Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 vs. Garmin Vivoactive 4 - Which GPS smartwatch is right for you? By Donavon Hornbeck

With one on everyone, my name is Donovan, and today I want to compare up to watches that have been using over the last two weeks, just kind of give you my thoughts on which watch might be the better watch for you and also let you know which one in the end is the one that I prefer out of these two watches and hopefully that'll also help you make a decision if you're choosing between the Samsung Galaxy watch act of 2 and the Garmin bioactive 4 now before I get into the Kitty Gritty of this video. Let me give a quick shout out to our sponsor for this video, the folks over at play better calm, which I'll leave down in the description. So you can pick up, watches like this Garmin bioactive, 4 and other fitness golf cycling and outdoor equipment from their website and also their Amazon store as well, which I'll link down in the video description. So that being said, let's go ahead and just kind of jump right into it and let's first talk. First off talk about the price of these two watches. So in the versions you see here, I have the Garmin bioactive 4 in the larger version, so there's bioactive, 4 and the 4s, so I'll go ahead and show you the fluorescence I, have it sitting here.

This is just a smaller version of the exact same watch. Basically, the only difference is a smaller display and a smaller battery on the smaller version of the watch. That's really the only difference both of those are at 349 dollars when it comes to the Samsung you're, looking at anywhere from $279 for the smaller version, which is 40 millimeters. This is the 44 millimeter version and this one's $300 or $299 and there's also an LTE version which of course, has LTE available, but then also has a stainless steel bezel instead of aluminum and that one's 450 dollars. So in terms of price, we know for just comparing these two watches: 299 versus $349.

Definitely the Samsung takes the win. If price is the only factor that you're considering so that being said, I want to go ahead and tell you why I like the Garmin bioactive 4 more than the Samsung, and then we'll, I'll tell you why I like the Samsung more than the Garmin bioactive 4. So let me give you three reasons why I like the Garmin bioactive 4 number one is the battery life. So in terms of battery life, there's no question. This one definitely gets better your life than the Samsung Galaxy watch active ? in a typical usage, which means I'm listening to music, while I'm running and also using GPS, and then, of course, getting notifications throughout my day and then checking the watch just to see what time it is throughout the day, this one's giving me about two, possibly three days of battery life.

Now, if you look at the Box, they actually claim what is it eight days on Smartwatch mode? Now, that's if you're, not using GPS and not using music. So, just as a heads-up there, but typical usage you're going to get about two to three days of usage on the Garmin bioactive force, so heavy usage, meaning you're running a lot and listening to music a lot you can get through two days, but you know more typical, moderate running so about four to five miles from me or thirty to forty-five minutes, then I'm getting about three full days of battery out of the bioactive four, whereas with the Samsung active two you know this is a pretty typical day. But if you look at the know, watch status I'm, currently at thirty-three percent. So that's a pretty typical day to end with thirty-three percent. Now one advantage that this can wirelessly charge.

That's nice! You can use if you have a wireless charger like you know this one right here. You can just set it right down. It's gonna charge up! So that's nice, but your pretty much doing it every single day. So that's the negative part of the Samsung Galaxy watch active -. Now it does have some battery saving features, but of course, you're going to lose some Smartwatch features that you get when you use those battery saving modes.

But there's no question for me that all these ?, this one is the better when it comes to battery life. So the next thing I want to talk about is the fitness tracking and that's another area where I think the Garmin bioactive 4 takes the win, so I actually did a video where it can pair up these two when it comes to the GPS and the heart rate and the Garmin bioactive 4 in the Samsung really pretty much we're on par with each other. Once the update came with the Samsung, so basically no difference in terms of the GPS accuracy. However, you're going to burn through the battery a lot faster at this one. So if you're running a marathon forget about the Samsung active ?, because there's a good chance, it won't even last through the whole race, whereas without with the Garmin bioactive 4 you'll definitely be able to make it through an entire race using the GPS and listening music.

Definitely not over here, alright. So that said, why do I like the Garmin bioactive for more when it comes to fitness tracking? So the heart rate sensor is another thing and actually the heart rate sensors on these two are really pretty much I would say on par with each other. The difference is just Samsung is just a little less reliable and what I mean by that is like on a typical run for the first couple of minutes. It kind of is a little spotty, then, all of a sudden, it's pretty much dead on with my Garmin for the rest of the run. So if I go on a 40-minute run for the first two minutes, it's a little off and then all of a sudden, it's dead on, and they're only within one or two beats of each other throughout the rest of the run.

So that's really fantastic, but you know it's a little more spotty over here with the active two. So that makes me feel like this one's a lot more reliable, I've used a lot of Garmin watches the heart rate. Sensors are always very reliable. You know even compared to like a chest rate monitor, and so that's why no question here with a with the fitness tracking I, definitely prefer the Garmin. Now you can see that both of them have a ton of different options here, so I can go in the fitness tracking.

