The best smartwatches serve as outstanding fitness companions, designed to monitor your physical activity, log your workouts, and provide valuable health and recovery insights. However, their functionality extends beyond fitness tracking. Contemporary top-tier smartwatches seamlessly link to your smartphone, delivering notifications and even allowing you to answer calls directly from your wrist. Additionally, they grant you easy access to a plethora of applications, including meditation apps, timers, weather updates, and much more.
Wearing a smartwatch can significantly enhance your commitment to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. For many individuals, these devices serve as a source of motivation, offering essential exercise metrics such as pace, time elapsed, and calories burned during workouts. Some even issue reminders to stand up and take a few steps throughout the day.
Smartwatches aren’t just for fitness enthusiasts; they’re designed to cater to a wide range of people. Whether you’re looking for a workout buddy or simply want a fashionable timepiece with some additional capabilities, investing in a smartwatch is a fantastic choice. The exciting part is that today, there is a plethora of options available, including affordable smartwatches for those who are budget-conscious.
The best smartwatches for men
- Apple Watch Series 10 (Best for iPhone Owners)
- Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 (Best for Android Owners)
- Withings ScanWatch (Best Hybrid Smartwatch)
- Garmin Vivomove Trend (Best Fitness Watch)
- Google Pixel Watch (My Favorite Smartwatch)
- Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 5 (Great Battery Life)
Apple Watch Series 10
The Apple Watch Series 10 feels like the most polished version of Apple’s wearable lineup yet. Right off the bat, the larger and brighter OLED display stands out, making it easier to read notifications, messages, and workout stats, even in direct sunlight. The thin bezels make everything feel a bit more immersive without changing the overall size of the watch, so it still feels sleek and comfortable on the wrist. Apple has also added a bit more durability, with better dust and water resistance, which is great if you’re always on the move or love the outdoors.
Performance-wise, the new S10 chip is a powerhouse, making everything run super smoothly. Apple’s added even more fitness-tracking features this time, with better heart rate monitoring, hydration tracking, and an upgraded sleep tracker. Plus, the new body temperature sensor helps track health trends over time, which can be pretty insightful, especially for monitoring sleep quality.
WatchOS 10 has been redesigned with widgets and a more intuitive layout, making it much easier to get to what you need without too much tapping around. Battery life has improved as well, so it can easily get you through the day, and the fast-charging feature is a nice touch for quick top-ups. All in all, the Series 10 feels like a solid upgrade with features that make it both functional and fun to use every day.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 7
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 brings a fresh, versatile experience to Android users, combining impressive health features with an even more refined look. The Watch 7 boasts a vibrant, always-on AMOLED display that’s as stunning indoors as it is outside, with Samsung upping the ante on visibility in bright light. The sleek design and customizable bands make it easy to switch from a sporty to a classic look, catering to all tastes and occasions. Samsung has also enhanced the durability factor here, with improved water and dust resistance and a sturdier build, so it’s ready for almost any activity you throw at it.
Under the hood, the Watch 7 is powered by an upgraded Exynos processor, making it responsive and smooth for multitasking. With Wear OS and Samsung’s unique software integrations, you get a well-rounded suite of apps and widgets for a seamless experience with Galaxy phones and other Android devices.
On the fitness front, Samsung has added advanced heart rate monitoring, improved sleep tracking, and even a new bioelectrical impedance sensor for body composition analysis, which feels like a step up for fitness enthusiasts. The battery life on the Watch 7 is reliable enough for a full day of use, and the new fast-charging option means you can juice it up quickly when needed. For Android users looking for a smartwatch that blends style, robust health insights, and all-day usability, the Galaxy Watch 7 is a fantastic choice.
Withings ScanWatch
Please take note that Withings has recently unveiled its successors, the ScanWatch 2 and ScanWatch Light. We will soon be thoroughly evaluating these new models, and we recommend holding off on purchasing the current ScanWatch.
