tough to activate some of them. The biggest problem while using some of the fitness tracking features is that you have to manually activate each activity. It’s not automatic.
The buttons on the sides do ease the whole process of interacting with the interface. However, many can get lost trying to navigate this watch.
It offers multiple watch faces and you can even use images from your phone as a background image on the watch. You get all the notifications and can even reply to WhatsApp messages using the phones’s keyboard and even voice typing.
The Fossil Sport has an on-board microphone in case you want to use Google Assistant. It’s water-resistant up to 50 metres and also comes bundled with NFC. Not that you’ll be able to use the NFC payments feature here in India anytime soon.
Battery Life
The Fossil Sport offers only a day’s charge and you’ll have to constantly go home and charge it if you want it to be ready for the next day.
I wasn’t able to use the sleep tracking feature of the watch because if I slept wearing it, the watch would be fully discharged by morning and it takes its own sweet time to charge via the magnetic clip-on charger.
You’ll have to carry the charger with you as the Fossil Sport barely lasts 12 hours.
The Fitbit Versa has a big advantage in the battery department as it offers battery life up to 5 days on a single charge. Yes, it does not offer as much utility as the Fossil offers, but then again you won’t have to worry about the Versa running out of battery juice anytime soon.
I noticed that the Versa charged faster than the Fossil Sport. So, more points to Versa.
Which One to Buy?
The Fossil Sport comes at a starting price of Rs 18,000 while the Fitbit Versa can be purchased online starting at Rs 16,000.
If you ask me “which is the better smartwatch?”, no doubt it is the Fossil Sport. Where it falls short is the battery life and if you can live with that then the Sport should be your ideal choice.
Folks seriously into fitness and want a serious fitness tracker with a few smartwatch utilities and basic notification features can buy the Fitbit Versa. It offers a very diverse ecosystem and is a perfect companion for the "longer run".
The Versa isn’t as loaded as the Fossil, but it sure does make up for it with an attractive design and the extra battery juice.
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