The Fitbit Ionic is now just £150
Cheaper than the Versa 2
There are many reasons to like Fitbit devices, not least of which is the excellent Fitbit app with its wonderful sense of friendly competition that spurs people on to better results. But – and it’s a big but – the company has only ever made two wearables with built-in GPS: the discontinued Surge and the expensive Ionic.
Well now, at Amazon, you can get the latter for half its original RRP. The Ionic launched at £299.99, but is now available for just £149.99 – assuming you’re happy with the slate blue and burnt orange colour scheme (I think it’s quite nice, personally.)
So, why would you care where the GPS sensor is located? The Versa, Charge 3 and even Inspire HR let you piggyback off the phone’s GPS, after all. Well, two main reasons. Firstly, your phone might have terrible GPS performance, or aggressive battery-saving settings that send the GPS to sleep at inopportune times. That means that your watch is basing its readings off faulty information, which isn’t a great start.
The second reason is that borrowing your phone’s GPS sensor means you need your handset to be nearby at all times. If you hate running with your phone, then this will let you leave it at home. And that’s even easier, as the Ionic supports contactless payments via Fitbit Pay for certain banks, while also letting you store over 300 songs locally. Nothing but you, your watch and the open road.
The Fitbit Versa may well be sleeker, but it can’t offer that. As Ed wrote in his review: “if Fitbit had priced this around the £200 mark, I’d be perfectly happy to recommend it, purely because it’s a great-looking fitness tracking smartwatch with battery life to die for.”
Now it’s £150, I think you can call that a whole-hearted recommendation.