The 16 Best Fitness Watches, Tested by Men's Health

If you’re after an adventure-ready smartwatch with excellent fitness smarts, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 blends the superior day-to-day use of an Apple Watch with rugged specs of the most expensive Garmin and Suunto watches.

With its longer battery life (versus the Series 9), more rugged design, boosted durability, and top-performing GPS and heart rate, it’s built to handle everything from regular gym sessions to more adventurous outdoor pursuits like trail running, diving and hiking.

This is the biggest Apple smartwatch. The 49mm case is significantly larger than the Apple Watch Series 9 but despite that bulkier frame, it’s still comfortable to wear 24-7. Helped by the big selection of interchangeable straps. The large frame houses a stunning, bright, super responsive pin-sharp screen that brings all your workout metrics to life and is easy to read in all lights. It’s also waterproof to 100m.

On battery life, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 doesn’t pack the staying power of the top-end dedicated sports watches like the Garmin Fenix or COROS Vertix 2 – those beasts run for days. But in our tests we got 20 hours GPS workout time in the highest accuracy mode, stretching to 45 hours in the lowest power/accuracy mode. That’s the best you’ll find and beats the rival smartwatches.

The GPS accuracy is also excellent and the optical heart rate is solid, feeding good information into a growing range of fitness insights. Apple recently added new Training Load tracking that lets you subjectively assess how hard you’ve worked, plus VO2 Max estimates and handy trends charts for running pace, exercise minutes, standing minutes, and your daily distance covered. Though you’re still not getting Garmin-level workout and fitness features.

Beyond fitness tracking, it’s also a powerful tool for daily life. With calls and messages, offline music and effortless contactless payments, there’s no disputing its practical superiority.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

The Apple Watch Series 8 was all about advanced health monitoring and tracking everything from steps to blood oxygen levels, but the Series 9 takes things a step further, making it, as Apple describes, ‘magical’.

Why? Well, the Series 9 features a brand-new double tap function that allows you to control certain aspects of your watch in an instant. By raising your wrist and touching your fingers together, you can answer calls, view your most used widgets on the watch face, and start and stop music.

The watch itself is comfortable and lightweight, making it the perfect choice for both in and out of the gym. Apple has also made the straps using mainly recycled materials.

While there’s been no improvements in the battery life (18 hours and 36 hours on low power mode) since the Series 8, when you consider the brighter display, the new ECG feature, and the consistent heart rate and activity readings, it's difficult to argue this isn’t a top-tier smartwatch.

Review by: Priyankaa Joshi

The Apple Watch is off limits for Samsung and Android phone users. If that’s you, your best bet for a fitness-focussed smartwatch is the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra. Samsung’s tracker takes everything from the last-gen Galaxy Watch and boosts it. Better staying power, brighter screen, more features and bigger build. It’s also packed with clever health and fitness features and adventure tools.

There’s a no-nonsense heft to the robust, military-grade design that’s a bit bulky for daintier wrists. The 47mm watch face has a well-built titanium exterior and a punchy, responsive (unless it’s wet) sapphire glass display. It’s also pumped up to 3,000 nits – that’s bright enough to rival the Apple Watch and great for mid-workout metric monitoring.

There’s a few other nods to Apple’s tracker here, most notably a handy action button for quick-starting workout tracking. There’s also automatic workout detection in case you forget and other new smarts include an Energy Score (a bit like Garmin’s Body Battery), body composition estimates and sleep apnea detection.

Samsung also added accuracy-boosting all-systems dual frequency GPS and a new 3-in-1 BioActive Sensor for measuring resting, daily and workout heart rate data, ECG capability (Samsung only) and powering the body composition analysis. In testing, the heart rate accuracy was generally good up against a Polar H10 chest strap. The body fat percentage reads we’ll take with a big pinch of electrolytes.

The battery life is also hit and miss. The GPS workout time was pretty solid. I ran 100 mile ultra using standard power settings and it lasted for 14 hours of the 22 hour run. The Apple Watch Ultra lasted 16 hours and my Garmin Enduro 2 still has 47% left three days later. But the general battery life was not only short but also incredibly unpredictable. Sometimes torching as much as 50% while I slept, often struggling to last more than 24 hours and taking a long time to charge.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

Featuring Fitbit’s top-quality health-tracking tech, the improved second-gen Google Pixel Watch 2 offers all the fitness and recovery insights you need to train smarter and stay healthy. That includes activity tracking, continuous heart rate monitoring, stress-level insights, sedentary alerts and ECGs. Plus a decent range of workout modes, spanning everything from circuits to swimming.