You can see that the Garmin has it I think they say 20 different activities that you can track here and really there's more than that, because if you go into government IQ, there's even more that you can track, but then over here on the Samsung we'll go ahead and go into a workout. You can see that this one actually tracks a little more, so actually use the touch puzzle. Here you can see that we have plenty of things that we can track here again. Some of these other ones they're just not as reliable, but definitely you know for me as a runner. There's no question that running is accurate.

You know very talked about the heart rate and the GPS, but if I go down here, you can see that if we go I'm going to go all the way down to the bottom. We're going to go into more workouts, and you can see they actually have like individual workouts that you can track using the VIVO rack. Sorry, not the view active three, the active two here, and so that's really cool but again for me personally, as a runner, the bioactive four is the more reliable the two now, the third area, where the Garmin bioactive four wins between these two watches. For me, this one's going to be probably a little weird, because I know this is not going to be true for everyone, but I love listening to Podcast line running. So let me go ahead and just show you real quick down here.

You can see. I can add music and podcasts to Spotify. So this course is only going to be applied to people that use Spotify. This can also use Amazon, music and there's one other thing that can use Die's or music and I. Think there's actually a couple.

Other options I use Spotify personally, so I'm not really going to talk about those other ones, but this one can use podcasts on Spotify, which is really cool if I come over here on the Samsung you'll see that basically it spots the playlists. Of course, I can listen to my playlists. I can download playlists right to the watch, just like I can with the Garmin. The difference here is that I don't have any option for podcasts. You can see there's an option for music playlist recently played, but there is just, unfortunately, no option for podcasts and I really wish.

That was something that they could get to the active two or really any of the Samsung watches, because this is like my fourth Samsung watch and unfortunate. This has never been an option. They work well with Spotify. The Spotify app works a lot better than when the original Samsung Galaxy watch came out, but again no podcasts available. So that's the three ways that the Garmin bioactive four beats the Samsung for me.

So now, let's talk about ways that the Samsung beats. The bioactive four. So first thing, of course, is just for me just the looks of the watch, so this one's made out of metal, this one's actually mostly made out of plastic, and so this one definitely for me when it comes to just kind of build quality. I think this one looks a little nicer. Also, of course, we have the AMOLED display, which looks a little more vivid, obviously than this trans reflective display in advance, of course, with the trans reflective displays that it's very visible in bright light, but, of course, this one's really quite visible as well, but it burns through a lot more battery.

So that's the know the give and take you get with this watch. The software for me is hands-down better, so you have your widgets over here inside you can customize these. However, you want over here with the notifications. The notification system on the Samsung is definitely way better. You can see over here on the go ahead and show you the Garmin notifications, because it's basically just like an individual thing, so apparently lots of different things going on.

Of course, things going on with our president that I can get any notifications for, but then you can see, I can go in here and I can see that there's a ginger runner, video, that's being I, think it's live right now. If we go over here, you can see my notifications. I probably have that same one in here somewhere. Maybe no, it doesn't look like I. Have that one I don't think I have YouTube notifications coming to this watch, but the nice thing here is that I can actually use a microphone to respond notifications.

Also, of course we have that built-in speaker, which is really cool. So in terms of notifications and just software in general. There's no question for me that the Samsung takes the wind there and, let's see, is there anything else to? But what other reasons does this one win charging it up? You can use wireless charging. I! Think that's about it, though, so the question becomes which one of these two do. I prefer.

Oh, I forgot to mention in terms of just Smartwatch features. There's no question: Samsung Galaxy watch active is the better of the two. So you can get a lot more apps that are available for this one. It's still a little limited in comparison to like the Apple Watch or even Android. Wear OS, watches, there's not as much in the Ti zen store or in the Samsung store for the Galaxy watch, but it still is definitely better than what you get on Garmin.

So there's a lot more apps available, probably a lot more useful, apps I would say as well on the active 2. But that being said, which one of these two watches do I prefer for my personal use and for me, it's the Garmin bioactive 4, because when it comes to like what features do I care about the most well number one is battery life, that's obviously going to be important and unfortunately, the Samsung Galaxy y AK 2 ?, pretty much like I said, has to charge at every other day. There really every day to be completely honest, and so that definitely takes 2l there when it comes to which one is the more reliable fitness tracker. Definitely, the Garmin is the more reliable for me. So that gives it the second reason and then the third reason, like I already mentioned before those Spotify podcasts so overall for me personally, if I had to choose between one of these two, why I definitely prefer the bioactive, for, let me know what you guys think, which one do you think might be right for you and what reasons did I miss about the Samsung and reasons why it beats the people active for.

Let me know down in the comments below and again quick shout-out to our sponsor play better dot-com or sending out the Garmin bioactive 4 for me to test out thanks for watching hope. This vid has been helpful for you, and I'll see you all next one.

Source : Donavon Hornbeck