We often find ourselves wanting more out of our traditional watches. Does your everyday wrist watch tend to get boring at some point in time? So what if it wasn’t just a traditional watch? What if your watch, was just as smart as your phone?
What makes a smartwatch stand out? What exactly is the need for a smartwatch? How does a smartwatch compare to a regular wristwatch?
Well, I’ve had the same questions. If you’re just a broke college going tech geek like me, a smartwatch is going to be a significant investment for you. No, I’m not talking about the 3-4k smartwatches that sell on Amazon. Don’t buy those, just don’t.
Nonetheless, a good smartwatch is a significant investment for anyone. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at a budget smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear sport, which comes in at around 15k on Amazon, vs a regular wristwatch, the Casio F200, which will approximately cost you a thousand bucks.
Now, I’ve been using the F200 for the last five years. The Galaxy Gear Sport? Well, I’m still saving up for it. But more often than not, a question pops up in my head, do I really need that smartwatch? I’ve compared the two time and time again and here’s my comparison.
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Galaxy Gear Sport vs Casio F200
Price
Let’s start with the basics. The Galaxy Gear sports retail for about 15,000 INR on Amazon.in. The Casio F200, on the other hand, is available for approximately 1,095 INR. If budget is your concern, you have your pick.
Build Quality
The Galaxy Gear Sport has an all aluminium build with the screen having Gorilla Glass protection. The watch has a good weight to it and feels premium to wear. The buttons have a satisfying click to them and the best part about the watch, the amazingly satisfying navigation ring. It also has a water-resist rating of 5ATM or 50 metres.
Battery life
Casio claims a ten-year battery life on the F-200. The watch has already lasted me five years without a battery replacement.
Gear Sport? Hardly one day if you use all the health sensors.
Good luck catching up to that.
Functionality
Well well. I’ll keep this one short.
The Gear Sport offers a heart rate sensor in conjunction with a bunch of other sensors that help you track various sports activities. You get app notifications, music control, basically your entire phone on your wrist. You can choose from among a bunch of watch faces and if that’s not enough, you can design your own.
The F-200, well it tells the time.
Just kidding, the F-200 has a bunch of useful features too. It has dual timekeeping mode. So you can have your current timezone as well as a secondary timezone running right along.
The watch shows the current date and time as well as the day along with the time. You get hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly alarms. It also doubles up as a stopwatch.
Conclusion
Should you get the Gear Sport? Well if you can afford it, yeah you should. The smartwatch has apparent advantages over the F200. The fitness tracking features of the Gear Sport make it absolutely worth the price.
However, if you only want a reliable rock solid timepiece, go for the F200. I wear the watch 24×7 (no joke), and it’s always up and running. The F200 is most definitely the most reliable gadget that I own.
For those old-schoolers looking for a sturdy regular watch with more features like lap timings, a compass, countdown timer, speed and more to assist your fitness routine, Casio’s G Shock collection is something you should check out. But beware, these come at a significantly higher price tag than the F200 — more towards the price range of the Gear Sport.
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