Mark Lyn­der­say

So I've been wear­ing a watch.

It's been 40 years since I last closed the strap for a time­piece around my wrist, and it isn't ex­act­ly ac­cu­rate to call this de­vice a watch.

The Sam­sung Gear Fit does tell the time, but that's on­ly where it starts as a lifestyle mon­i­tor­ing de­vice.

The Gear Fit is one of Sam­sung's sec­ond gen­er­a­tion re­lease of smart­watch­es, a cat­e­go­ry of hard­ware it en­tered last year with the Gear, a de­vice that met with a luke­warm re­cep­tion.

The chal­lenge with all wear­able tech is cre­at­ing de­vices that cus­tomers will be com­fort­able us­ing. Google's Glass tries hard to be a pair of re­al­ly nerdy spec­ta­cles, and the Gear se­ries bun­dles their ca­pa­bil­i­ties in­to the form fac­tor of a tra­di­tion­al watch.

The orig­i­nal Gear was a bit clunky, though hard­ly the least at­trac­tive piece of wrist­wear ever made, and of­fered an im­pres­sive range of func­tions.

The Gear Fit nar­rows those ca­pa­bil­i­ties even as it slims down the de­vice it­self, re­plac­ing the watch­face of the orig­i­nal Gear with a sleek curved el­lip­soid shape that hugs the wrist quite nice­ly.

It feels less like a watch than a piece of jew­el­ry, al­beit one that lights up to show you the time, the weath­er, no­ti­fi­ca­tions from your phone and a range of ex­er­cise mon­i­tor­ing and health-log­ging ca­pa­bil­i­ties.