Withings’ ScanWatch, which we highly recommend with a rating of 8/10, offers a comprehensive array of features that cater to your needs, including heart rate and sleep tracking, in addition to basic notification alerts. What sets it apart is its FDA clearance for blood-oxygen and electrocardiogram measurements. The latter can be particularly useful in detecting atrial fibrillation and irregular heartbeats, although it’s advisable to consult a healthcare professional if you have concerns about the results.
This minimalist timepiece boasts an impressive month-long battery life—an appealing feature for users. Its durability and robust build are underscored by sapphire glass covering the watch face and a stainless steel case. However, one of the ScanWatch’s notable drawbacks is its OLED subdial, which is relatively small. Reading notifications on it can be likened to viewing a news ticker in Times Square, New York. Nevertheless, it excels at quickly displaying information like the date, heart rate, and step count.
Garmin Vivomove Trend
While fitness watches are often not as stylish or user-friendly as more feature-rich smartwatches, the Vivomove Trend (rated 8/10 and recommended by WIRED) exudes an air of sophistication. Notably, this is the first Garmin device to feature wireless charging, allowing you to bid farewell to the inconvenience of using a plug-in charger for your Garmin watch.
The Vivomove Trend offers a comprehensive set of features, including wireless charging, blood oxygen level monitoring, sleep tracking, automatic activity tracking, and Garmin’s highly regarded proprietary algorithms for assessing your fitness. While its operation might seem a bit cumbersome initially, you can easily adapt, especially when considering the watch’s impressive five-day battery life. For more fitness watch recommendations, be sure to check out our comprehensive Best Fitness Watches guide.
Google Pixel Watch 2
The original Pixel Watch lacked several features upon its release, but Google gradually incorporated them over a year. Consequently, the Pixel Watch 2 now essentially includes all desired features. It boasts auto-start and auto-stop workout detection, fall detection, SpO2 measurements, and a revamped Fitbit app with an appealing design. Google has introduced Safety Check this time, enabling you to share your location with emergency contacts if you fail to respond within a specific period. The new Body Response feature can identify both positive and negative stress, offering coping methods such as guided breathing sessions.
In my opinion, it remains the most aesthetically pleasing smartwatch and is exceptionally comfortable on the wrist. It excels in health and fitness features, providing reliable heart rate and sleep-tracking data, along with an improved workout screen that displays essential information at a glance, including heart rate zones. It allows for electrocardiograms and monitors irregular heart rates. Unfortunately, the battery life is merely satisfactory, lasting about a day, and the watch is not repairable. Any issues require a replacement under the one-year warranty. Additionally, I’m not thrilled about the use of another proprietary charger different from the original Pixel Watch charger, although it does charge the smartwatch faster.
Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 5
If you happen to own an Android smartphone, I found the TicWatch Pro 5 to be quite impressive. One standout feature is its exceptional battery life, surpassing competitors such as Google, Samsung, and Apple. With typical usage, I managed to squeeze out a solid three days of battery life, and what sets the TicWatch apart is its innovative dual-display technology. When actively using the watch, you interact with an OLED screen at the bottom, but there’s also a secondary ultra-low-power display on top for times when you’re not actively engaged with the watch. This top display conveniently shows the time, step count, and even heart rate data. Additionally, it benefits from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 chipset, a newer and more efficient processor, resulting in minimal performance hiccups when operating this Wear OS 3 device.
The TicWatch Pro 5 incorporates a host of health-tracking features, including blood oxygen monitoring and sleep tracking, with results that closely align with those of the Apple Watch Series 8. Although it’s a substantial watch with a somewhat understated appearance, you can elevate its style by replacing the 24-mm straps with something more appealing. However, it’s worth noting that Google Assistant support is currently unavailable, and Mobvoi has yet to roll out Wear OS 3 updates to its previous watches, potentially resulting in a lengthy wait for this watch to receive the upcoming Wear OS 4 update.