Its sleeker, more compact, more subtle and much less sporty than the rugged Ultra smartwatches. The lightweight, recycled aluminium body didn’t get in the way when lifting weights, stayed firmly fixed during bouncy HIIT sessions, and didn’t chafe when things got sweaty. It felt comfy to sleep with and looked good whether in the gym or at the office.

The always-on AMOLED display is also bright and snappy – easy to read mid-workout and the touchscreen-crown-button combined controls make it easy to roll through your vitals even when things get sweaty.

Other health insights include ECG readings, irregular heart rate alerts, sleep tracking and blood-oxygen measurements. There’s also a new continuous electrodermal activity (CEDA) sensor that aims to detect signs of stress when you’re awake.

Workout heart rate accuracy was good and despite the lack of dual frequency GPS, in tests we found the Pixel Watch 2 fast to get a satellite fix and nicely reliable for running, cycling and hiking compared to rival watches.

The 24-hour battery life is limited compared to regular fitness watches from Garmin, COROS and Suunto and Co. You’ll find yourself charging the Pixel 2 daily. Though the rapid charge – 12 hours of usage from 30 minutes on the plug – helps reduce the battery anxiety.

Speaking of anxiety, if your fitness pursuits get you pushing limits in extreme conditions far off grid, the new Safety Check is ace. It lets you set a timer and if you haven’t responded when it runs out, the watch automatically shares your real-time location with a chosen emergency contact. Though it’s only free for Fitbit Premium customers.

Fitness tracking aside, the Pixel is also a fully-fledged smartwatch, with all the features you’d expect from a Google design – Gmail integration, Google Calendar, Google Wallet, Google Maps for step-by-step directions and Google Assistant for sending messages and voice queries.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

For the price, Amazfit’s Apple-esque cut-price tracker mashes up an impressive array of fitness tracking, wellness tools and smartwatch skills. As a smartwatch it’s no match for Apple, Google or Samsung, and its fitness tools aren’t as comprehensive or well delivered as you’ll get on a Garmin, Polar or COROS. But you get a lot here for what you pay.

That includes all your mid-workout metrics for 120 different sports, plus the usual post-session training effect and training load readouts, VO2 Max estimates, and recovery time recommendations.

The Active is light and compact and really easy to wear 24-7 and despite using less premium materials than pricier smartwatches, it avoids feeling cheap and plastic. Much of that is down to the 1.75-inch HD AMOLED touchscreen that punches well above the price tag. It’s easy to read and nicely responsive.

Tracking smarts include all-systems GPS and the usual heart rate monitoring. Sadly in my tests, the GPS accuracy wasn’t great. It consistently underclocked my distances by more than the usual margin for error. The heart rate tracking was also hit and miss with lots of rogue heart rate spikes when you shift gears during stop-go interval sessions.

However, battery life is strong. I easily got 11 days usage with 7.5 hours GPS training time thrown in. While the average one-hour run with GPS tracking burned less than 8-10%. That’s not far off the Apple Watch Ultra 2.

There’s music controls for linked smartphones plus storage for phone-free playback with room for more than 30,000 songs. You can also make calls via Bluetooth and get all your app notifications.

When you consider what you’re paying, this is a competent fitness-tracking smartwatch that packs plenty of value. Even if the partner app and software lack the finesse of some rivals.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

The Garmin Epix 2 Pro is a rugged all-rounder that combines a robust, adventure-proof design with the best fitness and sports tracking features that Garmin has to offer with a smartwatch-esque, stunningly bright, AMOLED display.

This multi-sport tracking powerhouse offers a range of training, fitness, recovery, stress and sleep tools is about as comprehensive as it gets. It matches what you’ll find on a Fenix or a Forerunner. With advanced training metrics, recovery insights, HRV, sleep and daily stress tracking plus mapping, navigation and safety tools, whether you’re fast asleep, smashing out Hyrox runs or scaling peaks, the Epix 2 Pro keeps tabs and serves up insights to help you be at your best.

Running, swimming, cycling and golf are all covered, along with tailored modes for gym-workouts like strength training, HIIT and elliptical training plus AMRAP, EMOM, Tabata or custom workouts. If you need guidance, there are animated cardio, strength, yoga and Pilates workouts. Runners can tap into daily suggested workouts, run-coaching plans for 5km to the marathon.

It comes in three sizes, 42mm, 47mm and 51mm. It’s another hefty chunk on the wrist and not the most comfortable to wear through the night to unblock the 24-7 data but it’s well built and the nylon strap boosts the comfort.

