Admin
The Fitbit Edge Gets a Bigger Screen, Loses Tap to Pay, and Costs $20 More
Based on reporting from The Verge
The screen is the right priority. The higher price is not, and I would not buy one until a proper review is out.
Google has announced the Fitbit Edge, the tracker that replaces the Charge 6. It costs $179.99, which is $20 more than the Charge 6, and it is on pre-order now with sales starting October 27. The price includes three months of Google Health Premium. It sits between the screenless Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 5, and it does not run Wear OS.
What you get: an OLED display 46% larger than the Charge 6’s, a physical side button, and a battery you can replace, rated at about a week per charge or two days with the always-on display. Five minutes on the charger gives roughly a day of use. Health tracking includes an EKG sensor for atrial fibrillation detection, skin temperature, SpO2 and heart rate, and it is rated IP68 and safe for swimming to 5ATM. Google also claims GPS that is 40% more accurate and better automatic workout detection. Those are Google’s numbers, not anyone’s measurements yet.
What you lose: the NFC chip. The Charge 6 could pay at a terminal from your wrist, and the Edge cannot. There is also no microphone or speaker, so you can see who is calling but you cannot answer from the band.
The missing microphone does not bother me. I have always used this kind of device to check notifications and messages, and obviously for health, not to reply. For that job a bigger screen is worth more than a microphone, so Google got the priority right there. If you do pay with your wrist today, losing NFC is a real step back, and you should weigh it before anything else.
What I do not like is the price going up. A new version that costs more and drops a feature the old one had needs to prove it is worth it, and a spec sheet does not do that. I would wait for a good review that has actually tested the battery and the GPS claims before spending $179.99 on it.
Read The Verge’s write-up, check whether you actually use tap to pay on your current tracker, and look for a full review before the October 27 launch.
