IT Blog | Mr. HiTech Tech Blog

If you need a smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch Active 2 is it.I’ve spent a good amount of the past year switching smartwatches whenever something new comes out. That’s after mostly writing them off as unnecessary tech accessories that didn’t do enough to justify dealing with shortcomings (like battery life). But with the arrival of decent watches like the Montblanc Summit 2, Fossil Sport, and Fossil Gen 5, I’m at a place where I almost can’t live without a smartwatch on wrist at all times.You’ll notice I only mentioned Wear OS watches there and that’s because Samsung’s wearable offerings have never quite been for me. I tried the Gear S2 and couldn’t’ stand it. I tried the Galaxy Watch and found it to be no better than my favorite Wear OS watches. I really just didn’t like Samsung’s Tizen OS, rotating bezels, the lack of apps, and battery life on-par with every other smartwatch, which isn’t saying much.But then a few weeks ago I bought a Galaxy Watch Active 2 and things have changed dramatically. I absolutely love this watch. It’s close to being the only smartwatch on Android I’d tell you buy.What’s so good about the Galaxy Watch Active 2?Battery Life: This is the first time I’ve owned a smartwatch that you can put through a pretty heavy workload and have it last a full 2 days. If you need it to just get through a single day, you will never ever, ever, ever, ever worry about it dying. Trust me on this.Last weekend, I took the watch off the charger on Saturday AM and somehow didn’t have to find a charger until Monday morning. That 2 days of battery life included two 40-minute runs with GPS and heartrate monitoring active, sleep tracking, regular heartrate monitoring throughout the day, and notifications on. In fact, I limit nothing on this watch other than which notifications pop-up. Again, a couple of 40 minute runs, notifications, sleep tracking, and heartrate monitoring, and this Watch Active 2 made it through an entire 2 days. There’s no Wear OS watch on the planet that can replicate that.That particular battery charge was on the bigger 44mm Watch Active 2 (340mAh), but I’ve also worn a 40mm Watch Active 2 (247mAh) for a solid week or two and it could probably last almost as long. Both watches are superb in the battery life department.Display: The 1.35? (44mm) and 1.2? (40mm) displays on these watches look so good. They sort of bring me back to the old AMOLED days, where we talked about Samsung’s AMOLEDs bringing out ridiculously punchy colors that weren’t accurate, but that our eyes loved to look at. That’s what you get here, yet it works so good on a watch because having colors that are extra vibrant helps showcase everything you do so much better than a display that might be flat or natural looking.The displays here also get plenty bright and dark enough in all situations, react well to touches, and have viewing
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