In our tests, GPS and heart rate accuracy were solid. Battery life came up shorter than you’ll get on a Fenix or the Enduro 2, but that’s the sacrifice you’re making for that stunning screen. The built-in flashlight is also a touch.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

The Huawei FIT 3 is an affordable smartwatch with Apple Watch looks and a decent combination of fitness and smartwatch skills. It packs a vast array of workout features including more than 100 workout modes and offers detailed insights and feedback on your workouts plus personalised coaching on everything from nutrition to sleep.

All the usual activity tracking is covered, with steps, calories and motivation rings to close. There’s also handy auto workout detection for six types of exercises including running and walking and guided fitness animations to walk you through warm up routines and seven different workouts.

The 1.82-inch AMOLED touchscreen is excellent for a watch at this price: bright, sharp and responsive. It’s also among the most comfortable trackers to wear 24-7 thanks to a 26g watch body that’s only 9.9mm at its thickest point.

On paper, the FIT 3 battery life offers up to 10 days in typical usage and 7 days in heavy usage. While in testing – with daily training of an hour or so – that dropped short of a week. However, this tracker still goes longer than all the rival smartwatches.

When it comes to tracking accuracy, you don’t get dual frequency GPS but it performed well enough up against much pricier dedicated running watches. The heart rate was solid in steady workouts, though it sometimes struggled with higher intensity drills and shifts of gear. But that’s optical heart rate for you.

There are some other touches you might not expect at this price, including a built-in speaker and mic so you can take calls when paired to your phone and play music from the watch without headphones – though don’t expect killer sound.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

This timepiece does way more than just logging workouts, although it impressed in that department, too. It tracks 41 activities and shows detailed in-workout stats on its crystal-clear screen, including heart rate zones.

Beyond classic Fitbit health monitoring – blood oxygen, heart rate viability and breathing rate – the Sense 2 has a continuous EDA sensor that sends notifications to alert you when your body is under stress and mindfulness sessions to help you relax. We rated the extensive sleep data via the Fitbit app and liked the ‘daily readiness score‘, which tells you when to go hard and when a rest day is in order.

This watch is let down by its lack of third-party apps, music playback and a voice assistant, but it does offer six days of battery life and has a fast-charging feature. If you’re in the market for a holistic tracker to monitor your health and wellbeing and you’re not bothered about the lack of smart features, this is your guy.

Review by: Priyankaa Joshi

Not your typical rugged Garmin, the Vivomove Trend combines smartwatch functionality with a traditional analogue design. Just flick your wrist to access notifications and view fitness stats, including heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep and stress levels (there’s also plenty more on the Garmin Connect app, from hydration to respiration tracking).

It’s the first Garmin to support wireless charging – no need to rummage around finding the right adaptor – and a quick 15-minute charge will give you up to 24 hours of battery.

If you’re after a discreet watch you can wear from the office to the gym, it’s a top choice. The touchscreen was tricky to navigate with sweaty hands and we missed third-party app integration, but these are minor quibbles. It scored top marks for step count and distance accuracy in our tests.

Review by: Priyankaa Joshi

Let’s face it, lots of fitness watches fall short in the style stakes. The Polar Ignite 3 bucks that trend with a sleek, slick design that sets it apart. It fits right in when you swap your workout gear for civvies.

Polar flags the Ignite 3 as a ‘fitness and wellness’ watch and its features are definitely geared more to casual training and building good fitness habits than your really serious gym goers. But there’s a happy simplicity to the activity tracking, workout feedback, recovery and sleep insights and the workout recommendations.

It covers all the basics like heart rate zone training and training load insights. There’s also FitSpark workout recommendations and voice guidance for recommended coached training sessions. We loved the handy work-rest guide for spotting when it’s time to do the next set.

At 35g, it’s light, compact and comfortable. Easy to keep on beyond your workouts to unlock the impressive array of 24-7 sleep, wellness and recovery tracking insights.

That includes Polar’s Sleepwise tracking with recommendations on your best times to hit the hay and Nightly Recharge recovery tool that rates the effectiveness of your overnight rest. Plus, you get Polar’s new nightly skin temperature tracking – a useful tool for spotting incoming illness.

When it comes to workout tracking and accuracy, the Polar Ignite offers dual frequency GPS. However, in our tests it failed to deliver the hoped-for accuracy boost. In short: the Ignite 3 struggles with distance and real time pace accuracy.

On the flip side, heart rate accuracy is okay for optical and the battery life is solid with 30 hours GPS training time extending up to 100 hours in low power modes. We didn’t quite get a full week’s training on a single charge but there’s more than enough juice to cover things like marathon-distance runs.

This isn’t as capable as a Polar Vantage V3 or Polar Grit X Pro but for general fitness it offers pretty solid value for money. Oh and there’s a pricier titanium option with a stronger, fancier frame but beyond the materials, performance is the same.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

If you wince at the idea of paying £800 for a premium running watch, but you still want a training tool that does more than just the basics, the Garmin Forerunner 265 delivers. It’s a Goldilocks, sweet-spot fitness tool pairing a comprehensive suite of tracking and features with a beautiful AMOLED display, an ok battery life and a relatively compact build. And though it’s got runner in the name, it’s capabilities extend far beyond the plod.

The best part about the Forerunner 265: its library of features. There’s a wide range of workout modes – everything for open water swimming to HIIT. You can download and follow animated workouts for HIIT and strength. Strength training mode attempts to automatically count reps and sets. It’s not perfect but with a little input, makes logging gym sessions easier.

Beyond that there are very detailed performance and health insights. You get everything from mid-run performance condition estimates, to post-workout training effect, training readiness and VO2 Max fitness estimates. It’s easy to keep tabs on the impact of your sessions and the daily grind, too with heart rate variability (HRV), recovery and stress, Body Battery energy levels and sleep tracking.

GPS accuracy is excellent – about as reliable as it gets – while the optical heart rate accuracy was solid, too. Not infallible, sometimes it seemed a bit slower to adjust in real time versus a chest strap, but show us an optical sensor that doesn’t.

Throw in some smartwatch features like music and contactless payments and you’ve got a really good all-rounder with enough to suit most.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

The run-focussed Polar Pacer Pro packs many of the features you’ll find on the pricier Polar Vantage V and Grit watches but cuts the price by sticking to a basic design. The style is a tad dated but if you’re happy to trade premium materials for simpler old-school looks, there’s plenty here for running and general fitness for under £300.

That includes a pretty comprehensive suite of running, training, racing, sleep and recovery features. Polar’s running performance, walking and fitness tests are great for benchmarking your progress while VO2 Max estimates and a running index score lets you see how you compare to other runners. Runners also get tools like race time predictor, running power on the wrist while Polar’s Training Load Pro and cardio load monitoring tools offer useful training guidance. Sadly, Polar’s impressive Recovery Pro tools are missing.

When it comes to accuracy, the Assisted GPS all-systems satellite support was nicely reliable in our tests with super-fast GPS link-up. The heart rate was a bit more hit and miss but you can easily pair in a chest strap to improve your data.

With 35 hours of full GPS run time – extendable up to 100 hours in low-power modes – the battery life is very competitive. In testing it came up a bit shorter than thar but it’s still good.

There’s sadly no touchscreen but the button controls are easy to use and nicely responsive. The display isn’t anywhere near as sharp and vibrant as the killer AMOLED displays hitting the newer watches but it’s noticeably brighter than the cheaper Polar Pacer.

The built-in barometric altimeter, turn-by-turn routes powered by Komoot, route elevation profiles, automatic climb detection and back to start navigation are all bonuses at this price. So while the Pace Pro might lack the training insights and mapping and full navigation smarts of pricier rivals, the core fitness tracking is solid at a competitive price. This is a solid running watch for under £300.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

The COROS Pace 3 is a highly capable runner-focussed fitness watch that offers excellent bang for buck. It packs a big battery life, All Systems Dual Frequency GPS and a wide selection of sports modes – including a new trail running mode.

The Pace 3 is about function rather than flare. There’s no fancy AMOLED screen and the always-on touchscreen is no match for the brightest and sharpest displays but it’s perfectly legible in most light. It’s a bit plastic but that’s what keeps it impressively light at just 30g. The nylon strap isn’t as soft as some but I was happy wearing this day and night and for all my sessions from strength to swimming.

The COROS Pace 3 training, performance and recovery features are quite comprehensive with EvoLab training, recovery and fitness insights plus sleep and activity tracking. You also get an SPO2 Pulse Ox sensor for keeping tabs on your blood oxygen levels, Barometric Altimeter and improved navigation tools with route planning, turn-by turn navigation and breadcrumb navigation, plus a handy Back to Start wayfinder.

The killer app though is COROS’ trademark long battery life. In tests, we got around 9 days use on a single charge with 15.5 hours GPS training using a combination of Standard and Dual Frequency GPS. That included burning 8% from 2.5 hours in Standard GPS while 1 hour in Dual Frequency burned 4%.

The GPS performance was less impressive. Accuracy in Standard GPS mode was a bit hit and miss, with a tendency to read long. It was much better in Dual Frequency Mode and I found it often matched the much much pricier Garmin Enduro 2 and the COROS Vertix 2 Dual Frequency. Though you’ll sacrifice some battery life to use the more accurate setting.

On heart rate accuracy, the Pace 3’s optical sensor regularly struggled for the first 10 minutes of my workouts with a lot of high spikes early on. It was prone to spiking mid-session as well and often failed to follow drops in intensity when I stopped.

There’s not much here by way of smartwatch smarts. You get simple notifications, 4GB of MP4 music storage and playback (but no Spotify or Deezer support) plus some limited watch face customisation. But there’s no contactless payments.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

The Suunto Race joins the growing army of fitness watches packing those big smartwatch-style AMOLED displays. But this one comes in bigger – and crucially cheaper – than many of the AMOLED rivals.

The Race heroes in running but with 95 customisable sport modes, a full suite of advanced training metrics and a whopping 40-hour max accuracy battery, it’s not just a run tracker.

When it comes to general fitness insights, Suunto serves up pretty standard fare — all your usual mid-workout metrics plus training load, training progress and recovery advice. There’s also AI coaching advice, race pacing tools, HRV monitoring, sleep and activity tracking.

At 83g, it’s built more like a chunkier Garmin Fenix, Coros Vertix 2 and the Polar Grit X2 Pro. Though, if you want a similar set of skills just in a more compact design, you could look at the 45mm Suunto Race S.

The battery life is competitive for an AMOLED offering 40-120 hours. In my tests, a one-hour run using the highest accuracy GPS mode burned an average of 3%. That’s pretty stingy. Tracking your vitals overnight eats just 2% even with the battery-thirsty blood oxygen sensor on.

The accuracy-boosting all-systems, dual frequency GPS gets a big thumbs up, too. In my tests, in max accuracy mode, the dual band accuracy was at least on par with the Polar Vantage V3 and the Garmin FR965. No complaints here.

I was less convinced by the optical heart rate. Up against the Polar H10 chest strap on slow, steady workouts, the Suunto Race had a tendency to lag and lurch and during pace-changing interval sessions and runs where I shifted gears more, it suffered from delay. Basically, where optical sensors can struggle, it did.

Despite that, there’s a lot of watch here for under £400. Even if you opt for the pricier – and lighter – Titanium model, the Race is still significantly cheaper than the Garmin Forerunner 965 and the Polar Vantage V3. And keep an eye on that price. If it drops any lower in 9 months time, the Suunto Race will hit big bargain territory.

Reviewed by: Kieran Alger

This Apple-esque Amazfit design gives pricier models a run for their money. The touchscreen is bright and responsive, it has built-in GPS, a mega two-week battery life and it supports music playback.

Fitness-wise, you get 60 workout modes with comprehensive post-workout summaries, plus deeper health insights via the user-friendly Zepp app. There’s sleep and stress monitoring, third-party integration with apps such as Apple Health and Strava, and smart functions including email notifications, to-do lists and alarms.

Thanks to its petite size and flexible strap, this watch didn’t get in the way during exercise or sleep. Sure, the design could be more robust and the pre-set heart rate zones needed adjusting, but for under £70, it’s a reliable buy.

Review by: Priyankaa Joshi

With five predecessors, Fitbit certainly knows a thing or two about activity trackers – and with a load of new features, the Charge 6 is a step up from the 5.

Aesthetics-wise, it looks pretty much the same; however, the Charge 6 boasts a haptic button on the side, meaning you don’t need to rely solely on touchscreen for navigation – useful after those extra sweaty sessions. The waterproof feature also comes into play here, as well as in the pool. Did we mention it tracks up to 40 different sport modes, compared to the six on the previous model?

It claims to have the most accurate heart rate monitor yet, which you can connect to treadmills, rowers and bikes via Bluetooth for extra visibility. As well as heart rate, it can flag any irregular heart rhythms with an ECG monitor, and there are electoral dermal activity (EDA) sensors that measure stress levels, plus personalised sleep data to help with stress management.

No pockets for your phone? Worry not, thanks to another new software feature – simply link up your Google account to use Google Pay and Maps on the go. This is great if you already have a Google account but will take some extra setting up if not. It’s also compatible with YouTube music to keep your tunes pumping day-to-day (well, across a seven-day battery life period, at least).

Review by: Priyankaa Joshi